The Common Market Special Survey: 3. The Workers’ Position (1962)

From the January 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

Writing in December we still do not know whether the British Government will enter the European Common Market, or whether their conditions for entry will prove inacceptable to the six countries already in. And if the outcome is that Britain becomes a member, no-one yet knew what special arrangement may be made for the Commonwealth and Colonial territories, nor what the Scandinavian and other European countries may decide to do in this new situation.

All of these uncertain factors have a bearing on the effect that joining the Common Market will have on particular industries and firms and on workers’ jobs.

Some British workers will find their occupations gone through redundancy and will have to seek a job in another industry or in another place, perhaps across the Channel.

Unions in printing, entertainment and tailoring are among those that have expressed fears about jobs, or wages, or the incursion of workers from other Common Market countries looking for work here.

But in some industries the expectation is that prospects would improve for the firms centred in Britain, and the workers whose jobs may in consequence be made more precarious will be those now working in one of the Common Market countries. Among the industries in which this may happen are engineering, motor car manufacture and chemicals. Mine-workers have also been encouraged by the Coal Board to believe that more British coal would be sold and that employment prospects in the coal industry here would improve.

Sometimes the forecasters who tell workers what they think will happen are not trade union leaders but employers. The British Employers’ Confederation issued a statement that entry to the Market would make wage increases out of the question unless preceded by increases in productivity. (Financial Times, 8/8/61); and Lord Chandos, chief of Associated Electrical Industries, who spoke in favour of Britain’s entry, told his fellow members of the House of Lords (3/8/61) that the consequent sharper competition and other changes

”will impinge upon the workers . . . very much more than on the employers, This kind of thing will make the ‘ wild-cat’ strike, the demarcation dispute, and shorter hours with less work at lower productivity an impossible luxury.” He instanced Coventry as a place where the motor workers would not be exhilarated to see a flood of Italian and French cars, or Italian workers coming here for jobs.

As would be expected, when manufacturers and traders ponder the case for joining, it is not the workers’ comfort they have in mind except in the sense that the ” European cold wind of change” may help them to discipline British workers, or so they think.” (Financial Times 24.7.61).

Workers worrying about these chilling prophecies are mostly upsetting themselves to no purpose. Of course, they may find themselves out of a job or faced with an employer’s refusal to give a wage increase, or see their employer unable lo stand up to competition. But these are things that will happen anyway; they happen all the time and all over the place, not just in the Common Market.

The end of 1961 gave us news of redundancy and short time in the motor car industry; notice that 15 Scottish coal mines will be closed in 1962, affecting 5,000 workers; the forthcoming closure of the De Havilland aircraft factory at Christchurch, Hants, with 2,000 men looking for jobs in an area which depended heavily for employment on the firm; and Courtaulds closing down one of the British Enka plants which it recently bought, so that nearly 4,000 people at Aintree, Liverpool, are expected to lose their jobs.

Unemployment

And those who think that the Common Market will end the workers’ troubles are equally in error. Their argument is on the lines that a great home market of 170 million people is a guarantee of efficient production, steady marketing, high wages and secure employment. But the U.S.A. also has 170 million people and recently had over five million unemployed and in the depression years of the nineteen ‘thirties had unemployment ranging at times up to 10 million and even 15 million.

Within the past few years America has seen its motor car industry and steel at times in the doldrums, with tens of thousands unemployed. And there is no reason to suppose that the Common Market will escape the kind of regional or local bad trade that can exist in all countries, the United States included.

Though at present Germany has very little unemployment, Italy, one of the partners in the Common Market, has about 1,350,000 unemployed or nearly 7 per cent., and it has never averaged less than that figure in the past 10 years.

