Another complicating factor in industrial relations is the slow disappearance, under the pressure of increased mechanization, of the system of wage differentials in British industry. These differentials represented a reasonable difference between the wages of skilled and unskilled workers. With their disappearance, skilled workers in one industry have found themselves earning less money than unskilled workers in another. One cause is the ability of the big "general" unions to win wage increases. Another is the practice of demanding wage increases solely on the basis of the rising cost of living. Naturally the disappearance of differentials has led to hot disputes among workers and unions. In this atmosphere it is difficult for either the union leaders or the employers to urge increased productivity and harder work. "Everyone is furious with everyone else," an industrialist in the Midlands said. "They start with me, but they are pretty mad at each other, too." In this interminable war between labor and management, the former wields a weapon of enormous potency--the strike. Labor acknowledges its disadvantages, but the right to strike is fiercely guarded. The whispered suggestion that strikes might be made illegal unites the labor movement as does nothing else. Labor needs the strike as its ultimate weapon: the hydrogen bomb of British industrial relations. And because of the peculiar economic conditions in Britain, the employer finds himself almost weaponless. He can still dismiss an unsatisfactory employee, if he has a good reason and can convince the employee's union that it _is_ a good reason. But dismissal does not mean much in an era of full employment. Right-wing critics on both sides of the Atlantic have contended for a decade that British economic difficulties are rooted in strikes and other industrial disturbances. There is something in this, but, as H.L. Mencken would have said, not much. From 1946 through 1954 the days lost through strikes in Britain ranged from a low of 1,389,000 in 1950 to a high of 2,457,000 in 1954. Due to strikes in the newspaper and railroad industries and on the docks, 1955 was an exceptionally bad year: 3,794,000 working days were lost. The figures look big, and of course it would have been much better for Britain if they were half as large. But let's put them into perspective. The figure for 1955, admittedly high, represents a loss of less than one day's work per man in every five years' employment. The loss to production through industrial accidents is eight times as high.