Dynamite. (1908)

From the September 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

Every day produces fresh proofs that it (unrestricted competition) results in combination, whereby all economic freedom is at an end, and both the small competitor and the consumer are helpless in face of a trust. Under these circumstances Free Traders must revise their arguments.—Daily News, 6.8.08.

They certainly must if they wish to keep their end up in the genial game of “coddem.”

_____________

Mr. W. Johnson, Liberal-Labour M.P. and Secretary of the Warwickshire Miners’ Association, who stated in the King’s Bench Division recently that, with the exception of his salary and expenses, he had not put a penny of the Association’s money in his pocket, received as salary £3 10/- a week, from the Permanent Relief Society, £1 10/- a week, and from the Miners’ Federation of Great Britain, £350 a year. Total, £11 15/- per week and expenses. Verily a starvation wage.

_____________

Mr. Jenkins, K.C., in the Chancery Division (20.7.08) quoted from the reports of the Labour Party, showing that out of £1,000 received in fees, all but £257 was paid by trade unions. Of the Parliamentary fund of £8,594, all but £189 was paid by trade unions, the A.S.R.S. paying £583. The I.L.P. paid fifteen guineas in fees and £175 in levy, and the Fabian Society paid £10 11/-. Yet they had one-third of the representation on the Labour Party, and controlled the policy.

You may fool some of the trade unionists all the time. You may fool all the trade unionists some of the time. But neither I.L.P. nor Fabian Society, past masters though they be in subterranean methods, can fool all the trade unionists all the time.

_____________

Is it not possible to shew that the real interests of employers lie in the fact that if children could be taught for a longer time they would be more useful in their employment ?—Sir Norman Lockyer.

_____________

There is a vast army of men and women, wretchedly poor, living under abject and squalid conditions, and existing on a pittance eked out by the poor rate and private charity. . . . Factory and sanitary legislation have failed to remedy the condition of these people and a decision of the High Court has deprived them of the benefits of the Truck Acts.—The Home Secretary, House of Commons.

_____________

We have now entered, it would seem, upon an era of comparative depression. Free Trade countries no more than Protectionist countries can escape from these periodical slacknesses in the wealth-making power of the world.—H. H. Asquith, Cobden Club Dinner, 4.8.08.

Then what’s the good of Free Trade ?

_____________

The boys of the bull-dog breed !

Mr. Haldane informed Mr. Thorne (House of Commons, 13.7.08) that of 34,808 men who offered themselves during the year ending 30.9.07 for enlistment in several important centres, 16,297, or 46 per cent., were rejected as medically unfit. Of these the rejections in Manchester represented 72 per cent, of the applicants in that town, Dundee, 71 per cent., Newcastle, 70 per cent., Birmingham, 58 per cent., and London, 41 per cent.

_____________

“An enquiry was then held on the second child, which died on Saturday, 1.8.08, Ada Florence White, aged seven months. Dr. Chas. Stanham said the child was very emaciated, but it was only normal for such a poor neighbourhood as Hackney Wick.” Rule Britannia !

_____________

In the preface to Blue Book on Criminal Statistics, Mr. W. J. Farrant, Superintendent of the Statistical Branch of the Home Office, says that the decrease of crime in 1906 coincides and may be attributed to some extent to increased prosperity.

Voice From The Back: Is This The Way In Amarillo? (2007)

The Voice From The Back Column from the February 2007 issue of the Socialist Standard

Is This The Way In Amarillo?

“In March, 2005 a nuclear warhead almost exploded in Texas. The near miss accident occurred in Amarillo, when workers at the Pantex nuclear weapons plant bungled the dismantling of a W-56 warhead, a weapon 100 times stronger than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima during World War 2. Details of the averted catastrophe have been kept under wraps until last month, when the Department of Energy (DOE) fined the company that operates the plant, BWX Technologies, $110,000 for safety violations. In a letter obtained by the Project on Government Oversight (POGO), technicians at the plant blamed the accident on severe working conditions, including mandatory 72 to 84 hour work weeks. One nuclear scientist told POGO that he “would not work on his car engine if he were fatigued from a 72- hour work week, and sure as hell would not work on a nuclear weapon.” (The Nation, 18 December) $110,000 fine is hardly reassuring but what is worse is the news that the plant has set its 2007 production aims for a 50 percent increase.

Viva Las Vegas?

The city of Las Vegas likes to promote itself as a tourist paradise of fun and entertainment, but there is another side to it. “This is a boomtown, but it is also scattered with signs of bust – namely homeless people. And the city is taking a hard line against them. With mixed success in the courts and on the streets, Las Vegas has tried sweeping away their encampments, closing a park where they hang out, making it a crime to feed them, even passing a ban on sleeping within 500 feet of faeces.” (Associated Press, 18 December) The mayor has even proposed moving the homeless to an abandoned prison 30 miles outside the city. The area has a population of 1.8 million but has 14,500 homeless. The mayor may seem heartless, but capitalism is a heartless society.