Immigration

The Common Market aims at unfettered movement of workers throughout the area, but in practice it will probably be long before it becomes effective, and various hindrances of movement will exist even then. There are no legal barriers in the way of the movement of workers within Great Britain, but that does not prevent unemployment being persistently heavy in one district and light in another, one per cent, in the London and South Eastern Region and 7½ times as heavy in Northern Ireland. Housing is a big factor in this. And as was recently pointed out by the Times, even if the movement of workers in the Common Market were completely free already (which it is not), “differences in wages and conditions are not sufficient to induce many workers to seek employment in a strange country. The only likely movement of any size would be from countries where there is a substantial unemployment, which at present means Southern Italy.”

Figures published in July, 1961, showed that there were 200,000 Italians working in Germany along with much smaller numbers from many other countries, making a total of 470,000 immigrant workers.

We hear much about the workers’ reactions to the incursions of immigrants, but the employers have a problem too. When workers leave their home town it enables those who stay behind to put more pressure into their struggle for higher wages. German employers welcome Italian immigrants, but it looks different to the Italian factory owners.

“Some factory owners complain about the fact that agents of German or Swiss employers stand outside their factory gates offering contracts to workers as they finish their shifts.”

Trade Unions

No particular difficulty should arise in the trade union field. Though British rank and file trade unionists have mostly not been as much aware of international organisation and its problems as Continental workers, the union officials and executives have often had long and fairly close contact with Continental unions, particularly through their own Internationals (Miners, Transport workers, Post office workers, Agricultural workers, Printers, etc., etc.).

This is not to say that unions will easily forget their nationalist prejudices, but at least they will get used to working together in day to day matters on a European basis. Still less does it mean as claimed by Ludwig Rosenberg, Deputy Chairman of the German Trade Union Federation, that formation of the European Common Market is an expression of the fact that “international co-operation and solidarity beyond national frontiers are among the basic aims of the Labour movement throughout the world.”

The grouping of small units into a larger one, with one of its objects to stand up industrially, commercially (and militarily) against other world blocs no more depends on an “international” outlook than did the forging of unity in the 19th century in Italy or the German customs union which lead to German unity, though it does achieve the breakdown of the narrower isolations and prejudices. Certainly it should be easier for workers in all of the Common Market countries to avoid being played-off against each other in the name of the “national interest.”

Wages

Opinions differ about the complex question of comparing wages in this country with those on the Continent. What is true of one industry or country may not be true of another, but, for what it is worth the Times recently gave the following summary of comparative pay and conditions in the Common Market countries:

“Their wages are still probably lower, but not very much so except in Italy and to a lesser extent the Netherlands, but they are rising more rapidly. Their hours worked are shorter, though the working week in some cases is still longer. They get more paid holidays. They devote a higher proportion of their national income to social security. Their occupational training schemes are probably mostly better. At the present rate of progress, Britain looks like becoming a backward country by European standards, before many years have gone.”

For many years, ever since German industry got on its feet again after the war, British politicians and business men have told the British workers that they should model themselves on the hard-working, thrifty, non-striking German workers, who from the German employers’ point of view were exemplary. This idea has helped a little to colour the views of many employers in favour of getting inside: but perhaps they were wrong after all.

Last November it was being discovered by German business men and economists that the German worker was up to the same tricks as British workers, taking advantage of low employment to push up wages. The Financial Times diagram published on November 22nd, showing wages forging ahead of output per hour and of employers’ sales receipts referred to German workers, but it might easily have been taken for an article about British workers any time in the post-war years.

This should not surprise anyone. The European Common Market is not a different kind of capitalist entity—only a larger one. Whether the British Government goes in or not, British workers should be looking to promote their own Socialist working class unity with workers everywhere, not just in Western Europe.

Edgar Hardcastle

British Motor Car Industry (1967)

From the October 1967 issue of the Socialist Standard

Professor Buchanan once described cars as “adored” by their owners— a sharp comment on the fact that, of all the symbols of working class life in the Sixties, few are the object of such pride and care as the motor car.

