So They Say: Ungrateful Lot (1976)

The So They Say Column from the August 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

Ungrateful Lot

Much play has been made recently by both Labour and Conservative! groups on their various schemes to allow Council tenants to purchase the properties they occupy. The Southwark Community Development Project and the Joint Docklands Action Group of Newington decided to conduct a survey to discover the appeal of such schemes to those concerned, and came up with the conclusion that “few are interested in buying a typical council flat.” The report in The Times of 29th June seemed to have regarded the findings as something of a foregone conclusion. It argued:

While new houses with gardens on suburban estates or in new towns, for example, would attract ready buyers flats in inner city tower blocks would have little or no appeal.

While surveys like this never cease to amaze us, it shows just, how unreasonable workers can be. Who else but the members of the working class would express disapproval at the prospect of spending their lives, and paying for the privilege at that, packed together well above ground level in noisy and uncomfortable cells of concrete (often, as in the case of Ronan Point, with no visible means of support, or lifts—even if installed), albeit with magnificent views over the previously erected low-rise slums? Come to that, who else but the workers would be offered such a glorious opportunity to join "the property owning democracy”?

O Brother!

"We should not destroy or split or seek to destroy in any way the Labour Government” said Mr. Benn on the 4th July, and no doubt the Labour government gave three cheers for Benn and said "Amen”. He was speaking at the Institute for Workers’ Control in Keele University, in his capacity as Labour’s Energy Secretary, when he also revealed to his audience the information that capitalism was in "irreversible decline.” We do not know if he was standing on his head at the time.

Now we who advocate the abolition of the capitalist system were naturally agog with excitement at a “leak” of this magnitude. Was there to be a surprise announcement from the government? We scanned the newspapers. Yes, there was an announcement from Healey. No, it was not a surprise—except perhaps for his fellow minister Benn.

Britain would be one of the few countries which could look forward to a rapid recovery over the next 18

months . . .

The Times, 7th July 1976

Followed presumably by three more cheers and back-slapping. Considering that both these men are “united” in a political party which expresses the view that a system of exploitation is the only one to which workers are entitled, and capable apparently of both declining and recovering at the same time, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that were they to pool their respective talents and issue a joint statement, it would prove twice as ignorant as either of their individual efforts.

Sir Willie?

The fanaticism with which William Hamilton attacks the Royal Family appeared to have abated somewhat when he voiced “concern” over a motion from other Labour MPs—themselves expressing “surprise” over the Queen’s purchase of Gatcombe Park for her well- breeched offspring Princess Anne. The price was reported in the Daily Telegraph of 12th June as £500,000. No, No, said the microscopically-minded Hamilton, the Monarch should spend her money as she saw fit. What was wrong was that “the Royal wealth which makes such expenditure possible has been due to the failure of successive governments to tax that wealth in the same way as that of all other citizens.”

Can it be that he is angling for something? Considering his immense publicity services to the Crown, he must surely be deserving of some appropriate medal or title. This would be no more than he deserves. We note incidentally that in the Register of MPs’ Interests, he gives one source of income under the appropriate heading of “royalties”—a reference to the money from his literary masterpiece on the Royal Family. While he, and others, spend so much of their time and effort in expressing a petty outrage at the size of the molehills, they have missed the mountains—capitalism rumbles on. But then Labour MPs could hardly be expected to think about anything as fundamental as that.

What could be fairer ?

It is usually the practice, after being led up the garden path by one man, to find at the end of it another who then exhibits a bag from which he releases a cat. Although capable of fulfilling both rôles, Eric Varley, Secretary of State for Industry, has been releasing the cat.

The dictionary definition of a scientist is given as: “A person learned in one or more of the natural sciences” and science as: “Systematic and formulated knowledge.” Now Mr. Varley has not so much altered the definition, but put it into perspective! within the context of capitalism—where, like all other members of the working class, scientists must live by selling their mental and physical energy to the ruling class. He was bemoaning the fact that “to be a technologist or a manager in industry is considered to be a pretty lousy job” and from this erudite premise, drew the conclusion that potential but reluctant scientists just did not know what they were missing:

Qualified scientists and engineers, although numerically a small category, have a particularly significant role. They have the innovative capacity to generate and translate the technology into competitive and saleable products and the responsibility for managing the production processes.

Daily Telegraph, 7th July 76

A significant role therefore, not in an abstract sense of the pursuit of Knowledge, but in the real economic field where the owning class is in pursuit of something else, the accumulation of capital.