Post Xmas Blues

At a time when many workers are reeling from credit card demands and other reminders of our debts it is heartening to know that this is not the fate of everyone. “Sales of high priced items such as designer shoes and celebrity jewellery are breaking records, while John Lewis’s director of retail operations, Gareth Thomas confirmed that the department store group is poised to record its best ever performance. … Sales have been buoyed up by shoppers buying flat-screen televisions for second and third rooms… Mark Henderson, chief executive of tailor Gieves and Hawkes, said: `There is a definite return to formality and a flurry of sales of traditional dinner jackets starting at £1,200`” (Observer, 24 December) Fellow workers, as you sit watching your third flat-screen television in your traditional £1,200 dinner jacket you must often reflect that capitalism isn’t such a bad system after all.

New York, New York

“Food or rent? That is the daily choice faced by about 1.2 million of New York’s 8.2 million people. Faced with that choice, mostly they pay rent and rely on emergency or charity food to survive, poverty activists say. … Hunger is not unique to New York. More than 12 million households – or 35 million Americans – struggled with hunger in 2005, according to the US government. … About 3,800 people were living on the streets in 2006, according to New York City statistics.” (Reuters, 26 December) When Sinatra sang about “The City that never sleeps”, he was telling the truth – it must be hard to sleep on the street with all that traffic.

The Insecure Society

In Dundee after the Second World War the NCR company in Dundee employed over 7,000 workers, but over the years this has fallen to less than 1,500. So when Bill Nuti, the company’s chief executive announced 14 months ago that he was “one million per cent committed to the Dundee operation” the remaining workers felt relieved, but capitalism doesn’t work that way. “A total of 650 factory workers in Dundee were dismissed via transatlantic videolink by their American employer yesterday after being told that production was to be switched to cheaper plants overseas. Employees at NCR, which makes  automatic teller machines, were summoned to a meeting at midday yesterday where amidst angry scenes, the job loses were announced by videolink by Bill Nuti, the company’s chief executive.” (Times, 12 January)

Priorities

Two items appearing in the same newspaper on the same day illustrate the priorities of British capitalism. “Patients face much tougher rationing of treatments and restricted access to breakthrough drugs if the Government does not rethink its plans for health spending, the NHS’s treatment regulator has told the Times. Professor Sir Michael Rawlins, the head of the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), cited treatments ranging from new life-saving drugs to free food for the elderly in nursing homes as examples of care that could suffer if ministers slowed the rate of spending, as expected.” And … “Tony Blair defended his policy of intervention and said that more money would have to be spent on the Armed Forces to improve conditions and equipment, enable Britain to stay a warfighting power and face the threat of terrorism.” (Times, 13 January)

Open and shut (1973)

SLL paper

From the October 1973 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist Party is an open, democratic organisation. All our meetings are open to non-members and at our lectures and propaganda meetings they are invited to put their points of view in opposition to us, provided only that they respect the rules of democratic debate.

In contrast to this many so-called “socialist” groups, often professing to be democratic, deliberately exclude Socialists from their meetings — possibly because they fear that we will expose their false claims for what they are. We have received a letter from a comrade in Dundee which will illustrate this point well:

On July 3rd I was invited by a Socialist Labour League member to attend their meeting in a hall here in Dundee which was to take place on July 5th.

I accordingly arrived with another comrade and a friend, to listen to the lecture and ask questions in the ensuing discussions.

We were the first three in the room but soon afterwards another twelve or so members of the public entered and we all sat patiently awaiting the arrival of the lecturer. He entered, but instead of continuing with the meeting he asked me if I would “mind stepping outside for a minute”. Why? He told me it was a meeting to discuss SLL policy and that we weren’t welcome to sit in on it. “This is a private meeting for SLL members only”, he said.

I returned to the meeting and informed those present of the SLL decision, asking them for their opinions on it. Alas everyone seemed suddenly struck dumb and the lecturer’s democratic (?) decision was final.

He then became rather nasty and argumentative, and said if we didn’t leave of our own accord they would “have to remove” us. We pointed out that our companion had no party allegiance so how did he stand? “He can stay if he likes, but we don’t want you at our meetings” said the lecturer, who was by now becoming rather aggressive.

Not wishing to cause any trouble we left, but not before informing those present that the SLL censorship was no different from that of Mary Whitehouse or the Capitalist mass media.

The SLL ironically enough demand “The right of freedom of speech”, but it seems this is only if one agrees with what they say. They demand “The right to defend rights”, but if one should try to exercise any of those “rights” at their meetings, then they’ll throw you out. If someday the SLL should gain control of the capitalist system, will we Socialists have “The right of freedom of speech”? Or will this privilege be reserved only for those who toe the party line and support the state-capitalist dictatorship they seek to impose?

Incidentally as the meeting was for SLL members only why was a CP member member allowed to stay? Why were those people with no party allegiance allowed to stay?

Yours fraternally.