Behind this rather neurotic pride, which gives the car sellers their chance, there often lies something less agreeable. Tests carried out by the Consumers’ Association regularly confirm the disappointment experienced by many owners of new cars. Here are some typical comments, from the CA magazine Which? with the price of the car: 

“persistent engine oil leaks” (£998) 

“failure of exhaust system” (£1048) 

“left wheel badly out of balance and slightly buckled” (£609) 

One British car, costing £789, had no fewer than thirty two faults on delivery three of which, said CA, were “probably serious”.

The plain fact is that, as the motor industry has developed greater combines, and as it has intensified the methods of mass production, many of its quality standards have declined in ways which cannot be compensated for by greater technical knowledge and some improved materials. Very few modern cars, for example, have the sort of chassis, bodywork or upholstery to compare with a pre-war model.

The reason is that, just like any other industry, the car firms are chasing their economic tails. They have tens of millions of pounds invested in their production lines and to get a return on this they have to see the cars streaming out of the factory. A Rootes car takes about two and a half hours to build once the basic components are gathered together; Fords of Britain makes about three thousand vehicles a day. As a rough guide, compare this to the fact that at Rolls Royce they will take between two and three months to build a car, and at Jaguar ten weeks.

The Ford Motor Company says all that needs to be said, by way of explanation of this difference:

Quality and service problems. Industry spends vast amounts in trying to cope with these, but mass production and price competition make them inevitable to some extent.” (Notes On British Motor Industry)

What sort of industry is it, which stands behind the mass-produced dream and which can so frankly confess that quality problems are inevitable? About a million men are engaged in the manufacture, sale and service of vehicles in the U.K., about 600,000 of them in manufacture. The car industry is the top British exporting industry, sending out about £750 million worth a year and is important also on the home market; more than two thirds of the national hire purchase debt is for cars.

In the main the industry consists of five big firms—British Motor Holdings (BMH); Ford; Vauxhall; Rootes; Standard Triumph. (Figure One shows the standing of these companies in the British market.) This Big Five account for almost the entire British production of cars ; up to just over a year ago the independent Rover and Jaguar were responsible for almost three per cent of sales but now both these firms have joined one of the big combines. Mergers are now an established part of the industry ; the big firms often take over one or other of their suppliers, or of their rivals, heaping one merger upon another into a massive and intricate combine. (Figure Two shows something of the set-up at B.M.H.)

The car industry’s work is in some part a matter of assembling components which have been produced outside, some by big concerns (electrical equipment by Lucas, propellor shafts by Hardy-Spicer) and some by small family firms (leather by Connolly Bros., cylinder head studs by M.V. Engineering). The economics of mass production force the car firms to store the very minimum of components; B.M.H. at Longbridge hold at most a day’s stock of major production items, Rootes enough trimmed and painted bodies for only one shift. This makes the industry heavily reliant on the dependability of its suppliers—and exceedingly vulnerable to labour disputes.

Strikes are another of the car firms’ big problems. Persistent labour trouble at Ford’s have caused two official inquiries into staff relations there—by Lord Cameron in 1957 and by Mr. D. T. Jack in 1963. Both investigations went over the same ground but neither did the impossible ; neither produced a solution to the problems it was investigating.

But one thing the inquiries did make clear and that was the government’s concern at the importance of the car industry to the economy of British capitalism. When Dagenham sneezes, it is said, the British economy will catch a cold. At the moment Dagenham, and all the other car towns, are exhibiting the symptoms of a prolonged sickness.

In 1966, Vauxhall’s pre-tax profits were £3,666,898—compared to £17,735,372 the year before. In the same period, Ford’s profits before tax fell from £8.9 million to £7.4 million. Most spectacular of them all B.M.H., whose accounting year is timed so that they reported on the full effects of the 1966 car slump, announced a loss of £7.52 million during the first six months of their financial year compared to a pre-tax profit of £5.785 million in the first half of the previous year.

There is an abundance of ominous figures to record the current slump in cars: new car registrations up to July 103,000 down on last year’s; production running about ten per cent lower than in 1966, when sales were in any case 87,000 lower than in 1965. Over the past couple of months sales have picked up but the car makers are not rejoicing; they may be in for their worst winter for over twenty years.