Class Distinction

“More than 1000 London dockers, who are being paid £57 a week for doing nothing, at a cost to the Port of London of between £6 million and £7 million a year, are ‘moonlighting’ to double their earnings”, reported the Daily Telegraph of 30th June. “A scandal” is their description. They do however concede that the men, on average 1,250, do no work for the reason that there is often no work for them to do. The men are protected, however, under the National Dock Labour Scheme from sacking on this ground alone, and even the inducement of a £5,250 “golden handshake” to accept redundancy has failed to shift them. Considering the apparently universal exhortations from the press for workers to pull out their respective fingers and earn themselves a living, we would have thought that the taking of a second job would have merited praise. Apparently not, so “a scandal” it remains.

Surprising then to note that the moral indignation of the Telegraph respectfully faded to nothing when it reported on the twelve, no doubt “just”, women whom Paul Getty “richly remembered in his Will” (10th June 76). Among others they noted that Lady Ursula D’abo, sister of the Duke of Rutland, was to receive 1000 of his shares, worth £93,361, and how she was duly “surprised by the gift. The shares will remain in Getty Oil until I die, as he would have wished.”

All highly commendable; no mention here of a “scandal.” No mention, incidentally, of what happen to the share dividends either—we refer to the large cheque which drops through the letter box from time to time. Work for a living? My dear, who do you think opens the envelope!

Idle-ized

Who was Eric Singer? If you never heard of him— Snap! But on 30th June The Times published an obituary of him. What were his achievements? Take note.

According to the article, he was “an early, though later disenchanted” member of the German Communist Party. In Britain he became “a planning consultant”. To illuminate that, he was able to do his day’s work “before most people had roused themselves from their beds”, which clearly means it was a very small day’s work. What did he do after the rest got up? “He left behind an uncompleted book on inflation and an unpublished work on architecture.” He spent the war “at the roulette tables in Lisbon”, and became “a purveyor of gallantries to ladies, snuff and gossip to men”. “He greeted each day with his freshly-plucked button-hole, his stick and his joie de vivre”.

This reminds us strongly of Fred Bloggs. In his teens Fred joined the Balls Pond Road Libertarian Society, resigning when he discovered he had mistaken its name for “Libertine”. He was widely known in all four corners of the betting shop, while his élan and the je ne sais quoi with which he rolled a Nosegay cigarette made him a favourite of barmaids everywhere. He always alluded to his lifelong redundancy with the characteristic epigram: “Never done a stroke and don’t intend to, mate.”

What a curious world where a man is praised for having had political delusions and spending his life as a fashionable idler.

Alan D'Arcy

Unions advance again (1989)

From the November 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

Since coming to power in 1979 the Conservative government has passed some of the most class-biased laws in the history of capitalism. Five acts of Parliament have been passed with a view to weakening working class organisation in trade unions. One of them, the 1982 Employment Act, made unions liable to damages and fines and unions have already had to pay in excess of £1.5 million in court actions alone, with more than 100 separate legal actions having been brought against them (Labour Research, May 1989).

Such damages arise out of “unlawful" action but, as recent events have shown, it is becoming increasingly difficult to hold lawful strikes. Several strikes have been termed illegal after court action or been subject to legal proceedings, even after ballots had shown large majorities in favour of strike action. These class laws have also made most secondary action illegal, limited picketing to the place of work, outlawed industrial action in support of a closed shop and prevented unions from disciplining members who refuse to abide by majority strike votes.

Part of the Conservatives' appeal in 1979 was their pledge to control the unions which had become unpopular owing mostly to the way the events of the so-called winter of discontent had been portrayed in the media and which the Tories claimed had acquired the power to bring down governments and hold the country to ransom. However, if the unions were tamed by the policies of the Conservatives in the early 1980s, the question must be asked as to why is union “power" re- emerging when the same government still committed to curbing that power remains in office?

Importance of Economic Conditions
While it would be wrong to argue that the legal framework has no effect on the effectiveness of trade unions, it needs to be pointed out that the impact this can have is constrained by economic conditions. The anti-union legislation proposed by the Labour government in 1969 (In Place of Strife) and that of the Heath Conservative administration in the early 1970s (the Industrial Relations Act) both failed because the unions were in a fairly strong position as unemployment was at a low level. In the period 1969-79 the proportion of the working population organised in trade unions rose by over 10 per cent and actual membership increased from around 10.5 million to over 13 million.