J McFarlane, 

Dundee.

Proper Gander: the richest and poorest (2023)

The Proper Gander column from the January 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard

Channel 5 doesn’t draw much attention to itself, but it occasionally reminds us that it’s there by showing something memorable, such as How The Other Half Live. This two-part documentary is presented by actor Brian Cox, currently most known for playing ‘churlish billionaire’ Logan Roy in the American comedy-drama series Succession. His acting career was an escape from his early years growing up in a struggling family of shopkeepers in 1950s Dundee. He found opportunities among the bright lights of London and 30 years ago relocated to America. He says that his work is lucrative enough for him to be ‘comfortable’, denies being one of the rich and says that money is his ‘own personal demon’ because of the difficulties of his upbringing.

So, ‘Brian goes on a personal quest as he explores our relationship with money and wealth’, as Channel 5’s website puts it. He talks with people about how their lives are shaped by the amount they have, while infographics pop up to give some wider context.

Cox meets a model and social media influencer who gets paid for her posts about fashion and her lifestyle by companies whose products she promotes to her 4.5 million Instagram followers. When asked whether she’s encouraging her fans to spend money they don’t have she replies ‘I am motivating people to work on themselves to afford that things [sic]’. In Miami, Cox visits a property developer who has made millions in commission for selling high-end apartments. New developments of luxury dwellings are shunting out people who would never be able to afford to live in them. Cox talks with Elsa who is facing eviction after the downmarket apartment block she lives in was sold to developers to be knocked down and replaced. Most of those being pushed towards homelessness by this kind of gentrification are low-paid people from immigrant backgrounds.

Another area where poverty disproportionately affects non-white people is Harlem, where homelessness is almost as prevalent as during the depression of the 1930s. New York is a magnet for homeless people as it provides ‘the illusion of care’, being the only state which has a ‘right’ to shelter enshrined in law. But for many, this ‘right’ is only to a space in a grim dormitory where people get stuck for years. The CEOs of these shelters receive an income which those living in them will never get close to. Data from the Institute of Policy Studies is quoted saying that for every dollar an average worker makes, a CEO receives 600, with Amazon’s head raking in 6,474 times as much as someone on an average wage.

The ‘American dream’ says that if you’re poor it’s because you haven’t tried hard enough in the land of opportunity. Those who are born into wealth don’t have to try hard, such as Sam Logan, whose family’s fortune clocks up at 8.5 billion dollars. It’s not clear why he agreed to be interviewed on the programme, as he doesn’t like to talk about growing up being able to have whatever he likes. More vocal is Chris Smalls, who found that hard work doesn’t lead to living the dream. After he led a protest about unsafe working conditions and low pay at Amazon’s Staten Island warehouse he was fired from his job and went on to form an activist group of workers and later a union. Amazon refuses to recognise the union and Smalls quotes reports that the company has spent 4.3 million dollars trying to restrict its influence, which he suspects is an underestimate

Returning to the area where he grew up, Cox visits a community larder near Dundee, a charity which sells stock donated from supermarkets which has gone past its best-before date. This service is the only way which the two hundred people who go there each week can afford enough food. The larder charges a small fee so that the people who use it don’t feel ashamed at getting handouts, which somehow makes the situation even more tragic.

Cox reacts with frustration and anger when he sees that poverty similar to that which he lived through as a child is still found in Dundee. In a shot which the programme makers deserve some credit for not editing out, he says that the documentary could feel mercenary, and he worries about it crossing a line. This would be into the genre of ‘poverty porn’, where depictions of the poor are used as entertainment or to generate an emotional response which prompts a purchase or support of a cause. The difference between this kind of propaganda and drawing attention to a problem is in how an issue is covered. ‘Poverty porn’ implies a selective impression, probably for cynical motives, rather than reportage. Cox’s documentary is blunt, and doesn’t aim to deeply analyse the reasons behind the wide disparities in wealth, but it gives those interviewed enough space to talk to avoid being exploitative.

Predictably, what How The Other Half Live lacks is any decent proposed solutions to the problems highlighted. A ‘fair wealth tax’ is supported by none other than John Caudwell, the 115th richest person in the UK (and who arrives by helicopter), and he perhaps says this while knowing it can never happen. But apart from that Cox only comes up with the vague directive to ‘stop loading the dice in favour of the rich and find a sense of unified purpose’. He says this right at the end of the programme, although it would have been a more interesting starting point.

Mike Foster

Sting in the Tail: Timex (1) (1993)

The Sting in the Tail column from the August 1993 issue of the Socialist Standard

Timex (1)

Another expert on capitalist enterprise has bitten the dust. He is Timex president Peter Hall. He resigned his post in June although in May he was telling The Herald that “he wasn't a quitter and he would see the dispute through to a resolution".

At that time he was full of confidence about the future of the Timex factory in Dundee:

Timex has been in Dundee for 50 years and we will he here for at least another 50 years, despite the fact that some people seem not to want us here.

