The Passing Show: Never in the right (1964)

The Passing Show Column from the September 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard

Never in the right

Some of our older readers may have lived through the earlier years of this century. Perhaps they can recall the bitter struggles between employers and workers. Strikes and lockouts. Strikes to improve wages and conditions. Strikes very often against lowered wages and deteriorating conditions. One other thing they may also remember is that, whatever a particular strike or lockout was about, the workers were never in the right. They wanted shorter hours? O.K., then, they were lazy. They wanted more pay? O.K., then, they were greedy. If a dispute was in a major industry, such as docks, coal mining or railways, they were irresponsible, led by a bunch of rabble rousers and “holding the nation up to ransom.”

Sometimes the strikes were successful—or partly so. Sometimes, very often in fact, they failed. The struggles of the engineers in the early Twenties, for example, did not prevent pay reductions. Nor did the General Strike of 1926 stop the coal-owners lowering the miners' wages and lengthening their working day. After the collapse of the general strike, the miners fought on for nine bitter months and were beaten to their knees at the end of it. But if the capitalist press of those days was worth believing, the strikers were all in the wrong.

In those days, with a falling market and a large pool of unemployed, it was almost a foregone conclusion that the capitalists would fight tooth and nail against every union demand. The lockout was the weapon they sometimes used. But in the years immediately after the end of the second world war, it was a somewhat different story. Six years of destruction had left a large market to be filled, and with Germany and Japan out of the running for the time being, the call was for an all-out export drive. There was a severe labour shortage, and workers were in a strong position to press for higher wages and conditions.

This time, however, there was another snag—the Labour Government, who appealed for less strikes and plenty of hard work. The production drive was all-important, and to down tools then was a stab in the back for the "workers' government ” and for Britain. And as usual, when workers did come out the government and press were at one in condemning them. The union leaders often listened to the government’s pleas and many of the strikes were “unofficial," one could have been forgiven for sometimes wondering whether the men were fighting the employers or their own leadership. In the latter part of the Labour Government’s term, wage rates were actually lagging behind prices.

What is the position today, some thirteen years and several Tory governments later? Believe it or not, you are still wrong to strike. Now “we” have to keep costs down in a highly competitive market. We have to increase productivity so that there will be more for all, yet we mustn’t ask for more wages to get some of the extra which we have turned out. Higher wages mean higher prices—a lie spread equally by Labour, Liberal and Tory politicians. Always it is the same dreary story. Be patient and accept less today, and you will double your living standards in twenty-five years. Always it is—tomorrow.

In the Labour Government days, it was a “wage freeze.” Under the Tories it has been given the more sophisticated sounding name of “pay pause.” For some time the government has been taking a tough line against wage increases and has been hardening its attitude towards its own employees in this respect. The postmen were the latest victims of such policy and by the time Mr. Bevins had got round to making an offer, their patience was just about exhausted. And nobody can truthfully call the postmen impatient. Their last strike was well over sixty years ago.

What was the reaction of the press this time? For once they could not find a communist-inspired plot. Neither could they call the men greedy, for even by accepted standards their pay rates compared unfavourably with outside industry. Neither were they lazy—an average of thirty hours overtime is worked every week to keep the mail moving. The papers, then, were “ sympathetic,” but still the cry was “ don’t strike.”

Listen, for instance to The Guardian editorial of July 11th:—

  When arbitration is offered in a complex dispute about postal wages. it is hard to claim sanctity for the "right” to delay a nation's mails. . . . What can a woman waiting for a letter from her son do to give postmen more pay?

Or again The Daily Telegraph of July 23rd:

  Yesterday's decision by the executive of the Union of Post Office Workers that a complete strike will be called . . . constitutes a grave challenge . . . not only to the Government but also to the nation. . . . It must be evident by now that his (Mr. Smith's) union is entirely concerned with the best way in which it can sabotage the country’s business, and so hold the country to ransom. Ransom is one thing, and proper wages quite another.

