Will Romania be spared a winter of discontent?

This week marks 15 years since British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was forced out of office by her own party, the Conservatives, and sent into premature retirement. It is of course a coincidence – though a thought provoking one – that this should also be the worst week of industrial disputes that Romania has witnessed for years.

Though Thatcher”s legacy of low taxes, low inflation, faith in the market, wealth creation, choice and freedom for all has made Britain the modern, dynamic nation it is today, it is often forgotten – or not discussed – why Mrs. Thatcher was elected British Prime Minister in the first place, and what kind of country she took over when elected in June 1979. Britain then had just emerged from its darkest period in history: the now notorious 1978-79 Winter of Discontent. For those readers lucky enough not to spend that winter in Britain, you will not perhaps know that it was a period when the country was crippled by a series of coordinated strikes, when power outages were a nightly occurrence, and a period when – at its worse – a plague of rats overtook central London as rubbish lay uncollected in the streets for weeks. At one stage even the country”s grave diggers went on strike, and the dead lay unburied, while Britain”s best known newspaper, The Times, went unprinted for almost two years, as its print workers went on a never ending strike. Strike action became known throughout the western world as ?”the British disease.”

The reasoning behind the wave of strikes of 1978-79 was twofold: the weakness of the government and the power of the trades unions.

The government of the day, led by the Labour Party, was a mess. It had a tiny majority in parliament, and was vulnerable to industrial action: the unions knew this and took full advantage. And as one union got its workers a pay rise, so everyone else came out demanding pay rises. The effect spiralled and before too long the whole country was on strike. This of course at a time before the mass privatizations of the 1980s, when much of the workforce was employed directly by the state, or in companies that were owned by the state.

Secondly, the British trades unions were by 1978 probably the most powerful in the world. Led by committed Marxists making use of massive donations from the Soviet Union, they acquired a power and ambition – often by violence and force – that went far beyond protecting the rights of their workers: for most British trades union leaders at the time, only deciding who ran the country was enough. Indeed, the union leaders often acted to the detriment of their members. What”s more, most union members were trapped by what was known as the ?”Closed Shop”: an evil mechanism whereby any employee of a company or industry had to be a member of the respective union. To opt out of membership usually meant violent retribution. Likewise, when union leaders decided on strike action, any member who did not want to strike would be persuaded to do so by violent threats against his or her family.

Yet ultimately the unions overplayed their hands. By the spring of 1979 the British people had had enough, and elected Thatcher with a mandate to cure Britain of its disease. She did so in two ways: firstly by enacting tough anti-union legislation, which ended the closed shop, and which made all unions hold ballots before taking strike action; and secondly by privatising much of British industry. Many privatised companies were then able to solve their union problems by simply refusing to hire unionised workers. The dénouement for Britain”s unions was the victory of the government in the 1984-85 miners” strike. Since then, union membership has plummeted, and Britain”s workforce is – as a direct result – one of the most productive and flexible in Europe.

Romania”s trades unions have a different story to tell. Though lip service was paid to them during the socialist years, workers” rights were never at the forefront of socialist thinking. After the regime changed in 1989, Romania”s new leaders (most of whom were old Marxists) sat down with a blank sheet and drew up some of the most absurd employment legislation in history. Anyone who has tried to dismiss a Romanian worker will know just how absurd.

Romania”s teachers have currently been on strike for three weeks. Bucharest”s metro workers – who have already taken action this autumn – are poised to strike again. Even the miners are threatening to descend on Bucharest once more to protest against lay offs in their industry. While all of these strikes are politically motivated, with the opposition PSD behind every one, the overthrow of the government does not appear to be the sole purpose of the strikes. Instead, especially in the case of the teachers, the aim appears to be a genuine desire for higher pay, pour encourager les autres. A chain reaction would then spark strikes in other areas, and the country would grind to a halt. The ruling coalition would then collapse, and the PSD would probably be asked to join a grand coalition. The PSD would wish to avoid early elections at this stage, as it is still unelectable.

Now, aside from the moral problem of teachers playing God with their pupils” education, Romania”s teachers are not as poorly paid as they would have us believe. Starting salaries are low, certainly, but after a few years service teachers earn considerably more than the national minimum wage. There are millions of workers in other fields who would give their right arms for a teacher”s salary (as well as the 12 weeks holiday and highly sociable hours that come with it). And that is probably why Romania will be spared a winter of discontent. For any strike to succeed it needs public support. And the Romanian public are not behind Romania”s teachers. The government appears unwilling to cave in – for which it must be commended – and prepared to sit out the strike for as long as necessary. Eventually, as teachers run out of money they will go back to work.

Yet that must not be the end of it. Romania”s government will do well to win this strike, but it must do more: it must carry out Thatcherite reform of its employment legislation.

* Craig Turp is the publisher of In Your Pocket, a series of independent city guides printed across Europe