Editorial: Capitalism cant about strikes (1951)

Editorial from the March 1951 issue of the Socialist Standard

During 1950 over 1,300 industrial disputes were reported to the Ministry of Labour. Almost all of them were “unofficial," because declared in defiance of the 1940 Conditions of Employment and National Arbitration Order, and the majority took place in nationalised industries. In the coal industry alone there were 863. The Labour government and the capitalist Press join in condemning strikes on the grounds that they are unpatriotic, unnecessary, and useless but they part company about the cause. While the government spokesmen and trade union officials put most emphasis on alleged Communist incitement some of the newspapers prefer to believe that the chief cause is the cumbersome machinery of the nationalised industries and the big trade unions, and the too close association of the latter with the government.

This makes it possible for some newspapers to shed crocodile tears over the workers' grievances while sermonising over the wickedness and futility of striking to redress them. Thus on 21 February the Daily Mail editorial found it “wrong than an engine-driver should get only £6 18s. 0d. a week, or that the lowest-paid should receive less than £5," and on the same day the editor of the Manchester Guardian had this to say:—

“There is general sympathy for the individual railwaymen’s case for better conditions. The lowest paid man's £4 16s. 0d. a week is not enough to meet today's living costs, and there is some validity in the trade union argument that men should not be forced to rely on overtime and Sunday work to make ends meet.”

But sympathy for the individual railwaymen turns into hostility at the idea of the individuals getting together and doing something to enforce their demands after long drawn-out negotiations have failed. For alternative remedy the Guardian slides off into a demand for radical reorganisation of the railways, while the Mail preaches the need for all to work together ‘‘in these desperate times,” and laments that “the community is ruled by force and not by justice.”

All the critics of strikes-in-practice profess to believe in the abstract right to strike. Thus the Daily Mail—“Every man has the right to withhold his labour —and we stand by that"; and, “The strike weapon is a legitimate part of our industrial machinery.”

We wonder however when the Daily Mail ever supported men on strike!

Mr. Francis Williams (News Chronicle, 22/2/51) put the usual case of the Labour Party that “in these days ” (as if they were any different from what capitalism has always been) strikes are obsolete because “everyone concerned knows that it is in fact only through negotiation that a settlement capable of advancing die interests both of the community and individual workers can be secured."

Mr. Williams was particularly incensed with Mr. Figgins, general secretary of the National Union of Railwaymen, on account of his refusal to appeal to railwaymen not to strike during the negotiations. Mr. Figgins, warned by the intense discontent of the members of his union, took the line that “negotiations and strikes could take place at the same time," and he pointed out that “in 1911 we held an unofficial strike and there were negotiations very quickly."

On this issue Mr. Figgins is obviously right and the critics of strikes are wrong. Arbitration and negotiation have no meaning apart from the pressure the workers can exercise by being willing to strike. And the pretence that the strikes under Labour government play no part in securing wage increases is mere hypocrisy, as there is plenty of evidence to show. After long refusals and discussions many railwaymen struck and then the Railway Executive came out on 20 February with its willingness to offer £9,250,000 wage increases instead of £7,000,000. Later they increased it to £12,000,000.

Can anyone doubt that the unofficial strikes of miners helped to induce the Coal Board to agree to further wage increases in January, 1951, only three months after the increases granted in October last year?

The Irish Bank Clerks who held up the banks for a month can certainly claim that it brought results.

Then there is the interesting case of the electricians on the Festival of Britain site who struck for an additional 2d an hour and got it. After the strike had been going oh for weeks the Minister of Labour appointed a Committee of Inquiry. They met on Saturday, 10 February, and reported immediately in favour of the increase. The employers’ association opposed it, refused to accept the Committee’s findings, and complained that they would pay it only “under severe protest" and that it had been granted under pressure from the government. The explanation doubtless is that the government were very much concerned about the possibility of the Festival buildings not being ready in time for the official opening date.

The secretary of the employers’ National Federated Electrical Association, is reported in the Daily Telegraph (14/2/51) as saying that the increase would be paid in view of “the extreme pressure which has been exerted through the Ministry of Labour and in other directions”

“... as the government has decided that it be paid, there is nothing else for us to do but to pay it.” 

When Labour leaders say that strikes are not necessary under Labour Government and Nationalisation, and when capitalist newspapers plead for “justice” instead of “force” they are crying for the moon. Capitalism has not changed and class struggle is inherent in it. Capitalists oppose wage demands to defend their profits and the Boards of Nationalised industries are doing the same though not quite so obviously. The government by law lays on the Boards the obligation of making enough profit to pay the interest on the compensation stocks held by the former owners. If the members of the Boards fail to do their job they will get the sack, to be replaced by more ruthless directors.