Five weeks after that confident forecast he had resigned and the company announced that the factory would close in December. Just another example of the complete unpredictability of the capitalist system and the “experts'" lack of understanding it.

Timex (2)

When Timex’s owner Fred Olsen told the striking Timex workers that they should “reflect calmly” before rejecting the reduced wages and conditions they had been offered, Willie Leslie, the deputy shop stewards’ convenor, replied angrily:

How dare a man described as one of the richest multi-millionaires in the world tell workers who earned £125 a week that they need to tighten their belts to make sure . . . that the profits continue to roll into the Olsen empire. (Guardian. 5 June).

His anger was a natural reaction but does he think Timex is in business to provide jobs for workers? Its aim must be to maximize profits but the Dundee factory is a loss-maker, and as Peter Hall put it bluntly “we have to turn this place round".

Faced with the resolve of the strikers, Timex will now close the Dundee factory. Is this another defeat for the working class? Maybe, but if this dispute serves as a warning to other employers that there is a limit to what workers will endure then the struggle of the Timex strikers will not have been in vain.

Tinkerbenn

Tony Benn has in the past shown that he has grasped at least some of the Marxist analysis of capitalism.

You would never suspect this from his ridiculously idealistic waffle in the Guardian on 29 June. Writing in anger about the American missile attack on Baghdad he correctly describes this as:

a return to Victorian imperialism with its gun-boat diplomacy, carrying out punitive raids whenever the imperial power wishes to demonstrate its strength and assert its authority in defence of its economic interests in oil and the wealth of the Third World.

And his solution? He tells us “what we need is a real New World Order". No, not the abolition of the social system which produces all this hut merely “a reformed United Nations"! Its domination by the “rich nations" is to he swept away and “replaced by policies that are in accord with the Charter of the UN”.

Benn, like all reformers, really believes that with a bit of tinkering capitalism can exist without the warts which are such a fundamental part of it.

That reserve army

Will Hutton, economic editor of the Guardian, wrote on 22 June:

In the middle of the 20th century Keynesian economics came to the rescue of capitalism and dispelled the Marxist claim that to work it required a reserve army of the mass unemployed.

Marx certainly held that capitalism needed what he called an “industrial reserve army" and explained why in Capital (Volume 1, chapter 25). This army was needed to provide labour for new industries without disrupting old industries which also required it and, of course, to keep down the wages of those in work.

Hutton now cites the growth of unemployment in the EC which is expected to rise to 17 million in 1994 as evidence that Keynes's rescue “has proved only temporary" and concludes:

Thus the current spectre haunting Europe is that Marx has finally been proven right—if wrong on the solution.

Marx’s “solution" to unemployment was nothing less than the establishment of socialism and obviously Hutton doesn't agree with that.

Some celebration

Did you know that the United Nations is celebrating its first International Year for the World's Indigenous People?

Trouble is no-one told the Brazilian gold and tin “wildcat" miners. The Yanomami, an ancient Amazon tribal people, are being wiped out by the “progress" of capitalism's development.

In this column we reported in February 1990 that the Yanomami, who have lived in the area for 40,000 years, had been reduced to 20,000. We now learn (Observer, 20 June) this number is down to 7,500:

In some villages there are no surviving old people and no children under two. Gold miners have shot children out of trees calling them “monkeys”, they have raped women and bombed villages, where they want to mine.

Thus does capitalisms market system “improve" the world. Only the mining companies are celebrating such progress.

Single union deals (1988)

From the June 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

Ford's decision not to go ahead with a new plant in Dundee was based, so most of the media would have us believe, on the controversy that surrounded the single union deal they had agreed with the AEU. The guilty party we were told was the TGWU who opposed the deal. So here we have the unlikely picture presented to us of the big bad TGWU scaring off the little Ford corporation who only had the good intentions of "creating employment" in the Dundee area. Of course the more likely truth is that Ford withdrew because investment in Dundee was less advantageous than it had previously seemed. What the issue did do was to bring the discussion of single union deals out into the open once again.

However as usual under capitalism, misrepresentation has replaced clear information and the debate surrounding this issue has tended to be distorted. To discuss single union deals in a clear light we need to look beneath the surface arguments. By doing this we will find that it is not so much single union deals that are in dispute as the contents of some of these agreements. Secondly we need to analyse the type of environment in which employers have found it more advantageous to sign agreements with a single union. The point here is that the issue cannot be isolated from conditions that exist within modern capitalism.

