The unions are quick and brutal in their punishment of those who break their rules. Indeed, today, when there is full employment and the unions generally enjoy a prosperity and power undreamed of by their founders, they are more malicious than in the old days when they were fighting for their rights. The principal weapon against an offending worker is to "send him to Coventry." No one speaks to him; he eats and walks home alone. Ronald Hewitt, a crane-driver, endured this for a year. He had remained at work, obeying his union's rules, when his fellow workers, who belonged to another union, went out on strike. Hewitt was a person of unusual mental toughness. Another worker sent to Coventry committed suicide. Many of these punishments are the outcome of situations in which unofficial strikes send out the workers. Those who remain and who are punished are accused of being "scabs" because they obey the union's rules. All union leaders publicly acknowledge the great importance of increased productivity in British industry. But the methods of boosting productivity often seem to some union leaders to strike at the principles for which they have fought so long. For instance, an increase in output is regarded by the veterans solely as a traditional means of increasing the profits of the employers. Moreover, increases in productivity often involve the introduction of new machines and layoffs for some workers. To the short-sighted, appeals for greater productivity thus seem calls to smash the job security that is the fetish of the industrial working class. This sort of union leader just does not seem to grasp, or to want to grasp, the principle that increased productivity is a general good benefiting workers, employers, and unions. Efficiency is not the sole god of British industry, as is evident when one studies the weird system known as "demarcation" in the shipbuilding industry. To install a port light under this system requires the labor of a shipwright to mark the position of the light, a caulker to indicate and make the hole for the light, another driller to make the surrounding holes, and another caulker to fix the bolts and chain. In addition, a foreman for each of the trades supervises the operation. Interunion disputes arising out of such unnecessarily complicated operations frequently result in a stoppage of work and a delay in the filling of export contracts.