The lessons of Timex

concerned about the

damage that the wrong kind of management can do in the present

industrial climate. On Monday Mr Gavin Laird remarked that it would take

''something of a miracle'' to avert closure. Yesterday brought no

miracles. The decision to close the plant was apparently taken before

the start of the union-management talks and was defended by an American

executive on the grounds that the union side had offered only ''Band

Aid'' compromises.

Could it have ended differently? Were the makings of a compromise ever

there? Recently Timex offered its own idea of a compromise -- the

workers would get their jobs back in return for a substantial loss of

pay and benefits. It is hard to see how the company could have expected

acceptance of that deal. The union may be wrong in claiming that the

dispute was deliberately engineered by the company, but with goodwill a

solution could surely have been reached when the workforce showed that

it was willing to accept lay-offs provided they were rotated. Sacking

the workforce, after it had voted to go on strike, and then selec

tively re-hiring, was not the way to achieve compromise, and the offer

that had been rejected by the workers included a wage freeze as well as

reduced benefits. Timex, as a result of this episode, is deservedly

unpopular not just in Dundee but throughout the country; and although it

is in recession-hit Dundee that the pain will be felt, the lessons will

be pondered more widely.

Many of them have been mulled over during the months of the dispute.

There has been general dismay that disputes of the pre-1980s variety

should recur now, picket-line violence and all. The industrial

legislation of the Thatcher years has failed to eliminate strife, not

because it is ineffectual but because it has solved some problems only

to create others. At Timex a moderate union played by the book, although

others latched on to the dispute for their own reasons. It would be too

glib to say that the Thatcher legislation created the problem at Timex.

The right to fire striking workers, then re-hire selectively, antedated

these laws. In any case the unions have learned to turn some of the new

laws to their advantage, while many managements have used their new

powers with restraint. All the same the Dundee dispute has shown how

ineffective union rights can be in the face of harsh American-style

management styles such as Timex has been displaying in its latter years

in Dundee. A wholesale repeal of the industrial legislation would be no

answer -- nor would the Social Chapter provide an instant solution --

but, with unemployment and new work patterns also weakening the unions,

it is perhaps time to question whether the balance is right.