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.