The first point to be made is that a single union having sole negotiating rights with a particular company is not something which is without precedent. Nevertheless it is true that in British industrial relations multi-union recognition, with each union representing a separate grade of workers, has been the norm. However in the past few years we have seen the growth of single union agreements and many of these have included provisions which have brought about a changed union-management relationship. Some of the earliest single union deals included the ones signed by the EETPU with Hitachi and Toshiba and the AEU's agreement with Nissan. More recently the EETPU have reached a similar agreement with Brother Industries, a Japanese-owned company based in North Wales, whilst the AEU have signed such a deal with Dunlop on Tyneside and the GMB have agreed to a single union deal with British Cable Services owned by Robert Maxwell. In 1985 the TGWU was manoeuvred into accepting a single union agreements at the Norsk Hydro Plant at Immingham on Humberside where the company had previously recognised the EETPU, AEU and ASTMS. [1] 

Ford in Dundee

The growth of single union deals is thus undeniable. But the controversy over them is not, as the media would have us believe, merely over the concept of single unionism but has more to do with the contents of some of these agreements and the way in which they are concluded. This fact stands out particularly in relation to the AEU's agreement with Ford at the proposed plant for Dundee. What precisely was it about the deal that the TGWU objected to? Whilst of course it could be pointed out that had the TGWU been the union chosen their attitude might have been different there is evidence to suggest that the TGWU would not have accepted the agreement as it stood. Firstly, the leadership of the two unions stand far apart on the issue of single union deals and also with the current balance on the TGWU national executive favouring the left it is unlikely that such an agreement could or would have been accepted. Secondly it seems likely that Ford chose the AEU because they were more likely to agree to a package that undercut the existing national agreement between the company and the unions covering pay and conditions for 44,000 workers at 22 plants. Furthermore the leadership of the AEU and the EETPU have been the most willing to organise plants and companies not by recruiting members but by approaching top management of the companies concerned. For example in the deal agreed to between the EETPU and Brother Industries, whilst the TGWU were attempting to recruit workers at that company the EETPU negotiated a deal with the company to gain sole negotiating rights for all employees at the company's electronic typewriter plant at Wrexham and its microwave oven plant at Ruabon, seemingly without the agreement of the employees concerned.

Certainly the TGWU's criticism of the AEU 's deal with Ford seems justified from a trade union point of view. Ron Todd, General Secretary of the TGWU, highlighted the dangers of the deal in the following way.

Ford planned to exploit Dundee's need for investment by setting up a low pay wedge there.

The point of this was to undermine the pay and conditions won through years of struggle. The danger was, Todd continued:

That the company would close down their plants and transfer their work to Dundee at sub standard wages.

Once Ford had been allowed to locate the plant without honouring national agreements how long would it be. Todd asked, before it "decides to try the same trick again?" The point is. then, that the content of the agreement is the stumbling block and not the fact that only a single union is involved. Furthermore one of the most important aspects is how the company or plant is organised. Is it to be on the basis of recruitment of the workers concerned or by negotiations with the company over the heads of the employees? The latter is no basis for solid trade union organisation.

No-strike agreements 

Several single union deals contain "no-strike" provisions. For example most, if not all, of the agreements involving the EETPU include no-strike clauses and several of these make use of pendulum arbitration. Under this method if the two sides reach deadlock on a certain issue then it is resolved by an outside and so-called independent arbitrator who is bound to decide in favour of either the company or the union there being no possibility of a compromise solution. The argument in favour of such a method is that the two sides will be encouraged to reach a negotiated settlement due to the danger that the arbitrator may decide against them. The problem from a trade union viewpoint is that being unable to take any industrial action they will be unable to put any pressure on the arbitrator. In a situation where the company is determined to force through a change it is unlikely that the arbitrator's decision will be reached on the basis of neutrality. Whilst this system may provide some benefit to workers' organisations when they are in a weak bargaining position, unions tied to such agreements will be unable to use their full might when they are in a stronger bargaining position. It is this longer term goal, the ability to constrain union bargaining power when it is at its height, that lies behind the desire of employers for no-strike agreements as part of single union deals. It could of course be pointed out that such agreements are not as yet legally binding but action could be taken against any employees who engage in industrial action on an individual basis in breach of contract.

Not all of the single union deals signed in recent years include no-strike provisions. For example the agreements between the GMB and British Cable Services and between Dunlop's Tyneside plant and the AEU do not include such a clause. The agreement involving the GMB stipulates that both sides should not take any industrial action while a dispute is in procedure. The AEU's deal with Dunlop states that if management and the union cannot resolve a dispute they will mutually accept ACAS conciliation. The agreement between the TGWU and Norsk includes a six stage procedure for the resolution of collective issues. Stage six. if reached, allows for the matter to be put to a secret ballot, with the wording on the ballot form subject to joint agreement. The clause relating to the overall dispute procedure states that during all stages of the procedure:

  It is clearly understood that there will be no deviation from normal working by way of coercion or disruptive action by individuals or groups etc. in any circumstances . . . The company in return will not invoke any form of lockout.

