accountable workers from other enterprises. There should be
severe disincetives for failure to carry out responsibilities, and
repeated failure should bring about demotion or dismissal, not
merely transfer to another institution. Divisions and sections of in-
stitutions should usually bear collective responsibility and be sub-
ject to collective incentives and disincentives, for only thus will
they generate internal pressures for reform.

Since this problem of casual workers has arisen in an industry
and a firm which is entirely Government-owned and whose
management does not represent a firm with separate and
inevitably conflicting interests, it must be recognised that the
problems of this firm must be dealt with in view of this crucial
difference. Discussions of the problems facing the industry must
be aimed at seeking realistic solutions to these problems. Solutions
which recognise the legitimate interests of the workers as well as
the national interest.

The issue is of great importance if workers’ participation is to
become more than a token gesture and if a progressive and
responsible trade union movement is to emerge. Identifying
management as the enemy out of habit will not contribute to such
developments, though lest this be misunderstood, two points must
be stressed. This does not mean that management is not to be
criticised. It should be clear that management must at all times be
involved in critical debate of its performance with all participants
in the industry. It should itself participate in that critical debate
and it should be given moral and material incentives to do so.
Secondly, this is only true where management does not have an
interest in ‘maximising profit' on behalf of some other private in-
terest. In such a situation, since ‘profit’ is the residual between cost
and revenue, there is a constant incentive for management to
minimise the relative costs of labour, and to manipulate the ac-
counts of the firm. In such cases the conflict of interest involved
does mean, in a very real sense, that the management is the enemy.

In seeking solutions to these problems a distinction must be
made between short-term and long-term solutions, and between
solutions which are necessary and those which are merely
desirable. The Government and the society must ultimately decide
what solution to this dilemma it desires. It may legitimately decide
that all casual workers should simply be employed on a regular
basis under essentially unchanged circumstances in the industry.

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