THE strike last week by workers in the public sector throughout Scotland, in the Borders and in Hawick, has caused some concern at all levels.

In Hawick, public services were cut out altogether or severely curtailed, admittedly, only for one day. The effect of a one day strike in the manufacturing industry can usually be reduced by working overtime on non-strike days.

This hardly applies to public services such as education, refuse collection, waste recycling, personal care and a variety of other public back up services. Simple happenings like the closure of public toilets, particularly in the Haugh, where tourists were being welcomed but without the facilities normally offered to the traveller. Hawick residents were also inconvenienced without the availability of – a convenience!

The fact that the dispute involves all of Scotland makes it all the more difficult for local Union officials and councillors to set their own agenda.

Householders in various parts of the town have been leaving full recycling bags on the street for more than a week in the hope that some person or other would remove them. The townsfolk, in so far as they understand the cause of the problem, are hoping that there will be no further action. The old trade union maxim was that a strike may be justified in defence of working conditions; an improvement in conditions was best achieved by negotiation, bargaining or by doing a deal that was of benefit to both sides. If negotiations fail, then start again! It is more that thirty years since Hawick was involved in a major dispute.

This was in 1972 in the knitwear industry and it led to a strike which lasted for five weeks. The union claim was for an increase in wages of £6 a week, a reduction in the working week to 35 hours and a fourth week's holiday. After the lengthy strike, they settled for a £3 a week increase in wages, an extra holiday of one day a year but no reduction in the working week. All this took place a generation ago and the people of the town will be hoping that the present dispute can be sorted out quickly and reasonably.