There are other periods which provide evidence that the strength of trade unionism is very much influenced by the economic conditions of capitalism. In the period 1910-20 unemployment never rose above 5 per cent and prices were rising faster than wages, another factor likely to spur union organisation. Union membership increased from just over 2.5 million to well over 8 million. In the period that followed, unions suffered drastic setbacks. Between 1920-22 unemployment rose from 2 to over 14 per cent and both prices and wages slumped dramatically. Union membership declined by almost 3 million. In the period 1920-33, as a whole one of severe economic depression, union membership declined from 8,348,000 to 4,392,000.

When the Thatcher administration first came to power in 1979 unemployment had already started to rise and continued to climb even more steeply in the early 1980s while at the same time many of those in employment saw a rise in their living standards. Under these conditions union membership slumped by just over 2 million between 1979-84. It was this that was the major reason for the defeats and setbacks the unions faced in this period.

In the last year or so unemployment has begun to fall and there are even labour shortages in some industries. Under these changed circumstances workers are more ready to take industrial action. The level of industrial discontent has not yet reached the scale it did in 1979 but the causes are the same—economic. In 1979 the cause was not a militancy that arose out of thin air but the continuation (by a Labour government) of a highly unpopular incomes policy at a time of rising prices. The recent disputes are the result of various groups of workers, many in the public sector, being offered rises below the rate of inflation so that living standards are once again threatened. Also involved are attempts by employers to dismantle national bargaining structures which at least offer all the workers concerned a minimum standard of wages and conditions. Dismantle this and weaker areas can be picked off and solidarity is threatened.

Not a Spent Force
There are still those who argue that trade unions are in the process of a long-term decline. This theory is supported by reference to the defeats in recent years for groups of workers such as printers, miners and dockers who were previously thought of as the backbone of the union movement. However, such defeats resulted rather from economic and technological changes in the industries concerned. The miners suffered from a falling demand for coal whilst the strength of the printers and dockers had been undermined by technological changes which resulted in a vast reduction in the numbers employed, so weakening their economic position.

There is evidence outside the recent wave of disputes to suggest that the trade union movement is far from being a spent force. The 1987 Annual report of ACAS showed that in that year 90 per cent of all ballots went in favour of the union position with high turnouts and votes of 75 per cent quite common (Labour Research, May 1989). In the year 1987-88 40 per cent of TUC-affiliated unions reported a rise in membership. More recently, returns from USDAW and COHSE have confirmed this trend. Public opinion is also much more favourable to trade unions. A Gallup poll in September 1988 showed 69 per cent of people sampled thought unions were a good thing and a Mori poll found that 88 per cent of union members regarded unions as essential for protecting their interests (Labour Research, June 1989).

The idea that ballots would result in a vast reduction in strikes has been proved wrong. It is economic conditions that determine the level of strike activity and its effectiveness. The government, however, still believes it can prevent strikes by legal enactments and is now planning fresh legislation. New proposals on ballots for strike action are outlined in a draft code of practice. If these proposals become law unions would face further obstacles in carrying out lawful industrial action. Firstly, in the run-up to the ballot they would have to provide an account of the employer's side of the dispute. Secondly, to call a strike they would have to obtain what is termed as a substantial majority in a turnout of at least 70 per cent. Thirdly, organising a legal ballot would be an extremely lengthy and cumbersome process as so many conditions are laid down. Since the outbreak of the recent industrial unrest further restraints have been announced. These include making unions responsible for their members who take part in unofficial strikes and the outlawing of all secondary action. The complete outlawing of strikes in what are termed essential services has also been under consideration.

Such new anti-union laws, however, will not suppress industrial conflict any more than those already on the statute book have done. Conflict is inherent in the system as it is in the interests of those who own and control the means of producing and distributing goods and services to extract as much surplus from workers as possible so as to increase their profits, whilst workers need to gain as high a price for the sale of their labour power as is possible since it is their only means of existence. So, as long as capitalism exists there will be conflict and the need for trade unions.

What Strikes Reveal
Strikes reveal several things about the society we live in. While employers and politicians engage in rhetoric about democracy, their only concern is in running an authoritarian industrial system. Proof of this fact was provided in the dispute on the docks. In a ballot the workers voted by a majority of 3:1 for a strike. The port employers’ reaction to this was not to accept the vote and enter into negotiations at a national level. Instead they used the law courts to get the strike declared illegal. The union eventually got that decision reversed but by that time the ballot was no longer valid and the Docks Labour Scheme at the centre of the dispute had been repealed by Parliament. Another vote was taken which resulted in the same majority for an indefinite strike. With the highest court having declared that the strike was legal, the employers turned instead to economic coercion. Port by port new contracts involving a deterioration of employment conditions were issued and workers were given an ultimatum to accept them or be sacked with the loss of their right to fairly substantial redundancy payments. The threat worked and the strike crumbled. Capitalism has nothing to do with democracy. Employers will use unelected judges, economic coercion and even the violent apparatus of the state where necessary.

