A Stinking Strike

Only three years ago, Britain's rivers were rated among the cleanest in Europe. Last week many were full of dead fish, industrial wastes and human excrement. The nation's 80,000 sewage-plant workers, whose wages average $33.60 a week, had gone on strike for a 20% raise. In their absence, management crews bravely tried to run 5,000 municipal treatment plants, which normally cleanse 3 billion gallons of raw sewage a day. In some places, management failed; one official described the stench as "appalling."

In Bristol, a daily torrent of 50 million gallons of wastes poisoned the once sweet Avon River. At Blackpool, raw sewage spewed directly into the Irish Sea. Eleven acres of low-lying country by the Ray River were flooded with Swindon's flushings, which then seeped perilously close to Oxford's water supply. In London, most of the city's daily output of 570 million gallons was kept under control, but two tributaries of the Thames flowed with filth.

Grabbing Rats. "The strike," said Alan Fisher, general secretary of the National Union of Public Employees, "is to demonstrate the value of the workers and the services they provide." It did just that. Britons were suddenly aware of the man-made torrents that roar ceaselessly under city pavements. "If the pumps stop for only half an hour," warned a London official, "the sewage will start coming up. London could be swamped. People could be drowned." A sewage worker gave another perspective: "My job is to stand by a screen wearing gloves, picking off by hand anything that comes along and clogs it. You have to grab rats, contraceptives, everything."

At week's end, although some cities were ready to come to terms, the union refused to make piecemeal settlements. Meantime, public health officials worried about a possible outbreak of cholera. But the highest cost of the strike was being borne by nature. Britain's lovely rivers may take as long as ten years to recover from the polluting flood of raw sewage.

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