Editorial: What the failure of the General Strike teaches (2026)

Editorial from the May 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

A general strike is the refusal to work by employees in many industries, and a manifestation of the class struggle between the working class and the capitalist class that arises within capitalist society. Syndicalists and others have seen it as a weapon to overthrow capitalism. They believe that because workers can stop production they could use this to ‘take and hold’ the places where they work and ‘lock out’ their capitalist employers. However, as long as the capitalists control political power (through political parties that support the system) it is they who have the upper hand, using their control of the powers of coercion and exploiting the fact that workers cannot hold out for long without money to buy what they need to survive.

The British general strike of 4–12 May 1926 was provoked by the mine-owners who, faced with an adverse market for coal, demanded a cut in wages and an increase in working hours from the mineworkers. The Miners’ Federation, led by A.J. Cook and others, asked the TUC to bring out all the major industries, in line with a resolution supporting the miners carried at the 1925 Congress. The Conservative government, with Stanley Baldwin as Prime Minister, had prepared for the strike by recruiting special constables and setting up the strikebreaking Organisation for the Maintenance of Supplies. During the strike millions of workers came out in support of the miners. The government monopolised the means of propaganda, however, and the BBC suppressed news that might have embarrassed the government.

After nine days the General Council of the TUC called off the general strike, betraying every resolution upon which the strike call was issued and without a single concession being gained. The miners were left alone to fight the mine-owners backed by the government with the tacit approval of the TUC and the Parliamentary Labour Party led by Ramsay MacDonald. The miners stayed out until August before being forced by starvation to accept the mine-owners’ terms of reduced wages (below 1914 level) and an increase in the working day by one hour. In other words, it was a failure even from a trade-union, let alone a socialist, point of view.

A general strike cannot be used to overthrow capitalism. At most, under favourable conditions, it can achieve some trade union or democratic political aim. To get socialism requires a class-conscious working class democratically capturing state power to prevent that power being used against them.

In 1926, the very facts that the government was firmly in control of political power, that less than two years before at the general election millions of workers had supported them and other capitalist political parties (including the Labour Party), showed that socialism was not on the political agenda.

Workers who do not vote for socialism will not strike for it. Workers who want socialism do not need to strike for it but can use their votes to deprive the capitalist class of political control. That — the need to win political control first — is the lesson of 1926.

What is a Realistic Attitude for the Working-Class? (1945)

From the October 1945 issue of the Socialist Standard

A leading article in the Daily Telegraph, July 26th, contained the following:—

“It is the intention of the General Council of the T.U.C. to recommend to the full congress when it meets next September acceptance of a scheme for compulsory national service after the end of hostilities in the far East. . . . Hitherto whenever compulsory national service has been proposed, whether in parliament or elsewhere, trade-union leaders have opposed it. Thai they should now have changed is an encouraging indication of a more realistic attitude of mind. . . . Also it is permissible to hope, trade-union leaders now see that national service is, in the truest sense of the word, democratic, and provides the best possible antidote to class-consciousness, whether it takes the form of class, war theorising or of mere foolish snobbishness.”

Surely the most realistic attitude for the trade unions together with the rest of the working-class is to take into consideration the most important facts of their existence. First their poverty. Secondly their enslavement, due to capitalist ownership of the means of life, and thirdly their incessant straggle to raise wages above the poverty line to which they are condemned by the merchandise character of their labour-power.

These facts are the outcome of the class ownership of the means of wealth-production. Consequently a realistic policy for the working-class is to organise politically with the sole object of establishing a system in which the means of wealth-production shall be the common property of all. Under such a system a real democracy and a settled plan for production and distribution would put an end to poverty. The abolition of classes would end the incessant struggle over wages by removing the cause of class antagonism-, i.e., the class ownership of the means of life and the resulting enslavement of the working-class.

This the leader writer of the Daily Telegraph might say is theorising, but it is the logical result of reasoning from hard facts, and it is on hard facts that sound theory and a realistic attitude are built up.