The motor industry has had many such ups and downs (see Figure Three). What is worrying the car firms now is the abundant evidence that they are in for a long period of decline and that any further pressure on their profits will force them to cut down on the capital investment which is so important to their competitive existence. Typical of their comments amid the gloom are:

Success in the motor industry demands a sustained and high level of investment and a vigilant control of costs. Without adequate returns, neither is possible. (Ford’s).

… it is imperative that the Government should take the very first opportunity of permitting our industry to find its natural level, thus allowing it to stabilise production and generate the capital so urgently needed to keep abreast of its foreign competitors. (B.M.H.)

The government’s remedy for this situation has been the by-now classical one of easing hire purchase controls; in June they cut the minimum deposit on H.P. car sales from 40 to 30 per cent and increased the maximum repayment period from 24 to 30 months. In August there was another relaxation; deposit down to 25 per cent, repayment period up to 36 months. The car makers gave a cautious welcome to these measures, although their own suggestions are no more fundamental.

It is instructive now to remember the forecast made in Ford’s 1959 Report, which came out a couple of years before the car industry hit a slump, that the next ten years would be a “decade of opportunity for the motor industry”. Such optimism is common in all capitalism’s industries; only occasionally does one of their spokesmen put his finger on the essential problem, and reveal how hopeless all their remedies are. In the Sunday Times of May 14 last Henry Ford II said it: “We have not yet discovered the secret of making anybody buy our products”.

Ivan

Crisis in the motor industry (1981)

From the May 1981 issue of the Socialist Standard

Set-backs in the car industry are not new. Like other industries, it gets into difficulties each time there is a world depression. This time, however, special factors have combined with the depression to bring many well-established companies to the verge of ruin, and to throw an abnormal number of motor workers out of their jobs. First was the enormous rise in the price of petrol. This reduced overall demand for cars and called for new models more economical in petrol consumption. a change-over to which some companies, including Chryslers, failed to adjust themselves. The whole world pattern of car production and export has been reshaped by the spectacular rise of the Japanese motor industry, challenging the supremacy of the American companies.

In 1960 passenger car production in Japan was a mere 165,000, compared to 6,675,000 in America and 1.359,000 in Britain. Between 1960 and 1974, world production doubled, but output in America rose by only 10 per cent. and their share of the world total fell from 53 to 28 per cent. But in Japan output had jumped to nearly 4 million, putting their car industry in second place to America’s 7,332.000 Now. seven years later. Japan is on the way to being the world’s leading producer of passenger cars, and is already by far the biggest exporter. This happened because output in Japan has gone on growing in the depression while in the rest of the world it has fallen. In 1980 the output of the American company. General Motors, dropped by 26 per cent. and Toyota now challenges General Motors for first place in the world. (The course of events in commercial load vehicles is much the same as in passenger cars.)

The Japanese companies have won their success by invading the home markets of the rest of the world, forcing the local-based companies to compete by reducing prices and often selling at a loss. In spite of motor workers’ wages having been kept below the rise in prices (and in some cases reduced) most of the world’s motor companies are losing money. In America in 1980 the losses were: General Motors £500 million, Fords £677 million, American Motors (owned by Renault) £88 million and Chryslers £767 million — the biggest loss of any company in American history In Britain British Leyland lost £535 million, yet the big Japanese companies all made a profit, for example Toyota £568 million. The number of motor workers has gone on increasing in Japan, but in America 25 per cent have been laid off and the loss of jobs in the British industry is on the way to 100.000. In an earlier setback in 1965-7, the production of motors in Britain fell 10 per cent. Since 1977 output has dropped by 30 per cent.

