When the Webbs’ wrote their History of Trade Unionism in 1894 they defined a Trade Union as “. . . a continuous association of wage-earners for the purpose of maintaining and improving their conditions of employment”.
A modern historian could be excused for amending that definition to read, “A continuous association of wage-earners for the purpose of seeking plausible arguments why they should refrain from making wage demands”.
We have been browsing through Trade Union Congress reports of the past 20 years to try to find a year when there was no debate on wage restraint. We had no success.
During the years immediately following the last World War we find the TUC urging support for the Attlee government’s policy of a 10 per cent increase in productivity with austerity in wage demands. A few years later, with the 10 per cent allegedly achieved, there come demands for greater increases in productivity coupled with wage restraint to reduce export prices and undersell competitors in foreign markets.
At the 1951 TUC the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Hugh Gaitskell, told the delegates that, although world prices were stable, they must avoid making substantial wage demands during 1952.
Yearly, after that, the same tune is played with a slight change in the lyrics. For “wage restraint” we read “pay pause”, “deferment of wage claims” or “restricting wage demands”. These are argued as necessary because of the dollar gap, the adverse trade balance, the Suez Crisis or whatever threat was prominent during a particular year.
When the Labour Party is out of office the tune at the TUC is in a different key. The bulldozing bass of Arthur Deakin, the Transport and General Workers’ Union’s arch priest of wage restraint, gives place to the applauded baritone of Mr. Campbell of the National Union of Railwaymen and Frank Cousins of the Transport Workers. In 1956 these two took the limelight by opposing wage restraint under a Tory government and advocating a return to policies of the previous Labour government.
So, year after year, we find one government or another demanding that wages be held in check in the interest of national economy and the trade unions agreeing with the need for the economy but differing with the measures to be taken.
No previous government has gone to the limits of the present Labour government in attempting to force a wage freeze on the workers. Pleas for restraint are now giving place to legal measures to pare wages down. During recent weeks many Unions have announced their intention to support the government’s policy and the 1966 TUC has endorsed that policy, “reluctantly”.
The opposition, with a few exceptions, did not condemn the sacrifice of workers’ wages at the altar of capitalist crisis. The objection was to the government’s proposal to legislate to enforce a wage standstill because the law could be used by a future Tory government. How quaint! Prison punishment must be more pleasant under a Labour regime. Perhaps the cells will be padded.
The need to stabilise the £ was accepted. A lovely phrase that, “stabilising the £”. We wonder how many workers know what it means. Mr. Carron does. He knows it means that there is a need to show foreign financiers that the interest on their loans to this country is safe, that the wage slaves are frugal, docile and hard working and if they should get a bit rebellious, Mr. Wilson’s government is going to govern.
Trade Unions do not oppose capitalism and at their TUC forum they have never done more than debate the weight and size of the shackles that bind the working class. To them there is no alternative to capitalism with its production for profit and competition for world markets. They see no class struggle, only a struggle between nations. They create a picture of a good old trade ship “Great Britain” worked by an amicable crew of workers and employers with the Labour Party at the helm, steering towards the horizon of prosperity. There may be injustices in the share-out of the ship’s rations but, when the waters are troubled or the winds adverse, the whole ship’s complement must pull together to keep it on its course. It’s a pretty picture, a lovely illusion, a mirage.
This is not a new trade union outlook. They have, at times, been rebellious but, fundamentally, their thinking has not changed since their birth. In its early days delegates submitted and read papers to the Trade Union Congress. A few illustrations taken at random will demonstrate the continuity of ideas and policies.
The secretary of the Bookbinder’s Society in 1860 wrote:
. . . that the true state of employer and employed is amity, and that they are the truest friends.
A paper to the 1887 TUC:
It is the boast of most Trade Union secretaries that they have prevented more strikes than they have originated.
J. Kane, secretary of the Amalgamated Ironworkers in 1869:
I am determined to give no encouragement to men who refuse to obey and to abide by the written laws of our association . . . encourage me to labour on in the cause of justice and truth.
Through the years TUC debates have centred around class collaboration, suppression of strikes and the disciplining of unruly members.
There is a story of an old trade union leader who used to poke his head round the employer’s office door and ask, “Owt?” When he received the reply, “Nowt”, he would turn to his members and say, “Out”.
The story is, of course, an exaggeration but it is indicative of an attitude in days before trade unions gained their much sought after recognition. Recognition once achieved the old style leader was doomed, ridiculed and elbowed out by men more skilled in the rhetoric of negotiation.
The new men sat round the negotiating table with the employers and argued, often skilfully, not on the basis of class interest but of “justice” and “fair play”. They made agreements on behalf of their members and, when signed, the agreements were deemed to be binding on the employers and the trade union members alike. If conditions changed and agreements became unsatisfactory causing workers to rebel, the union officials had the job of bringing the rebels to heel.
When labour power was plentiful and when all industry was in the hands of private enterprise the employers could restrain wage demands without recourse to government help. But with the state extending its control over industry and labour power finding a sellers’ market, governments find themselves forced to take a more interfering hand.
Within capitalism much of the argument advanced by trade unionists is sound. Some years ago a newspaper columnist illustrated this with a tale of a benevolent employer who paid his workers a high wage for short hours. When he went out into the market to sell his goods he found himself outpriced by his competitors. He returned to his workers and told them that either he must reduce production costs, including their wages, or he would go out of business. To keep their jobs they accepted lower wages and longer hours.
What this story omits to tell is that in every country of the world the same state exists. Workers everywhere are urged or forced to moderate their wage demands in the interest of their own nation’s economy and to keep their jobs.
That is why Socialists say that there is no solution to the workers’ problems within capitalism. While there is capital and labour they will be perpetually antagonistic. While wealth is produced for a competitive market the capitalists will strive to keep the workers’ portion at a minimum. While profit is the stimulant to production the workers will be a subject class. While there is a wages system wages will be under continuous pressure. While workers continue to elect governments to run capitalism they will be urged, cajoled, commanded and compelled to moderate their wage demands.
While trade union policy is hidebound by capitalist notions the unions will 'be feeble instruments—“for the purpose of maintaining and improving their conditions of employment”.
W. Waters
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