F. Foan

The General Strike (1976)

From the May 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

On its 50th anniversary the tales of the General Strike, real and legendary, will be told. The strike action of those Trade Unionists and others who took part was not based on a clear recognition of the position of the workers under capitalism and the class struggle resulting therefrom. The workers were not class-conscious, and therefore their actions were not a challenge to the existence of capitalism. Nevertheless, under the present order workers have to defend their living standards against their employers, and to that extent the General Strike must rank as a landmark in the history of the British working class; as the most determined display of solidarity we have seen this century. That is encouraging to the Socialist — if workers can unite on one issue for a limited purpose, they can certainly unite on the greater issue of Socialism. “Unity is strength”, and “A house divided against itself shall fall”.

In 1925 the mine owners, faced with the re-emergence of Germany as a trade competitor, served notice on the Miners’ Federation to terminate the National Agreement ending the minimum wage and demanding severe wage cuts. Working hours were to be increased from 7 to 8 hours daily without extra pay, and District Agreements were to replace the existing National one. The miners put their objections before the TUC at a joint meeting held on 10th July 1925. The TUC supported the miners, set up a special commission, and issued instructions to all railway and transport workers forbidding the movement of coal and the handling of export coal. “All men engaged in delivering coal to commercial and industrial concerns will cease Friday night 31st July”. A specially summoned conference of Trade Union executive committee members gave unanimous support to these instructions.

Baldwin (the Prime Minister) summoned miners and mine owners to 10 Downing Street on the morning of Friday 31st July 1925 (“Red Friday”) and announced the granting of a subsidy to the coal industry amounting to about £25 million, extending over nine months. The wage cuts and other demands of the mine owners were postponed until April 1926. Evidently the government was not ready, but the nine months’ respite gave them time to set up their strike-breaking organization OMS (Organisation for the Maintenance of Supplies), the appointment of civil commissioners, and the enrolling of large numbers of special constables and the formation of mobile police squads. Winston Churchill, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, said: “We therefore decided to postpone the crisis in the event of averting it, or if not averting it, of coping effectively with it when the time came”.

In the meantime a Royal Commission, presided over by Sir Herbert Samuel, presented its report. The report was very definite in demanding wage reductions and the lengthening of the working day, and it became clear that the government would back the mine owners. A. J. Cook, the miners’ leader, in his pamphlet The Nine Days recalls the attitude of Ramsay MacDonald and the Parliamentary Labour Party in relation to the evidence placed before the Commission. “The only difference of opinion was between the industrial movement and the political movement regarding compensation for the royalty owners. Strange to say, the leaders of the Parliamentary Labour Party who had been preaching Socialism for many years were the ones who opposed the policy of the Miners’ Federation and the Trade Union Congress in regard to the question of compensation or confiscation of royalties”.

Before the Commission report came out, the British coal owners declared publicly that they would never again meet the miners’ representatives, nor submit to National agreements, and that they would insist on District agreements. This was an attempt to break the solidarity of the miners since the building up of the Miners Federation. The Federation, at a meeting held on April 9th 1926, re-affirmed its total opposition to the mine-owners’ proposals. Later, on 14th April 1926, the TUC Negotiating Committee passed the following resolution: “This Committee reiterates its previous declaration to render the miners the fullest support in resisting the degradation of the standards of life, and to obtain an equitable settlement of the case with regards to wages, hours and a National agreement”. In April 1926 the coal owners announced that unless the miners accepted their terms, a reduction in wages and the working day lengthened by one hour, they would close down the mines as from 1st May. This effectively “locked out” one million miners.

A conference of the Trade Union executives was held on Saturday 1st May at the Memorial Hall, Farringdon St, London, and two decisions were made: (1) That no negotiations should take place until the lock-out notices had been withdrawn, and (2) that the General Council of the TUC should be empowered to go ahead with a General Strike. 3,653,529 voted for, 49,911 voted against, and 319,000 were unable to reply in time. Further, it was agreed that no-one should return to work at the end of the General Strike unless all Union agreements were maintained. The General Strike was set to commence on Monday 3rd May. On Tuesday 4th May, the absence of trams, railway trains, buses, newspapers, and road transport were the first obvious indications that the workers in the mass supported the strike decision. The strike was on in earnest.