In conclusion we must not overlook another group who, along with low-paid railwaymen, earn the sympathy of the Daily Mail leader-writer. These are the company shareholders whose “dividends are expected to remain frozen” under government policy. They too, according to the Mail, are being “shabbily treated.”' Perhaps if this goes on the Mail will lose patience and advise then “to withdraw their labour” like the unofficial strikers.

Passing Comments: Why we don’t get the coal (1951)

The Passing Comments Column from the March 1951 issue of the Socialist Standard

Why we don’t get the coal

The prospect of a coal crisis has produced the usual crop of enquiries about the coal industry. What exactly is wrong with it?

As might be expected, the Sunday Express has the answer. It has gone to the expense of sending a journalist, a Mr. Gwyn Lewis, on a three-week tour of the coalfields. Mr. Lewis has now produced his report: it appeared in the Sunday Express on February 4th.

The article covers nearly thirty-two inches of column-space; and more than three-quarters of it (over twenty-four inches) is taken up with complaints about the idleness of some of the miners. :If every man on the payroll did an honest day’s work the present hardships would have been greatly mitigated.” The article avoids statistics which would give the exact position over all the coalfields: instead, there are vague allegations, interspersed with figures applying only to single pits on single days, which are of no use at all to anyone who wants a true picture of the situation, but which are none the less valuable for propaganda purposes. This is the kind of thing: “In Midlands colliery towns I saw miners’ welfare institutes filled with men playing cards when they should have been working.” There are no details given with the aid of which one could check up on the accuracy of the observation. Which Midlands colliery towns? Which miners’ institutes, and how many of them? What exact number of men is the vague verb “filled” intended to convey? How did the reporter know they “should have been working?” After all, there are some men in a miner’s institute at every hour of the day: in the morning, the afternoon shift men, and in the afternoon and evening, the day and night shift men. Perhaps Mr. Lewis is skilled in telepathy; at any rate, his information did not come from the men themselves, for in his next sentence his complains that “when I tried to get their point of view I could only get ’whose deal?’ and a request not to interfere with the card-playing.”

* * *

Contrast

What a contrast this makes with the recent incident at a club which caters for another class of the population. On the one hand we have a group of miners, spending their leisure hours in their own institute, accosted by a Tory journalist who wants to know why they are not working harder: and all they do is to request him politely not to interfere with the game. And on the other hand a group of “gentlemen” in a London club last month were so incensed with the mere inoffensive presence of a man whose political views they consider too Leftish, that one of them, who learnt his manners at Eton and Oxford, made an unprovoked physical assault on him as he left.

* * *

Duties as Citizens

But to get back to these idle miners. A printed sheet was distributed to every one of them containing a New Year’s message from Mr. Attlee, appealing to him to work harder; but Coal Board officials say it has had no result. A Coal Board assistant director tells this woeful tale: “We tried giving the men lectures on their duties as citizens. Most of them listen, but some call out 'Tell us when you are finished.’ ” The lecturers’ task would probably be easier if the duties were the same for all the citizens. As it is, the miners can be forgiven for taking up a cynical attitude when they read an article by a man who hints that colliers are lazy because they are paid too much, but who doesn’t mention the £14,000,000 a year paid to the ex-coal-owners; and who says it is becoming a “common practice” for miners to take Monday off, and sometimes Friday as well, but who has no harsh remarks for the shareholders who take all seven days off and still draw an income.

* * *

No wage-earners need apply

Do you want to be a Conservative M.P.? You stand a poor chance if you come from the lower income groups.

“Comment,” which describes itself as a right-wing magazine run by undergraduates, has published in its January, 1951, number some statistics about the social background of the Conservative members of the House of Commons. Of the 298 M.P.s, the schools of 52 are unknown: but of those whose schools can be discovered, 214, or 87 per cent, went to public schools (including 79, or 32 per cent., to Eton). Again, of the 298 M.P.s, 62 per cent, went to Oxford, Cambridge, or “one of the military colleges—nearly always Sandhurst.”

The occupations of Tory M.P.s are also listed, though no attempt is made to divide them into two or three big groups; “Comment” says it would be difficult to know in which group to place a man “who is perhaps a landowner, director of a big industrial company, and was for ten years in the regular army." Readers of the Socialist Standard might enlighten the editors of “Comment” as to which social group an M.P. with these particular qualifications would belong. But the statistics given are quite interesting enough in themselves. 36 are farmers or landowners; 37 are in business; 16 are in industry; 17 are publishers. These groups provide 106 M.P.s, or 36 per cent, of the total number. Then there are 31 (or 10 per cent) from the Services, and 124 (42 per cent.) are professional„ men. Of those M.P.s who are not listed in any of the above categories, 6 are women, and 59 are put down as “unknowns’’—this figure, which" is 19 per cent., includes all the full-time politicians. Furthermore, “Comment” calculates that there are anything from 500 to 1,000 directorships spread among the 298 members.

