Headed Toward a Showdown

Britain. January 1972. Prime Minister Edward Heath declares that he will not give in to a 25% wage hike demanded by British coal miners because it is far beyond his 8% national wage guidelines. The miners strike for seven weeks, causing power blackouts, layoffs of tens of thousands of other workers and widespread industrial chaos. Finally, Heath appoints a special commission to arbitrate the miners' demands. The commission recommends a 21% wage increase. Both sides accept. The crisis is settled.

That scenario, at least in its essentials, now appears destined to be repeated in Britain, although the denouement this time may be even more traumatic. The current dispute began last November when the country's 247,000 coal miners refused to work overtime until they received substantial wage increases. Then Heath declared a state of emergency, cut power to industry and businesses by 25%, and put the country on a three-day work week to conserve fuel. Last week the miners lashed back by calling for a vote to strike.

For a time it looked as if the dispute would be settled amicably. That hope rested in a compromise proposed by the powerful Trades Union Congress, which represents 10 million British workers. If the government would relax its Stage III anti-inflation guidelines for the miners, said the T.U.C., other unions would refrain from using it as a precedent for demanding raises above the 10% guideline limit. But after a perfunctory meeting with the T.U.C. last week. Heath flatly rejected the compromise.

Three days later, angered mine leaders ordered the strike vote. It was a move that moderates like National Union of Mineworkers President Joe Gormley had hoped to avoid. If, as expected, the necessary 55% of miners approve a strike, a walkout could come as early as Feb. 10. Said Arthur Scargill, 36, the Yorkshire Mineworkers leader: "I think the fight will go on and become one of the most bitter, bloody battles in the history of the trade union movement." The problem was that there remained serious doubts whether Heath had done everything possible to avoid the showdown. TIME has learned, for example, that the miners are still ready to settle for an amount halfway between the wage increase they are seeking (which the government says is 30%) and the government's offer of a 16% increase.

The hardening of positions followed a week of vacillation by Heath's government. First the Energy Department raised the specter of sewage flowing in the streets as a result of power shortages (sewage pumps are electrically powered), then it announced that fuel supplies were ample enough to go back to a four-or five-day week. That possibility has now been withdrawn in the face of a strike. Then Heath was undecided whether or not to call for an immediate election. That, too, has been abandoned at least for the time being, probably because the Tories fear that they might lose. Other gloomy developments for the Tories:

* Britain suffered another record trade deficit for December, bringing the 1973 trade loss to more than $5.2 billion--the largest in British history.

* Higher prices for imported oil will add about $4.5 billion to 1974's trade deficit.

* Unemployment rose to 2.3 million this month, including more than 600,000 without any jobs; the rest were on the dole because their work week had been cut back.

On a visit to the Midlands, the industrial region hardest hit by the two-day layoffs, TIME Correspondent William McWhirter last week found Britons managing remarkably well despite the current economic dislocations. "If there is any pride around the Midlands," cabled McWhirter, "it is that they have managed to cope with half-time employment better than anyone else could have. This is our specialty, mate,' said Jack Hebbs, a Midlands shop steward. 'Patch and improvise. The Germans would go running for their rule books, and the French would be out marching with the red flags. We know the routine.' Yet there is growing pessimism that the future may not come around after all. As Richard Mills, 25, a Birmingham plant inspector, put it, 'When this crisis passes, we'll have a boom, and then there'll be strikes and overtime bans. Then another crisis reaction. It's getting to be part of the British way of life.' "

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