It goes on to warn workers that.

should any individual or group of employees wish to challenge this practice he/she or they will be severely disciplined 

Trade union representation 

Some single union deals also include the type of communication mechanisms that exist in many of the more sophisticated non-union companies. For example, in many of the EETPU deals and in the TGWU's agreement with Norsk, there exists a Company Advisory Board or in the latter case a council. The agreement between the EETPU and Toshiba includes a provision for the establishment of a Company Advisory Board (CoAB). In many ways the function of this body limits the traditional role of the trade unions. The CoAB at Toshiba includes the following provisions. Regarding the election of employee representatives to sit on this body it states that in areas where trade union representation exists the candidate may be either a unionist or non-unionist. Regarding the role of a CoAB member it stipulates that a person should come to a meeting with an open mind and should not be mandated. In addition the member must not be committed to a trade union line. Furthermore the rules accepted by the EETPU state:

  The EETPU. recognises that all collective issues will be raised at CoAB in the first instance and will only be taken up by the trade union if they cannot be resolved by CoAB advice. [3]

The CoAB thus reduces trade union involvement; union representation is not welcomed and where it has trade union representatives on it they are constrained in representing either the interests of their members or union policy.

New technology

The movement in recent years to single union deals is in many ways connected to the demands and possibilities that new technology makes on, and offers to, the representatives of capital. Implicit in the following is the limitations of trade unionism as it is pulled along with, and can only respond in a defensive manner to. the dictates of capital. Here we can also see how technology under capitalism is used not to free but to chain workers to the demands of capital. For one of the most important issues for management in the 1980s is the need to be able to use labour in a flexible way so as to keep expensive production systems flowing and to meet rapid changes in market demand. Many companies who have negotiated single union deals and many others who have pursued a non-union strategy, operate in high technology industries where the need to have a flexible labour force is especially important. Where a union does exist it is obviously easier to move people from job to job in an environment where there are not separate unions representing different crafts and occupations. A flexible labour force means workers being trained in a variety of skills (cross skill training) so they can be moved around as the productive needs of the company dictate. Thus, in many high technology companies, there is a movement to single status employment conditions, common wages and conditions for both blue and white collar workers. Flexibility of labour and single status objectives, two concepts that go hand in hand, are included in most single union deals. It has in fact been noted that one of the major reasons why Nissan rejected a multi-union deal was because it was felt that this would have led to an erosion of the company's flexibility and single status objectives.

The section in the agreement between Norsk and the TGWU on flexibility states that it is the company's policy that workers will have no rigid job demarcations. It goes on to state:

  The whole objective is to achieve a level of flexibility on site so that any employee will, when the need arises, be prepared and willing to do any job regardless of status, function or position provided that the work to be done is within the individual's ability and competence level. In order to achieve this degree of flexibility the company acknowledges the need for extra training to which all employees are expected to be committed, whether it be to be trained themselves or to train others. [4]

The above objective is obviously easier in a single union rather than a multi-union environment.

The point should also be made that new technology not only creates new demands on employers which are passed on to the workforce, it also creates new opportunities for the representatives of capital in their struggle with organised labour. In the environment of the 1980s changes in technology, combined with anti-union legislation and an economic recession, have enabled employers to curtail or even end craft control and to initiate procedures to curb union bargaining power. A prime example of this was the print industry. In this situation unions have been powerless to offer much resistance.

The socialist view

What should be the attitude of a socialist or trade unionist to the type of issues we have focused on here? Firstly a pessimistic view of the future of the trade union movement in Britain can be over-emphasised. As indicated. even if single union deals continue to grow as many argue they will, it is the content of the deal that needs to be examined. One vital feature is that trade union organisation needs to be based on recruitment of employees not on agreements with top management over workers' heads. Secondly such setbacks that have occurred for unions have taken place in a hostile environment that the history of capitalism indicates will not last forever. Thirdly the type of setbacks suffered by trade unions in America where trade union density has declined to somewhere around 18 per cent from a figure of over 35 per cent in 1945, seems unlikely to be repeated in Britain. Unions in Britain in many industries have become too deeply enmeshed in the collective bargaining mechanisms to be easily removed. This factor and the new found ability of well organised groups to use secret ballots to their own advantage was evident in the recent Ford dispute as well as in other recent disputes in the motor industry in particular.

On the other hand there are many problems to overcome. The anti-democratic antiunion laws of the present government are still causing major problems as the NUS's dispute with P&O has indicated. In response to changes in new technology, a change in union structure and tactics may be required. This could perhaps develop at workplace level. For example unions at Shell have accepted more flexible working arrangements but have been able to maintain a multi-union situation. To help achieve this they have reformed their shop steward representative constituencies.

Unions are, of course, necessary and vital organisations for the working class so long as capitalism remains in operation. Any member of the working class who believes that his or her interests can be served by company consultative committees or the like has little understanding of the class struggle that takes place daily within capitalism, based as it is on the irreconcilable interests of those who produce but do not possess and those who possess but do not produce. Certainly what makes a person a socialist is an understanding of the history of working class struggle against a class with opposing interests. A reading and understanding of that history shows us that the only solution is the building of a movement which is capable of creating a society which is not divided into employers and employed or state versus people. Furthermore the society that replaces capitalism will not be based on production for exchange by means of economically coerced labour, but on production for use through understanding and voluntary co-operation. The basis of such a society is the common ownership of the means of production which will replace private or state ownership. With no class divisions based on a clash of economic interest, trade unions will no longer be necessary.