As far as the world depression is concerned, with its consequent reduction of sales of motor vehicles world-wide (except in Japan), the companies can count on capitalism reversing the downward trend and expanding again some time or other. Many companies (including British Leyland) are investing in new models with that in view. But none of the governments has discovered a method of bringing about recovery and preventing further depressions in the future. Capitalism goes its own way whatever policies governments follow. This ineffectiveness of government policy was highlighted in Britain by the manifesto of 364 economists declaring that the Thatcher government policies are wrong and will not bring about "sustained economic recovery”. There is no policy that will do this, but if the 364 think there is, why have they not let us into the secret? After two centuries of capitalism and a score of depressions during which every possible variation of government policy has been and failed, all they can offer us is that "the time has come . . . to consider urgently which alternative offers the most hope". In other words, the 364, many of them responsible for advising past failed policies, cannot even agree among themselves on what to do.

In all the countries invaded by the cheap Japanese motor vehicles, the companies and the Unions have responded by urging their governments to curb imports; in the first place by agreement with Japan, and failing that, by imposing import restrictions. Officials of the Transport and General Workers’ Union told MPs at a meeting in the House of Commons: “The British car industry will be dead within five years without import controls” (The Times 4/3/81). The demand for import restrictions does not even pretend to be a policy for protecting the world's car workers against unemployment. It would merely reduce unemployment in some countries and increase it in Japan The Japanese companies estimate that a 15 per cent cut in their exports would put 70,000 Japanese workers out of their jobs (The Times 31/3/81).

Japanese motors are not the only ones being sold in the British market. The countries of origin include America, Germany, France, Italy, Sweden, Spain, Russia, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and a Rumanian car is to be on sale here in the autumn. There is, of course, a reverse movement. British Leyland (along with car firms in Europe and America) is hoping to get into the Japanese market, and is planning to export its cars to Europe. Jointly with Peugeot they are to assemble and market a Peugeot car in Australia.

In several countries the hard-pressed motor companies have succeeded in getting government subsidies or loans. Contrary to declared government policy, British Leyland recently received £990 million and Chrysler of America have been saved, at least temporarily, from bankruptcy by a US government-backed loan of £360 million last year and £180 million this year. President Reagan’s statement: “This does not imply that this government approves of baling out private companies in difficulties”, sounds like Sir Keith Joseph telling MPs how it comes about that the Thatcher government has reluctantly adopted the same policy.

Having exploited to the full the direct export of cars to foreign markets, Japanese companies are now planning to set up plants inside these markets. They are negotiating to manufacture in Britain, thereby gaining unrestricted access to the whole EEC market, providing they use materials that are 80 per cent EEC origin.

One of these companies is Nissan, makers of the Datsun. They plan to invest £275 million, to produce 200,000 cars a year, subject to finding a site of the right size and location, and reaching agreement with the components companies and the trade unions. Nissan already has. or is planning, car plants in America, Mexico, Spain. Italy, Australia and Taiwan, and plans to manufacture motor components in Ireland. Toyota, Japan's largest motor company, has so far not favoured setting up plants abroad, but it is reported (Sunday Times 22/3/81) that they are considering joint production with Fords in America.

British Leyland has reached agreement to build a Honda-designed car in Britain and discussions are reported to have reached agreement on joint production of the Mini-Metro in Japan. Japanese cars dominate world exports because they are competitive in price and quality. The Chairman and Managing Director of Fords in Britain said:— "The Japanese, more than anyone, have the ability to produce high quality vehicles on a massive scale at low cost." (Daily Mail 4/4/81). (He also said that Nissan’s plan to set up a plant in Britain “could be catastrophic for this country’s motor industry”.)

Whatever may have been true in the past, it is not because wages in Japan are lower. Car workers’ wages in Japan are now higher than the British. The Japanese companies score because their productivity (output per worker) is higher. Their plants are all new, or relatively new, and all use the latest and most efficient machinery and techniques. They have developed more efficient methods of management and work organisation, avoiding costly production hold-ups through delays in the chain of processes, and using fewer staff in supervision and control. Having succeeded in getting continuous strike-free production in motor plants in Japan, the managements are looking for the same in Britain. According to an article in the Financial Times (25.2.81) the Nissan Company in its search for the right site will not look at plants or districts with a record of frequent strikes.

