The most alarming example occurred at Cammell Laird's, a shipbuilding company, in 1955 and lasted until well into 1956. New ships were being built--for dollars--and the strike began over a difference between woodworkers and sheet-metal workers. The new vessels were to have aluminum facing in the insulation. Formerly the woodworkers had done this sort of work, and they claimed rights over the new job. But the sheet-metal workers said that, as aluminum was metal, the job was theirs. The two groups and management finally reached an agreement. Then the drillers of the Shipwrights' Union entered the affair and a new strike developed. The construction of the ships was delayed for six months and more. The ability of Cammell Laird's or other British shipyards to offer foreign buyers a firm date for completion of ships became a matter of doubt. About 400 workers were dismissed as redundant. About 200 strikers found work elsewhere. Thousands of other jobs were jeopardized. There was not the slightest indication that those who inspired the strike took much account of its effects on their country's future. As a result of the application of the demarcation principle in shipyards--you drill holes in wood, we drill holes in aluminum--wage costs are often as much as 6 per cent higher than normal. The innate conservatism of union leaders and the rank and file in shipyards, industrial plants, and factories has been proof against the missionary work of critics extolling the far different approach of American labor. The leaders are often unmoved by figures which show that increased productivity by the American labor force has resulted in a far greater national consumption. In many cases neither the union leader nor the union member will accept the idea that new machines and new methods mean more efficient production, lower costs, and higher wages. British union leaders often counter that the American worker has no memory of unemployment and depression. This is, of course, untrue. Indeed, in many instances political and economic it seems that British labor has made too much of its experiences, admittedly terrible, in the depression of two decades ago. American labor, by eagerly accepting new processes and machines, has attempted to insure itself against the recurrence of a depression. British labor has not. Industrial disputes affect the British economy's ability to meet the challenge of the new industrial revolution. Disputes between union and union are especially important. In 1955 there were three national strikes. All were complicated by interunion friction.