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CIRCULAR 452. MINISTRY OF HEALTH, Whitehall, S.W.1. 8th November, 1923. SIR, I am directed by the Minister of Health to forward for the information of the Local Authority the enclosed copy of the Public Health (Dried Milk) Regulations, 1923, prescribing the labelling and composition of dried milk. The Regulations will come into operation on the 1st May, 1924.

Introduction Consider a hi‐fi loudspeaker manufacturing company acquired on the brink of insolvency by an American multinational. The new owners discover with growing concern that the product range is obsolete, that manufacturing facilities are totally inadequate and that there is a complete absence of any real management substance or structure. They decide on the need to relocate urgently so as to provide continuity of supply at the very high — a market about to shrink at a rate unprecedented in its history.

Both the challenges afforded by membership of the Common Market, and the fact that British industrial relations have for several years now been something of a problem area, make it useful to see what can be learned from industrial relations experience in comparable countries in Western Europe. Clearly a short article cannot hope to describe and analyse the complex systems involved but it can serve to point to some of the more significant trends that are to be observed and to hint at the forces underlying them. First it is useful to differentiate between the broad characteristics of the British and continental systems.

Employee participation or industrial democracy represents an area of knowledge and practice which has resulted from the attempts of behavioural scientists, employers, unions and governments, to solve some of the people‐based problems at work — labour turnover, absence from work, resistance to change, strikes, and low productivity. In recent years psychologists and others working within personnel departments, consulting firms and academic institutions have been pushing career planning and development as an additional remedy for some of these problems.

Many writers have suggested that the concept of joint consultation is outdated in Britain, no longer appropriate in the light of other changes in industrial relations practice. McCarthy, for example, has argued that joint consultation machinery at plant level has been upstaged by the growth of shop steward organisation and workplace bargaining. Further, Clegg has criticised joint consultation committees (JCC's) for contributing little to workplace industrial democracy; more recently, King and Van de Vall have echoed this sentiment, arguing that JCC's in Britain became ineffective due to a lack of decision‐making powers and a remit covering too limited a span of issues. Evidence of the widespread nature of this criticism is indicated by the decline in numbers of JCC's during the nineteen fifties and sixties. In a large‐scale survey published in 1952 by the National Institute of Industrial Psychology, consultation committees between management and employee and/or union representatives were found to be operating in 73 per cent of firms. In a similar survey carried out in the late 1960s, however, Clarke and his colleagues found this figure to have fallen to 32 per cent.

As any organisation chart illustrates, two essential features of organisations are formal authority and division of labour. “Formal authority” specifies those individuals and positions which have institutionalised power over others, while “division of labour” specifies those individuals and positions who are responsible for certain tasks in an organisation. In these respects organisations are a reflection of their environmental contexts of which class is a major feature (Clegg and Dunkerley, 1980). Broadly speaking what emerges in organisations are two classes of participants. One such class is represented by those who own the means of production (or capital) while the other such class is represented by those who own labour. This difference in capital ownership leads to disparities in the rights, powers and privileges—prerogatives—of the two classes (Clegg and Dunkerley, 1980). In practice, however, the capitalists are represented in organisations by “the management” who act as their agents. Thus the active participants in organisations become “management” and “labour” (Strauss and Rosenstein, 1970). Management with its power base grounded in its role as the owner's agent becomes the “elite” in the organisation.

This paper focuses attention upon the current public policy debate on employee participation in managerial decision‐making before the publication of the Bullock Report and, in particular, the apparent resurgence of popularity for the concept of joint consultation. In view of joint consultation's relatively unsuccessful history it may be that the implications of this development have been largely unrecognized. Current attitudes towards participation as exemplified in certain of the more important policy statements of management, unions and political parties are analysed in terms of the role allotted to joint consultation within them. Similarly, European experience with joint consultation is considered for its relevance for developments in Britain. The paper closes with discussion of the future role joint consultation could play as a vehicle in the development of employee participation and the key issues involved.

This study aims to improve the corrosion resistance of TA2-welded joints by superhydrophobic surface modification using micro-arc oxidation technology and low surface energy substance modification.

The microstructure and chemical state of the superhydrophobic film layer were analyzed using scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, three-dimensional morphology, X-ray diffraction, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and Fourier transform infrared absorption spectroscopy. The influence of the superhydrophobic film layer on the corrosion resistance of TA2-welded joints was investigated using classical electrochemical testing methods.

The characterization results showed that the super hydrophobic TiO₂ ceramic membrane was successfully constructed on the surface of the TA2-welded joint, and the construction of the super hydrophobic film greatly improved the corrosion resistance of the TA2-welded joint.

The superhydrophobic TiO₂ ceramic membrane has excellent corrosion resistance. The micro nanostructure in the superhydrophobic film can intercept air to form an air layer to prevent the corrosion medium from contacting the surface, thus, improving the corrosion resistance of the sample.

Except for a few notable exceptions, such as Zupanov and Tannenbaum, Arzensek, Ramsay and Bertsch and Obradovic, most studies on workers' participation appear to ignore the fundamental point that workers have a greater preference to participate in some areas of the decision‐making process than others. The workers' propensity to participate depends upon the ability and interest of workers. Arzensek's study indicated that a higher percentage of workers are interested in participating in personnel and social decisions than in economic decisions (Shuchman's terminology). Hespe et al, in a pilot study of steel workers in Sheffield, found similar results. This supports the concept that workers are more interested in participating in decisions which immediately affect them, rather than decisions which affect other parties, and may relate to long term matters. However, Dyson says that “people are not really much more interested (than their parents) in being consulted: but they would prefer to be told rather than ignored”.