While strikes hit the headlines, it is perhaps not generally realized that the major
cause of working days lost to industry is sickness. The difference between these two
factors which result in lost production is, of course, the strikes are much more
spectacular; and except in cases of massive outbreaks of disease of epidemic proportion,
the effects of sickness are not felt so dramatically, yet are much more widespread.
Safety legislation and the Factory Inspectorate have combined to keep down the
numbers of industrial accidents which may kill or maim helpless workers, yet it is the
apparently innocuous complaints such as the common cold which cause so many
absences from work. In addition, psychosomatic ailments such as “backache” also
contribute to lost production: there is no need for an unhappy worker to strike, he can
just take sick leave. Both strikes and sickness are ultimately protests—a contented
worker is a healthy worker. Yet all too often industrial relations officers and doctors are
concerned with symptoms rather than with tackling the root causes of the problem.