LABOR
BRITISH LABOR'S NEW START By Samantha Sparks LONDON--This May was Britain's hottest in 25 years. Farmers are worried: insects and drought are threatening crops. Pollution in the island nation's waterways has reached unprecedented levels, killing hundreds of thousands of fish and forcing periodic shut- downs of town water systems. Amidst a furious media debate over the declaration by the Conservative social minister that poverty in Britain has all but disappeared, monthly inflation reached its highest level in seven years. And in the most dramatic of several burgeoning strikes, London's public transportation system suffered the most crippling shut-down by workers in the last 60 years. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher cannot control the weather, but people seem to be holding her responsible for just about all of Britain's other problems. With worker protests threatened or underway by groups from doctors to dockers, the country is bracing for a summer of unrest not seen since the outbreak of strikes in the 1979 "Winter of Discontent" that ushered in Thatcher's rule. This time as last, demands for higher wages are at the heart of most of the labor disputes. The pay pinch is due to worsening macro-economic conditions: Britain, like other western industrial nations, appears stuck in a period of slower growth and higher inflation. Government figures released in late May showed that most pay increases fell short of the official level of an 8.3 percent price increase needed to maintain living standards. Initial pay offers for train, bus and underground drivers, university teachers and British Broadcasting Corporation journalists, among others, were 7 percent or less. For some workers, however, there are broader concerns. The insufficient pay raises are only part of what they perceive to be management attempts to restructure working conditions fundamentally and adversely without offering adequate compensation through higher wages or better hours. This complaint is central to the London Underground workers' strike. The Underground system is undergoing major changes including a station automation program. "Automation should go hand-in-hand with improved working conditions, like reduced working hours. There should be a spin-off to the worker, as well as to the customer. Right now there is no spin-off at all," says Laurie Harris, a spokesperson for the National Union of Railwaymen which represents most of London's Underground train drivers. For most of its 135 year history, says Harris, the system was "a transportation service. Now managers are being told to operate as a business, which means cost-cutting." Like the automation program, the introduction of One Person Operated trains has reduced personnel and the unions contend that it has reduced safety too. According to Derek Follick, the newly elected General Secretary of the Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen, only a few years ago such changes "would have lead to wholesale strikes." Indeed, the fire at King's Cross station in 1987 which killed 31 people showed the potential for disaster in running an old and dilapidated system, at its greatest usage ever, on a cost-cutting budget. If the discontent this year is more diffuse than a decade ago, it may nevertheless prove more systemic. The feeling is growing, and not just among the union members, that after 10 years of Thatcher's radical reforms, it is time to pause and consider whether the social costs are beginning to outstrip the gains. Follick believes that workers have realized that Thatcher was not working in their interest. He says that the prime minister is facing very determined opposition from labor. "Margaret Thatcher's chickens are coming home to roost. She said she wanted to take the power away from the wicked trade union leaders and give it to the members. Well, the members are showing her exactly what they do with that power." (balance of this article omitted here; unscannable)