Ear‐to‐ground

Conllict between an engineer's honour towards his code of practice may be pitted directly against threats from his union for not complying with instructions if the Industrial Relations Act remains law as it stands. Certainly an amendment to the Act, made largely at the behest of the United Kingdom Association of Professional Engineers has succeeded in ameliorating the situation. However, the clauses concerning the agency shop, the approved closed shop agreements and the bargaining units and sole bargaining agents remain to be improved. An example of what can happen occurred at Kingston‐upon‐Hull when professional engineers who kept vital pumps going during a strike were expelled from NALGO and could have lost their jobs if Hull had operated the closed shop.