A problem British motor companies have had to handle is the multiplicity of unions. Lord Scanlon said in 1972, when he was President of the Engineering Union, that it takes members of 38 separate unions to make a motor car (Sunday Times 9/4/72).

The Nissan Company is insisting as one of the conditions for setting up its plant in Britain that there must be agreement for only one union to represent all the workers. Whether and how this obstacle can be overcome with the unions remains to be seen. The company is also insisting on the abolition of union demarcation practices. The Japanese style of manning is already being copied to a limited extent by Fords at Dagenham, with a proposal to abolish the whole grade of General Foreman.

As regards the future of American and European motor companies, an article in the Financial Times (23/2/81) takes the line that their only way to survive is to equal the high productivity and quality control of the Japanese companies, by learning to apply Japanese techniques in their factories. Those who fail to do so will go under, as happened in the American television industry, when it was faced with an onslaught from Japanese exporters similar to that in the motor industry.

British Leyland hopes to reduce its losses in 1981-2, but expects to take from five to ten years to achieve “business results of a standard which will attract external funds on normal commercial terms". (Financial Times 20/3/81). Some observers think that it will never pay its way and is doomed to founder.

In the all-pervading gloom that overhangs the British motor industry, there is one small corner in which the sun still shines. The Financial Times (20/3/81) reported: “Sir Michael Edwards. B.L. Chairman, has almost completed arrangements to sign his first contract with the company. This is expected to raise his salary to about £100,000 a year".

Do You Know? (1930)

From the March 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

That an Examiner in the Bankruptcy Department of the Civil Service, who was fired on the 18th February for accepting a bribe, was paid the munificent rate of £4 5s. 0d. per week? And yet you are urged to support Government ownership!

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That according to Fenner Brockway, London M.P., and member of the National Council of the I.L.P., "The present tendency is that, despite a Labour Government, Capitalism is being strengthened.” And yet the I.L.P. urge you to support the Labour Government!

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That Baron Rothschild and his friends, "in a six weeks' trip . . . bagged five lions, five buffaloes, two rhinoceros, and five antelopes.” They did it from an aeroplane because it was safer! And yet one and a half millions of workers cannot find a job, and the rest are urged to accept reductions because industry "cannot afford to pay” a decent wage to all!

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That British motor-car producers (in the interests of free competition!) threaten to "force British agents to sell only British cars . . . It is the intention in future contracts, it is understood, to change the wording to enable the supply of cars by any British maker to an offending agent to be stopped at once. All producing firms in the British motor industry have agreed to this.” And yet the hypocrites who rule us complain and threaten war when the Chinaman or the Hindu suggests "supporting their home industries” !

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That the Labour Party are only administering Capitalism, like the previous Governments, and therefore cannot make any appreciable difference in the number of unemployed, because they cannot force the self-acting doors on the tube railways to bring back the discharged porters, the automatic machines to bring back the booking clerks that are superfluous or all the other improvements in machines and organisation—in Government departments as well as outside—that "save labour” to suddenly bring back the workers that have been rendered superfluous. All sections of the International Capitalist class are engaged in a mad rush to obtain markets by cheapening production, i.e., by reducing the number of workers employed to produce given quantities of goods.

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That Ramsay MacDonald has found from his practical experience of "Government” that his earlier ideas were too "advanced”? That’s what comes of wearing a top-hat and going to dinner with "the people that prey.”

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That "the Angel of Mons were motion pictures thrown upon 'screens' of foggy white cloudbanks in Flanders by cinematograph projecting machines mounted on German aeroplanes which hovered above the British lines,” that the British Command was aware of the trick and turned the vision to their own benefit? No means are too despicable for employment in modern wars, because the latter are the product of one of the most despicable instincts—profit-seeking.

