Union Fever

And Callaghan has no cure

Once again an epidemic of strikes by rapacious unions enfeebled Britain. A two-week-old walkout by 75,000 truck drivers severely impeded shipments of food, medicine, raw materials and other essential commodities, forcing layoffs of as many as 150,000 workers from idle factories and producing shortages of such staples as sugar, salt, flour and butter. Massive traffic jams clogged the highways as commuters switched to cars in the face of walkouts by locomotive engineers. Worse was to come, as 1.5 million public service workers threatened a 24-hour walkout this week.

This latest outbreak of the "British disease" posed the most serious threat yet to Prime Minister James Callaghan's shaky Labor government. Callaghan had set an anti-inflationary guideline of 5% for wage settlements, but the strikers were demanding increases ranging from 20% to 41%. The Prime Minister considered calling a state of emergency, thus empowering the armed forces to transport vital supplies of food and fuel. He rejected that course for fear of provoking the unions into even more drastic measures. Challenged by a Tory backbencher to bring the unions under control, Callaghan could only ask plaintively, "What action can I take?"

The Conservatives, led by shadow Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, have been quick to capitalize on Callaghan's plight. In a brilliant parliamentary performance, Thatcher seemed to be speaking for the British people when she recited the lengthening litany of stoppages, layoffs, shortages and closings. "If that isn't mounting chaos," she cried, "it is difficult to see what is!"

Thatcher was reflecting growing resentment in the British electorate that has at times flared into violence. Picketing truck drivers were assaulted at a chocolate factory in Birmingham last week by a phalanx of umbrella-wielding female workers. At an oil depot in Aberdeen, a striker was accidentally run over and killed when a truck driver refused to halt for pickets.

Anticipating further stoppages, the Prime Minister last week devised a formula that would grant the lower paid manual workers an increase of about 8.5%, even though the raise exceeded his guideline. But it seemed doubtful that the workers would accept the offer. Unless there was an unexpected cooling of Britain's latest bout of union fever, Callaghan's government could be doomed to the same fate that befell the Conservative government of Edward Heath in 1974. Because Heath was unable to settle a strike by the militant mineworkers' union, his party lost its majority in a general election, and he was ultimately forced to resign.

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