However whilst current divisions remain it is in the interests of the working class to organise themselves in trade unions, become active in them and undertake the defensive struggle within capitalism. Furthermore trade unionists should campaign for a movement free from any attachments to a political party that stands for capitalism and this of course includes the Labour Party. But trade unions have their limitations — they can only react to capitalism; they cannot end it. So trade unionists, and indeed all members of the working class, need to go further and help build a movement capable of ending the capitalist system.

Ray Carr

[1] Details of this can be found in a pamphlet produced by Northern College in co-operation with TGWU Region 10 — I. Linn. Single Union Deals. This is a case study of the Norsk Hydro Plant, at Immingham. Humberside.

[2]  I. Linn — Single Union Deals, p. 16

[3] Agreement between EETPU and Toshiba on CoAB

[4]  Linn, op. cit. p. 16

The Sacred "Family Hearth" (1923)

From the June 1923 issue of the Socialist Standard

We are often met with the statement that the Socialist proposes to abolish the family and cut the sacred hearth tie. Those whose family relations, from the point of view ot published morality, would not bear investigation fling the taunt that the Socialist is in favour of “free love” and no homes.

A very little investigation will show the emptiness of such statements.

The regular procession to the divorce courts and the legislation relating to illegitimate children, together with the frequent newspaper articles relating to sexual problems, bear witness to the fact that “free love,” of a very sordid description, is already widespread at the present moment.

And what of the hearth tie? What is this sacred family life that the wicked Socialist would destroy?

An article in the Manchester Guardian (2/5/23) gives a little information on the point. It deals with a report on “Excessive Sickness in Dundee" prepared by the Executive Board of the General Federation of Trade Unions Approved Society.

From this article we learn that the percentage of married women in Dundee that are working is 41.4, or nearly half!

  “Sir William Henderson, giving evidence before a sub-committee, said that in most confinement cases there was the difficulty of getting the women themselves to knock off work in time; they were loath to do it. It was also very difficult to check the resumption of work.”

Sir William is not reported as giving the reason that made the women loath to knock off work. Yet the reason is simple. It is not because they are in love with work —it is because they and those that depend more or less upon them must have bread. The articles states :

  "Eleven women whom Miss Quaile visited had, between them, given birth to 78 children, 48 of whom were dead—a death rate of 62 per cent. 'One poor thing’ had given birth to twelve children, all of whom were dead.
 “ ‘These facts—and they are but an epitome of those which lie to the hand of every social investigator—reveal enough' the report states, ‘indeed too much for the sensitive soul, of what is happening, not only in Dundee, but in every centre where life has become unnaturally crowded and complex. Unholy greed and social shortsightedness, resulting in overworked and ill-nourished and ill-trained womanhood; little children, too, thousands of them, carelessly given transient existences—nothing for them but to whimper out in misery too helplessly horrible for contemplation the attenuated span of life which congenital folly and post natal ignorance and criminality have allotted them.’”

What an appalling picture of life under Capitalism? Are these the sacred precincts the Socialist is taunted for attempting to invade?

Family life? What family life has the average modern wage-slave that he should fear its destruction? Working or looking for work through the hours of daylight—in a multitude of cases, both he, his wife, and often his children also. Home at night to a room or rooms that are only called home for appearance sake. In poverty and squalor they eat what the scantily furnished cupboard can provide, then sink into semi-torpor brought on by bad nourishment and excessive toil.

This state of affairs arises from the fact that the worker depends for his livelihood upon finding occupation the carrying on of which will provide profit for the owners of the means of production.

When the means of production are converted into the common property of all members of society, it will be possible for all to enjoy the fruits of labour without excessive toil under bad conditions. Then no one will depend for his existence upon the whim or the desire for profit of another. Men and women, freed from dependence upon property, will mate as mutual affection and mutual admiration dictate, and no property inspired laws will bind them to sordid, joyless lives.

Gilmac.

Then and now (1986)

From the June 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

In March, I went along to the Dundee Rep to watch the world premiere of They Farily Mak Ye Work, a play based on the life of Dundee's jute-mill workers from the First World War to the early Thirties. The play covered some of the important events of the period such as the Mill Workers' Strike of 1922 and the Means Test demonstration of 1931 but what impressed most was the quite remarkable resilience displayed by workers enduring quite dire poverty in their day to day lives.

When I left the Rep. I wondered if there were many people who had been left thinking, "Ah great, another fine play about the inter-war depression . . . I'm glad things are very different now". While in some respects life has become more comfortable for working people in the 1980s, it would be mistaken to suggest that there have been fundamental changes since the 1930s.

