ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with the ways in which an enlightened firm can ease its redundancy difficulties. In many ways, wage disputes in industry are the opposite in character of those conflicts that are due to a breakdown in communication and understanding. Fear of redundancy is not a serious cause of strikes, since, when a firm wishes to dismiss labour, workers are in a weak bargaining position. The role played by fear of redundancy in hindering Britain's industrial progress is frequently underrated. The use of the manpower planning techniques outlined above should make it possible to minimise the number of men who have to be laid off. The manpower policy of firms is only one factor in the complex relationship between supply of and demand for labour in the economy as a whole. As a two-way channel of communication between a central manpower planning unit and individual firms, industrial training boards would be well placed to help with this function.
