Answers to Correspondents: Trade Union Action and Political Action (1938)

Letter to the Editors from the November 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

Trade Union Action and Political Action

A correspondent (R. J., Spalding) asks the following question: —

When the Trade Unions approach employers with demands for, say, increased pay, longer holidays, shorter hours, improved pension arrangements, you support their efforts. When, to supplement that approach, they take parliamentary action, either by trying to influence M.P.s of all parties, or through their representatives (invariably in the Labour Party) I gather that it is your policy to oppose them.

Please define the point at which your support for working-class efforts at improved conditions under capitalism ceases, and say how I, as a Trade Union secretary, can justify this attitude to my own members if I accept your point of view.

The Railway Clerks’ Association has done quite a lot for its members at one time or another by parliamentary means. For instance, only during February this year action was taken through Labour members . . . . .  who, by threatening to block the L.N E. Railway’s General Powers Bill, to draw attention to the lack of a proper Superannuation Fund on the L.N.E., were successful in forcing the Company to begin negotiations, that have every appearance of being satisfactory. Again, through action in Parliament, a schedule was included in the Railway Grouping Bill, which had the effect of preventing wholesale dismissals. This action was definitely of benefit to the workers, including myself, concerned.

Reply.

In order to clear the way for our reply it is necessary to correct one statement in our correspondent’s question. He says that when trade unions support the candidature of Members of Parliament they are “invariably in the Labour Party.” Though generally true of Great Britain, it is not invariably so. The National Union of Teachers, for example, has candidates in the other parties also. Going outside this country we see the American unions openly bargaining to support candidates, irrespective of their party.

The next point to notice is, that until Socialists become a majority of the electorates, a man can only become a Member of Parliament by standing for capitalism; while promising at the same time to press for certain reforms. If, therefore, a miners’ union or railwaymen’s union finances a successful Parliamentary candidature, it means helping to delude the workers into the belief that it is in their interest to reform capitalism instead of abolishing it. Similarly, what our correspondent calls “trying to influence M.P.s of all parties” means, in fact, striking a bargain with them. M.P.s want votes, and that is the only kind of “influence” they are interested in. The union, therefore, goes to the M.P. and offers—even if it is not put so bluntly as this, both parties know what is meant—to provide votes in the constituency in exchange for support in the House of Commons. In America the bargaining is quite openly admitted and defended by the unions.

What is the attitude of the Socialist to these practices? What attitude can it be except opposition? The Socialist holds, and preaches to the workers, that capitalism must be abolished, not reformed, and that the abolition can only be achieved by the conscious action of the workers organised together on a Socialist basis. How could a Socialist at one and the same time teach these elementary Socialist truths and make nonsense of them by helping to return to Parliament men whose mandate is to retain capitalism and reform it? ;

There are other aspects also to be considered, The achievement of Socialism requires that the workers should organise together on the basis of recognising that they have a common class interest against the capitalists. On no account can Socialists foster sectional rivalries among the workers. But when the Railwaymen try to get the support of M.P.s of all parties in the House of Commons, it frequently means, in fact, helping the Railway Companies to resist the encroachment of the road transport industry, and hoping, in return, to get some concessions from the M.P.s who represent Railway Company interests. Thus it divides the working class instead of uniting them. In the long run the class interest of the workers is more important, even to the sections which hope to gain small concessions by taking action on their own.

Also it should be remembered that when the capitalists feel that something vital to them as a class is at stake, all the Parliamentary lobbying and Labour candidatures count for nothing at all. A case in point was the 1927 Trade Union Act. The Baldwin Government wanted the Act and got it without paying the slightest attention to the opposition demands. In other words, if the united trade union movement cannot get something out of the employing class it is an illusion to think that political "influence” in the House of Commons will make any difference.

Lastly, it should not be forgotten that the final aim of the Labour Party is to get into office. When it does, that is when it takes on the administration of capitalism, the trade unions find themselves face to face with a Government of the people it had been supporting, only to discover, as did the miners in 1924, that the Labour Government tells them not to make “embarrassing” demands. Or it finds, as did the railwaymen, that the Labour Government is prepared to use Emergency Powers against strikers.

Workers should not forget, too, that after giving their support to the Labour Party in order to get petty concessions they found that Party in 1914 urging them into the trenches in capitalism’s war.

The outcome of it all is that many workers in their disappointment jump to the conclusion that a Labour Government is even worse than a Tory Government, and this enables Tories or Fascists, or some other supporters of capitalism, to gain adherents.

The time to avoid these evils is right at the start, and the way is to stick to Socialist political action, even if it appears to involve occasionally some loss of a minor advantage to some section of the workers.

Ed. Comm.