The negotiations between the Engineering Employers' Federa- tion and the
forty-seven unions, the than the Amalgamated Engineering Union, unfortunately broke down at the end of last week, and it looks as if the members of these unions will be locked out like the skilled engineers. The employers say that the unions withdrew their adinisaion of the employer's right to manage his works. The unions retort that the employers claim the sole right to decide what are the material changesin workshop management of which prior notice is to be given. It is -a bad sign when vague and abstract propositions of this kind are bandied about. The .parties might argue for ever about such phrases and meanwhile our great industries would he going to wrack and ruin. To the layman-it-would .seem to be immaterial whether a " material change " was made in workshop methods provided that the union's right to.diacuss it was -duly recogaized. To bring a workshop to a standstill in order to debate the pro- priety of a new practice is surely needless and foglish. There is far too much unemployment .already.
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