Word: featherers
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...clash until this spring, when Wilson vowed to end a damaging rash of wildcat strikes by imposing stiff fines on offending workers and unions. In June, Wilson was forced to back down under fierce opposition both within his party and among the unions. The showdown came when Victor Feather, the T.U.C.'s earthy new chief (see box), warned that labor might just let Labor go it alone at the polls next time. Wilson is expected to call an election in the fall of 1970, or in any case before the April 1971 deadline...
...exchange for Wilson's agreement to drop the proposed penalties, Feather gave his "solemn pledge" that the unions would do something themselves about the stoppages. Such strikes account for 95% of all work stoppages in Britain, and last year cost the country 4,500,000 man-days. Whether Feather will be able to redeem his pledge is uncertain. In August, 1,300 blast-furnacemen at a steel plant in Port Talbot, Wales, ignored his efforts to end a three-week walkout that hammered steel output to a 17-month...
Nation of Stewards. Feather's problem is that, as far as labor goes, Britain has always been a nation of shop stewards. The rank and file flout their national leaders, who generally pay little attention to "the blue-collar blokes." Moreover, the T.U.C. is a loose conglomeration of strong individual unions. Since June, Feather has been jawboning his union chiefs on the virtues of labor discipline on the shop floor. His main argument: if the T.U.C.'s voluntary approach fails, Labor will be defeated at the polls, leaving the unions at the not-so-tender mercies...
...Feather is also moving to trim the power of the miners, steelworkers and other old-industry unions. He wants to cut strikes and industrial unrest by 40% over the next year, but the government, businessmen and the public appear doubtful that he can succeed. If Feather fails, Wilson could be hurt. The latest Gallup polls show that only 25% of the electorate think that the Labor Party can halt the stoppages; 31% think that the Conservatives would do a better...
...Britain's top labor leader, Vic Feather must try to hold sway over 155 fiercely independent unions that often prefer to behave, as one union boss put it, like "baronies in a kingless kingdom." At Portsmouth, where Feather was elected to a four-year term as head of the Trades Union Congress last month, the barons were flexing their muscles. "The problem is not that we have too many strikes," cried one official, "but that we don't have enough...