Reason in dispute

The way the bus owner's association sought to tackle their dispute with the Malta Transport Authority and the government calls for reflection on the whole concept of industrial action today, irrespective of the buses issue and its outcome.

Industrial action is a means of last resort. The negotiating sides fail to reach agreement through negotiation. A dispute is registered. One side then calls its members to take action. In the most common situation involving employers and organised labour, the union selects from a limited variety of actions. These include work to rule, which removes all flexibility and hinders normal production or supply, partial action, lightening strikes, strikes for definite periods, or an indefinite strike, being a total withdrawal of labour. The employers' main weapon is the lock out.

The reasoning is basic to all types of actions. One side interrupts the other's flow of output, income and - in the case of employers - profit too. The side at the receiving end of the action, apart from any principle involved, has to assess whether the cost to it of the action will turn out to be higher than reaching a compromise on the outstanding demands. In the context of the firm employing unionised labour in a competitive market, the dispute is a tug-of-war between the staying power of the two sides.

The firm's customers may be inconvenienced but they can take their custom to other suppliers. They cannot be used as leverage.

The position is completely different in the public sector where a monopolistic situation tends to exist. This is so in the case of civil administration, whereby the state supplies what are known as public goods, like security, maintenance of roads and caring for the environment. Government schools also supply a public good, since pupils cannot flock to private schools if their own are not open.

Similarly with government health services, despite the advance of private medicine. If there is an interruption in them it is not feasible, logistically and in terms of personal finance, for those who need urgent medical attention to transfer en masse to private hospitals or clinics.

Industrial action in the public sector, therefore, does not leave the issue between two sides alone. The brunt is borne by a third side - the general public and users of government services who cannot source such services from anywhere else.

Resort to industrial action in the public sector, then, is deliberately aimed at the public. That is not to say that public sector unions, for instance, want to hurt the public whenever they order industrial action. The objective is to heighten awareness of the issue and of the implications of industrial measures, thereby to cause the government to be more amenable and public opinion to exert pressure for a settlement. The interplay between the citizen, as simultaneously consumer of government services and taxpayer, tends to be not too evident in the balance of considerations and of public opinion.

The main consideration is generally the public perception of the reasonableness of the demands on the table, the reply to the demands and the industrial pressure resorted to when negotiations fail.

The bus owners' association may not have given sufficient thought to such perception when they targeted senior citizens as a means whereby to press their case.

The resulting outcry should heighten, and not fudge, the need to retain a sharp focus on industrial relations in the public sector. There is no question that the legal rights of unions and other organised bodies that deal with the public administration should not be infringed. If the balance of considerations regarding resort to industrial action is not gauged properly, the force of public opinion will not fail to come into play.

What matters most is the approach on the negotiating table. Bargaining will remain part of the process. But the bargainers should always have a clear set limit. It is pointless to get to a crisis point, resulting in industrial action to the detriment of the general public dependent on monopolistic public administration and then resume negotiations and reach agreement, perhaps through the intervention of some higher authority.

Once the set negotiating limit is reached, it should be clear that it is so. And the limit should not be moved. Negotiators are not judged by their members and the public by their toughness, demonstrated in readiness to order or resist industrial action. But by the reasonableness of the outcome. Reasonableness should not require the metaphorical sound of industrial gunfire and the reality of pain inflicted on the helpless public to emerge.