Exploitation

Today we are again witnessing record levels of unemployment: workers are laid off and those who remain have to work harder as their employers try to retain their share of the market. Commenting on this practice at the newly-opened Eagle Jute Mill in 1930, the Dundee and District Jute and Flax Workers' Guide (June/July 1930), stated that:

. . . a number of women were sent from the Labour Exchange on Monday morning, 30th June, and were told they had to do the work of four women. And as they declined to be "preyed upon", they left.

Unemployment 

The large reserve of young unemployed workers proved a useful source of cheap—or even free—labour in the Thirties, as one annual report of the Association of Jute Spinners and Manufacturers noted:

. . . the Ministry of Labour Trade Boards Divisional Office, Edinburgh, drew attention to two recent cases in which Dundee Jute firms had had juveniles on their premises without paying wages. The matter appeared to have arisen through permitting the juveniles to "look round" for a few days on the understanding that no wages would be paid unless, and until, the juvenile was taken on in a regular capacity. It was stated it was understood the practice was not uncommon in Dundee. (Association of Jute Spinners and Manufacturers, Fifteenth Annual Report of the Committee, 1933, p. 10)

Is today's YTS a great deal better? Employers may claim that they are taking on youngsters for social reasons, but they cannot deny that young workers are receiving pocket money for a week's exploitation.

Charities

The soup kitchens that were synonymous with the Twenties and Thirties have disappeared. So too have other features of capitalism's charity. Commenting on the dire poverty faced by some workers in Dundee in the 1920s, Mary Brooksbank recalled that:

Even the police had their Bootless Bairns Fund, for bootless bairns were a common enough sight in those days. (No Sae Lang Syne: A Tale of This City, p.29) 

Today you just have to stroll through the centre of any city to be confronted with numerous charities all with their collecting tins hoping that you will donate to the cause of Help the Aged, Shelter, Dr Barnado's and so on. All of them signs that workers suffer a great deal at the hands of this society that asks for payment before human needs are considered.

Since the 1930s, we have witnessed the proliferation of new generations of "luxury" consumer goods among working people. In the 1950s, workers increasingly began to possess televisions, cars and washing-machines—wow, the "affluent society" had really arrived! In the 1970s colour TVs and digital quartz watches went from being status symbols to commonplace items and the video seems to be heading the same way. The question is, can we really say that things have got better just because there are more consumer goods around? Often you will hear people claim that a new car is a sign that, "there must be a lot of money about" when in fact many people are up to their ears in debt as the home, the car and the household items are paid for on the never-never - mortgage or HP payments. The increase in consumer goods should not be related to what workers had in the 1930s, for it should be remembered that they then had more items than workers in, say, the 1850s. If we make comparisons we should be looking at the proportion of wealth the workers received then and receive now, from the total that workers in society have created. Now, as then, workers only receive a tiny fraction of the wealth they produce and while the employers reap the profits of our labour we are expected to be grateful for the tiny slice of the cake that is our wage or salary.

Class division

This, then, is the class divide: a conflict between owners of capital—be they mill-owners, land-owners, or shareholders in private or state-controlled industries—and the rest of us. This is the relationship that compelled our relatives in the 1930s to suffer the treadmill of wage-labour and poverty, to march for the "right to work" and which led to numerous demonstrations and cracked heads in strikes where the police clearly showed that their main function is to protect the capitalists' property rights. Looking back on the Means Test Demonstrations in Dundee on September 24 1931, Sara Craig recalled that:

. . . the policemen came on horseback and they were hittin' folk wi' their batons. They were hittin' the folk wi' their batons and chasin' them and breakin' up the crowds. (Ed. Billy Kay, Odyssey: Voices from Scotland's Recent Past. p. 13)

Only someone who had just crawled out from a hole in the ground, or had been beamed down from outer-space, would suggest that you can have a democratically accountable police force. Yet time and time again, the Labour Party and assorted left-wing romantics advocate precisely that. If anyone believes the myth of Dixon of Dock Green bobbies then they ought to ask themselves why the police's task-force was deployed against striking miners in the recent strike? Did they not defend the interests of the National Coal Board against the miners?

An alternative

The problems of poverty that we face today have led to so called solutions like "Right to Work" marches or voting Labour and expecting nationalisation to solve our problems. These "solutions" have been tried and they have failed and it is a tragedy that they have been repeated decade after decade. The sense of disappointment felt by Labour Party members and voters after 1945 must have been immense, watching the dream of the New Jerusalem fade as the Labour government showed it could not run capitalism any better than the Tories.

It is time we decided to get rid of employment and organise the production and distribution of wealth without the barrier of wages and money and the restrictions that capitalism places on our needs. One by one, this system of society stamps out the dreams, hopes and ambitions that we have at various points in our lives - they are crushed by the need to make ends meet. Common ownership is not some age-old dream of a perfect society but am immediate and realisable means of getting rid of the numerous problems that are our lot as wage-workers. The alternative to organising for socialism is the acceptance of our poverty where employers will continue to "fairly mak us work".

Derek Devine