Secondly, if strikes do cause disruption, which they do, this indicates who the useful members of society are. As we have seen in recent months when those who actually do the real work on the railways stop work, the whole rail system grinds to a halt. The same happened on the London underground and London buses. The working class—all those who have to sell their ability to work, manual or mental—produce all the goods, provide all the services and administer society from top to bottom.

What would have happened if Sir Robert Reid and the British Rail Board had gone on strike? The answer is quite simply that it would not have affected a single train. If Thatcher, Kinnock, all their followers in Parliament, the whole of the capitalist class and all the royal family went on strike, they would have to go round the whole country telling everybody they had stopped "work” for us to be any the wiser. These people make no useful contribution to society. The employers and their representatives need the working class as without us the whole system would grind to a halt. But we don't need them.

The message socialists have is quite simple. The producers and providers of services form an overwhelming majority of the world's population, so why do we put up with employers and politicians controlling our lives and telling us what we can and cannot have? Why do we accept the fact that the world is owned and controlled by a tiny minority of private and state capitalists?

Workers all over the world have considerable power if we unite and it is about time we organised not just in a defensive struggle over wages and conditions, necessary though this is while capitalism exists, but to take control of the Earth's resources. That end is worth organising and struggling for and we should not settle for anything less.

Ray Carr

A Letter from a Glasgow Docker (1947)

From the June 1947 issue of the Socialist Standard

Since 1932, when the Glasgow dockers broke away from the Transport and General Workers’ Union and formed their present organisation, the Scottish T. & G. W. Union, they have opposed the English dockers’ struggles for decasualisation of dock labour. Recruitment to the Glasgow Union has (with one exception) been always based on the hereditary principle and restricted to docker’s sons.

Coincident with the forming of a Ministry of War Transport Dock-Labour Scheme in April, 1941, was the heavy bombardment of the main English ports which resulted in Glasgow becoming the busiest port in Britain. To meet with this situation, the Government transferred hundreds of dockers from London, Liverpool, Hull, etc., to Glasgow and allowed about 1,500 local men who could prove work at the port before September, 1939, to join the scheme. The English dockers (members of the T.G.W. union or “Bevin’s union, as it is dubbed) were treated in a disgusting manner by the Glasgow Union. Glasgow union members had priority for employment which meant that the most unpleasant, irksome and ill-paid jobs were the lot of the English dockers.

The 1,500 Glasgow men were not allowed to join the union and were prevented from joining any union or forming one.

With the end of hostilities, the English dockers were sent to their home ports, most of them with bitter feelings regarding the Glasgow Union.

When the National dock strike took place in October-November, 1945, the 1,500 Glasgow (non-union) dockers were the first in Scotland to join the national movement for 25s. a day, etc.

One outcome of the 1945 strike was the agreement to take joint action in any subsequent disputes, an agreement endorsed by the Glasgow union membership.

In January-May, 1946, the 1,500 Glasgow “non-union’’ men were dismissed without a word of protest from the local union, in fact the dismissals were approved of by the union. 

When the recent strike took place in Glasgow about the “redundancy” of 500 union members, the union coined the slogans “Square deal for the Clyde” and “Scottish cargoes for Glasgow."

Faced with the fact that in July the new, Government-approved, dock-labour scheme commences and its certainty of further redundancies in London, Liverpool and elsewhere, some of the dockers in London (not members of the T.G.W. Union) went on strike for a few days to demonstrate their solidarity with the Glasgow men.

The Glasgow men are now back at work on the agreement that an inquiry be made on the needs of the port of Glasgow.

The results of that inquiry won't be substantially different from the “Fact-finding” committee set up by the Government which recommended the dismissal of 800 men—watered down to 500.

The Glasgow men take a very narrow and insular view of T.U. activity, and are only militant on local, sectional questions.

The larger unions, whilst democratic in formal structure, are still dominated by rank and file apathy which permits the sway of the permanent officials.

The whole dock industrial scene is one of internecine intrigue and struggles between the smaller unions and the T.G.W. Union.

The unofficial “National Port-Workers Defence Committee’’ is, despite its naive trust in the Labour Government, probably the brightest development so far, from a class standpoint.

As certain as anything can be is national dock disputes after July of this year when the Government rationalises the dock industry.

These are, briefly, the facts. The whole dock union organisation throughout Great Britain is in ferment with the approach of entire Ministry of Labour control of the industry and strikes, disputes, and union wrangling will be accentuated.

T. A. Mulheron