Britain: How Not to Tame a Wildcat

Some 300,000 British railroad workers last week went on slowdown. They not only refused all overtime work but zealously began conforming with all the rigmarole of the 240 regulations in the nationalized British Railways rule book. Guards elaborately checked rail-car doors and couplings, meticulously counted the contents of first-aid kits in locomotives. Engineers took 25-minute tea breaks, stopping many trains on the tracks between stations. Timetables all but vanished in the resulting confusion, and for several days about half the country's passenger trains were delayed or canceled.

Although the unions demand a 9% pay increase as against the railroads' offer...

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