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That Lord Beaverbrook’s new party is only the latest stunt to keep the worker’s mind off the real cause of his troubles—the private ownership of the means of production. One can prophecy with a fair amount of confidence the line the next General Election will take: On the one side, Conservatives, and on the other Liberals and Labourites arguing about the incidence of this or that item of taxation, and the worker’s slave position will be obscured by the smoke screen of useless argument. Whether there are high taxes, low taxes or no taxes, the worker remains a slave to the owners of the means of production, who, at the same time, are the rulers of society today. And until the worker turns a deaf ear to all kinds of stunts he will remain a slave.

Gilmac.

Cheap lives again (1978)

From the September 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

In May this year, the Socialist Standard commented on the case which revealed that the Ford Motor Company of America deliberately allowed cars on the road which they knew had a lethal design fault, which resulted in hundreds of deaths and injuries. This happened because Ford, knowing of the danger, decided that it was actually cheaper to continue the slaughter and pay damages than to redesign the cars. This time though, their calculations went wrong; one victim of their diabolical attitude was able to claim such a high award of damages as to upset their entire calculations.

What is good for Ford, is good enough for British Leyland. The Guardian (13/7/78) reports that BL have been building Allegro cars with a fault which is actually liable to cause wheels to drop off! What is so astonishing (or is it?) is that BL, a nationalised industry be it noted (so much for the claim that nationalisation would somehow mean a different form of capitalism), like Ford, knowing of the danger, decided to sit tight and do nothing about it.

Indeed BL tried to shift the blame onto one of its distributors. They did not get away with it; two hapless victims of this cold-blooded decision sued the company after they had suffered horrible injuries when their car lost a rear wheel. In giving judgment against BL for the damages suffered as a result of the accident the judge said:

  They (i.e. BL) were faced with mounting and horrifying evidence of wheels coming adrift. Any of the cases could have had fatal results. In my view, the duty of care owed by Leyland to the public was to make a clean breast of the problem and recall all cars for safety washers to be fitted. They knew the full facts. They saw to it that no one else did.

One more example of the inhumanity of capitalism; the society that makes profitable production the chief aim, and treats human beings as expendable. Who’s ready for a change?

Ronnie Warrington

Racing For Markets (1952)

From the September 1952 issue of the Socialist Standard

Behind the thrill and excitement of motor racing, lies yet another example of the means used to satisfy the ever growing necessity to maintain and increase export markets. The constant stream of vehicles pouring out of motor factories must be disposed of, and what better advertisement is there for a firm in pursuance of this purpose than to show prowess on the race track. This year’s Le Mans, the 24-hour race for production cars, ended in a triumph for the German Mercedes-Benz Company, and Mr. Robert Raymond, writing in the Picture Post (28th June) has this to say on the matter:

   "The result of the Le Mans 24-hour race comes, unfortunately, not as a shock, but as a confirmation of an uneasiness many thoughtful people feel about the British attitude to motor racing.
   “One can make out a case for the casual and truly amateur British attitude to most sports, but motor racing is more than a sport, it is a business—a big and serious business.
   “And success or failure in an international race has far-reaching effects on one of our biggest export industries.
  “Remembering this, one cannot shrug off Le Mans . . .  After the B.R.M. fiasco this débâcle has done untold damage to our prestige and exports abroad.”

Mr. Raymond has obviously no illusions as to which aspect of motor racing is the most important. The race track, besides being the scene of first-class driving, is also a battle-ground of commerce, where the friendly rivalry of sportsmen is overcast by the dark shadow of the profit motive, producing rivalry of a very different kind, which often ends in disaster, and sometimes—greatest disaster of all—war.

Behind the careering chariot of Capitalism in its race for markets comes the working class, chained by their ignorance to a system which does not and cannot run in their interests, but is only the cause of their troubles. It is time you broke the chain, took the wheel yourselves, and drove all out for Socialism.

It is up to you.

Ian Jones

The Passing Show: The BMC Strike (1959)

The Passing Show column from the October 1959 issue of the Socialist Standard

The BMC Strike

The recent strike of workers employed on the new small car produced by the British Motor Corporation evoked some curious statements by the employers. The employees were dissatisfied with the rates of pay offered them for the work on the new car, alleging that they meant a reduction in wages. To this, a representative of the management replied:—

The company regard this as blackmail and want it to be understood clearly that they are not prepared to hold any discussions until normal work is resumed. The Guardian, 1-9-59.