Not one word, you will note, about the delaying tactics of the government, of the offer of yet another “review" to follow the last “enquiry.” Undeniably, it was the positive promise of a strike that forced the pay offer up to six per cent. No wonder The Guardian had to admit: “The plain fact is that the postmen do not trust the Treasury.”

So postmen, you were “wrong” to come out on strike for a day and to threaten an all-out stoppage later on. But you got a pay increase. A good thing you did not heed the mealy mouthings of the newspapers, for you would then have been "right.” but two per cent, worse off.

P.S.--Thc G.P.O. profit last year was £30.7 millions.


What is Progress?

The Oxford Dictionary defines the term as: forward movement, advance, improvement, increase. But progress has also come to have another meaning in the modern world, and it is fashionable to equate it with change—any change.

Under this heading the apologists for capitalism would list the mounting volume of cars on the roads (" one for everybody who wants one” is the government’s bleat), the advent of noisy jet aircraft, and the sprawling of the industrial towns into the once peaceful countryside. They would ignore the increasing noise, dirt and smell, the rush and tear of it all. and the frightful toll of frustration and nervous illness. Anything which kept capitalism moving fast and expanding is, to them, progress.

It is hardly surprising, then, to hear the Belgian industrialist Baron René Boël talk about progress in terms of the profit motive. The Baron is president of the European League for Economic Cooperation, and his words are reminiscent of the views of some of the early capitalist economists. Speaking in Manchester on July 15th, he said:—

  Just as the worker is entitled to payment, so the shareholder is entitled to remuneration for the services he renders both to the enterprise and the economy. An important part of the money he receives . . . is used to finance further economic and technical progress. Profit is today an essential factor in progress since it provides the means of achieving it and measuring it.

There is quite a lot that Baron Boël left out of his assessment, of course. He didn't tell us just what sort of payment the workers are entitled to. His ideas on that would no doubt differ markedly from those of workers. Neither did he go into the harmful effects of the profit motive on the mass of the population. Last but not least, he did not even hint at the ugly black war clouds which gather periodically as a direct result of this “progress.” Had we taxed him with it, he would no doubt have muttered something about “human nature,” or “communist plots ” and left it at that

The words of Baron Boël are only to be expected from a man in his position of social privilege, but he is not alone in his thoughts. Tragically, they are echoed by most workers every day of their lives. Our proposition of a classless, moneyless society is just as much anathema to them as it is to him.


Tory Competition 

Tory propagandists are never tired of telling us how beneficial free competition is. They don’t like state control they say, although they have made little effort to denationalise most of the nationalised industries. “Take the fetters off free enterprise and lower prices will result” is one of their rallying cries. Yet the years of Tory rule have seen considerable price increases.

Are the Tories really in favour of unfettered competition—just like that? Of course, they’re not. The first and foremost task of any British government is to protect and advance the interests of British capitalism. This will certainly mean that they will try to make British industry more competitive on the world market, and generally moan about tariff barriers erected against it by other countries, although at the same time they erect the same sort of barriers at home. This is aimed at keeping the price of foreign goods up so that British goods of the same type are not at a disadvantage in the home market. It is known under the fanciful heading of “establishing stability.”

One industry to suffer against foreign competition has been cotton, and it was only a few years ago that the government was paying out some thirty million pounds to induce some of the less efficient firms to cease production. Now, in a further attempt to deal with the problem, the Cotton Board has produced a plan for a levy on imported cotton goods “which would bring their prices up to an agreed proportion of similar goods of domestic manufacture." This is proposed to replace the existing restrictions, which are due to expire in 1965. Secretary for Industry Mr. Heath is said to have agreed that “some means should be found of establishing stability in the industry”; the Board’s plan has been published at his request.

What Mr. Heath is after is the continued profitable existence of the British cotton industry. If that means paring down the threat from foreign rivals and keeping their prices up, then that is what will be done, it shows also that government interference (“guidance ” they call it) will be used just as much by the Tories as by any other party, if they think the needs of British capitalism justify it. And then their talk of free competition and lowered prices will be quietly forgotten.

Eddie Critchfield