Basic minimum wages and wage scales.

General staff orders and their reference to TANESCO.

Staff quarters.

Local leave transport.

Provident Fund

Transport allowance for the dead employees.

A discussion on the need of showing the Balance Sheet to

all the workers.

9. Local staff overseas leave privileges.

10. Need for TANESCO to construct houses for its offices in-
stead of renting buildings.

12. Long service award for workers.

13. The proposal for starting the cooperative shop.

14. Adult education and refresher courses.

15. Need to avoid tools shortage.

This agenda shows one big difference from those of Friendship
Textile Mill. The agenda of Friendship Textile Mill consisted of all
major and vital aspects of management. Hence they included per-
sonnel, social, economic and technical issues. This contrasted with
the case of TANESCO which largely excluded technical matters in
spite of the fact that both workers and the management par-
ticipated in suggesting the agenda. The omission of technical
issues which form a major part of decision-making in TANESCO
was due to the fact that the workers felt that technical matters
were beyond their understanding. Secondly, they felt that what
they needed right, then was a discussion on social welfare and
personnel matters because these issues were more relevant to
them. The management could have included those technical mat-
ters in the agenda but did not do so because they thought that it
would not serve any useful purpose for the workers to whom such
issues were too complicated. ‘How do you expect an ordinary
worker to understand scientific things like “Kilowatt” or problems
of electricity generation or transmission? '® Another fear most of
the management expressed was that they still felt that they had to
retain powers of making decisions in policy matters since they
were the ones who would in the long run be accountable to the
public. ‘Since we, and not the Workers’ Council, are the ones who
are accountable to the public, we must in the final analysis have
more powers. The Workers’ Council is only advisory’.'” This fear
seemed to loom large in different groups of the management.

249