* * *

Good opportunities for smart aristocrat

Even after five years of Labour Government with its “inevitable fall in the number of knighthoods and baronetcies conferred on Conservative members,” there are well over 100 M.P.s, more than a third of the total number, who “either hold titles themselves or are intimately related to title-holders.”

And how do these sirs and honourables get into Parliament? Elsewhere “Comment” quotes from a forthcoming book by Mr. Herbert Nicholas on the General Election; and it appears, even allowing for the fact that the Tory definition of “working-class” is more restricted than the Socialist definition, that 54 per cent. of those who voted Conservative last year are working-class electors (compared with 89 per cent. of the Labour voters). So both big parties get most of their support from wage-earners.

* * *

Incomes

Last October the Commissioners of Inland Revenue published their report for the year ended March, 1949; and according to this, in a country which some simple Labourites continue to refer to as “Socialist Britain,” there were eighty-six people left with an annual income exceeding £6,000 a year after payment of income-tax and surtax. There were more than five thousand people having incomes of between £80 and £120 a week, and nearly 80,000 with between £40 and £80 a week after payment of taxes. On the other hand, there are eight and a half million given as having incomes between £3 and £5 a week, and 1,113,000 with between £2 14s. and £3 after tax. Those with less than £135 a year are not mulcted of income-tax by a generous government, so they are not dealt with in the report.

* * *

How to suffer in style

These figures go some way towards explaining the news which appears every so often in the Tory papers about the activities of the rich, and form a strange commentary on the statement of the Continental Daily Mail (26-7-50) that “the wealthiest classes have been almost destroyed by the tax-collector.” If we believed the Continental Daily Mail we would find it difficult to understand how the Eton entry-list is filled up till 1963, when its costs £308 a year to send a boy there, “plus a small amount for extras ” (Daily Mail, 12-12-50); and why Harrod’s think it worth while to insert an eight-inch two-column advertisement in the Observer (11-2-51) devoted to the charms of a fur coat which costs £357—more than most workers get in a year; and how Sir Bernard and Lady Docker can afford to give an “epic” cocktail party at the Royal Thames Yacht Club, which was just large enough, so we are informed, to take the hundreds of guests, while motorists queued for a mile outside to get to the party (Sunday Express, 17-12-50). For good measure we are told, in the same paper eight weeks earlier, that Sir Bernard is having a car made specially for his wife, complete with cocktail cabinet, radio set, silver- equipped vanity case, bookshelf, and fluorescent lighting. Gallant Sir Bernard. And wealthy Sir Bernard. The car is costing £5,622.

* * *

Dodgers and super-dodgers

But the official figures apparently do not tell the whole story. The report issued by the income tax authorities cannot be wholly accurate if some people do not reveal their real incomes to the tax inspectors; and it seems that evasion is being practised on a large scale. One inspector of taxes says: “There are roughly 20,000 dodgers, but half the £40,000,000 withheld from the State each year can be accounted for by approximately 2,000 super-dodgers.” (Sunday Express, 31-12-50). This would make the super-dodgers withhold an average of £10,000 a year each. And what is the total income of a man who should pay tax at the rate of £200 a week”

Yet the Tories still tell us that the wealthiest have been almost destroyed.

* * *

Undesirable familiarity

It is comforting to think that Mr. Millard Caldwell, the head of US Civil Defence, has confidence in us. Mr. Caldwell said in London: “ You will find that your people will take atomic bombs just like they took others.” (Reynolds News, 11-2-51).

An official of the Ministry of Supply agreed with him. He said: “ It would be just the same as in the last war. The more familiar we get with atomic bombs, the easier they will be to deal with.” But just how familiar do we have to get with atomic bombs? J. Bronowski, writing in the Observer (4-2-51) says that whereas the type of atomic bomb used in the last war caused a circle of destruction only two miles across, a hydrogen bomb weighing a ton would “cause irreparable damage over a circle on the ground which measures twenty miles across.” That is to say, it could destroy London from Barnet to Croydon, and from Hounslow to Woolwich; and burns and fires from it would reach through a circle of thirty miles in diameter. Such a bomb dropped on London “would kill far more than 1,000,000 people.”

Has the Ministry of Supply worked out how many bombs of this size will have to be dropped before we consider ourselves familiar with them?

Alwyn Edgar