Those who defend capitalism sometimes do so on the grounds that free bargaining is the best way to reach fair prices for the goods or services that everyone has to offer. The workers, they say, are not forced to work for any particular employer, or for any particular wage; they are free to bargain, and thus arrive a "fair" wage. This ignores the fact that the workers are in the nature of the case exploited by their employers; no business-owner will employ a man to work for him unless the man brings him a surplus over and above the value of his wages.

But even ignoring the exploitation of the workers, on which the whole capitalist system is founded, and even accepting the arguments about “free” bargaining and “fair” wages, how can the BMC defend its attitude? The workers are not prepared to accept the pay offered them for this particular job, and so stop work until agreement can be reached between the two sides. In doing this they are merely acting in accord with the teachings of the classical laissez- faire capitalist economists (“each acting to forward his own interests will produce the greatest general good”). But the BMC refuse even to discuss the question until the men resume work on the BMC’s terms! When that happens of course, the employers are free to spin out the talks as long as they want to— negotiations, adjournments, deferments committees, re-appraisals—and all the time the men are working on the BMC’s terms. It is exactly as if the men were to say that they would not even start talks until the BMC employs them at the higher rate of pay they are asking. If the men did this how Fleet Street would gasp in horror; how the leader-writers would lash themselves into a frenzy, denouncing such a departure from the established ways of behaviour! But when the employers do it, that’s all right. Fleet Street certainly gasped in horror at the latest BMC strike; but, the reason was that the workers had dared to cease work, instead of accepting whatever the management graciously decided to pay them, and touching their forelocks in gratitude that they were paid anything at all.

Fleet Street denounces forced labour when practiced by the Russians in faraway Siberia; but the only thing which appears likely to satisfy the big newspaper owners, and their class-comrades the big industrialists, is to forbid the workers to strike in any circumstances, and establish forced labour in this country as well.

Disaster

Religiously inclined people present many problems to the inquiring mind. After the recent crash of a Dakota near Barcelona, which resulted in the deaths of all on board, a man who narrowly failed to catch the plane is reported to have said “God saved me” (Daily Herald, 21-8-59). Does he, one wonders, really believe that the Almighty personally intervened in his case, and put difficulties in his way so that he wouldn't catch the plane? If the Almighty went to this trouble, why didn’t he stop the other passengers catching the plane, or indeed simply prevent it crashing? Perhaps the Christian theologians could answer this question—they must have had a lot of practice—but to the rest of us it remains puzzling. 

In the East

Another event reported the same day is also difficult to understand. At a Buddhist procession in Ceylon an elephant ran amok and killed fourteen people, including eleven women and a child. The Guardian, 21-8-59. Christians pondering on the Barcelona air crash can reflect that their Buddhist rivals will have an even harder time explaining this disaster away.

Plums

A correspondent of the Daily Herald (26-8-59) raises the following point:—

I read . . . the other day that there is a plum glut in Worcestershire, and that the fruit would be left to rot. Why can’t they be picked and sent to orphanages, children’s homes and hospitals?

It’s a comment often heard. If there is too much food at a certain time or place, why can’t it be given to those who really need it ?

The answer is that we live under a capitalist system. It wouldn’t pay anybody to transport the surplus fruit from Worcestershire to the people who could eat it. And, by capitalist ethics, what doesn’t pay isn't done. Besides that, to distribute free fruit to institutions like those mentioned in the letter would mean that they would reduce their purchases through the normal channels. This would strike at the profits of the middlemen and the farmers. However generous and kind-hearted such men may be personally, they can only stay in business if they play the capitalist game; and they would have to resist any suggestion which would have the effect of destroying their own trade.

There is a way in which we could distribute the products of society freely to the members of society; and that, of course, is the establishment of Socialism.

Alwyn Edgar