The General Strike will be remembered for two things. Firstly, the enthusiasm and solidarity of the workers, and secondly, the cowardice and treachery of the TUC in calling it off nine days later behind the backs of the miners, and ratting on every resolution upon which the strike call was issued. The inglorious betrayal of the finest effort of the British working class on the industrial field should surely have taught the workers not to place their trust in leaders. Not a single concession was gained, and one million miners were left alone to fight the mine owners backed by the government with the tacit approval of the TUC and the Parliamentary Labour Party led by Ramsay MacDonald and J. R. Clynes. The miners were locked out for over three months after the strike, and forced by starvation and privation to accept the coal-owners’ terms of reduced wages (below 1914 level), more unemployment, and an increase in the working day by one hour. It is a sad commentary on the present attitude of the National Union of Mineworkers that their recent ballot within the last few weeks was a demand for the retention of overtime working.

The idea of using the weapon of a general strike as a means of abolishing capitalism is still held by anarchists, syndicalists, International Socialists, Communists, and others. Daniel De Lon, the patron saint of the SLP (now defunct), held that the political revolution would fail unless the workers backed up the political organization by the strike, which he described as the economic organization. The 1926 strike showed all too clearly that when there is a class struggle those who hold political power are in control. The workers in their millions had only two years earlier voted to power the Baldwin government, and it was that government which said that wages must come down, and was prepared to use the whole machinery of government to give effect to their policy. This task was made easier by the miserable collection of renegades, led by that arch swindler “Honest” Jimmy Thomas who would have sold his own grandmother. True to character, a few years later he was accused of selling secret information about the contents of the Annual Budget.

Had the general council of the TUC been composed of men of principle, loyal to the class they had the honour to represent, the capitalists would not have gained the victory they did. Union after Union was forced to accept wage cuts or increases in working hours. The Trades Dispute Act, passed a year later, was only opposed by the Labour Party because of the contracting-out clause which affected their income from the Political Levy.

Writing about the Strike fifty years later, what lessons were learned by the workers? Have they abandoned the idea of leadership inside or outside the Unions? The answer is no. Has the Trade Union organization and the TUC undergone a change of attitude on the question of class co-operation? Again, the answer is no. If anything, Trade Unions have become more insular: more concerned with the narrow issues affecting their individual members. They are completely steeped in capitalist ideology. Their world begins and ends with their members’ interests, not with the interests of the working class as a whole. The TUC is nothing other than a political wing of the present Labour government. Those who think in terms of a successful general strike with Jack Jones, Hugh Scanlon, Len Murray, and the other untalented servants of capital, in place of J. H. Thomas, Swales, Hicks, Tillett and Pugh, etc. are deluding themselves. The present Trade Unions are hopelessly compromised with the Labour government, and this is to their disadvantage. They are expected to co-operate on wage reductions, redundancy policies, wage freezes, and hosts of other schemes which are of direct help to the capitalists. But the general strike is not a means or an aid to the establishment of Socialism. Joint action by groups of Unions against groups of employers can achieve benefits or prevent living standards from being depressed. This is the most that can be expected. The capitalist class will not, nor cannot, succumb to any other form of economic pressure as long as they control the State machine.

We do not make a distinction between workers organized in Trade Unions and those outside. Both have to understand how to use the political weapon. Both have to renounce leadership, whether it be industrial or political. Both have to understand the consequences of their social action before embarking on that action. Socialist understanding must come first, it cannot be learned later, because without this understanding and knowledge Socialism cannot be established.

May Day is the day upon which the working class of the world demonstrate their international solidarity. So far the working class have ignored the splendid proposition or prospect of a Socialist society. In doing so, they have denied themselves the opportunity to cleanse the world of the scourge of capitalism. Men live their lives in time, so why squander it? There is nothing we cannot do if we have a mind to. There is no force on earth which can prevent the establishment of Socialism when the will is there.

Jim D'Arcy

Political Parties and the General Strike (1976)

From the May 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

A great deal can be learned from the experience of the working class in the General Strike. Not only does this expose the futile policies of left-wing groups, but it goes a long way towards explaining the generally submissive attitude of the trade unions during the current crisis.

Right from the beginning, the General Strike had little chance of success, due to the economic condition of capitalism at that time. The boom after the First World War turned out to be brief. By the summer of 1920 world markets were contracting with a heavy rise in unemployment: in June 1920 2 million were unemployed in Britain. The traditional industries such as coal were suffering in particular. The position became worse for the coal industry because of competition from the USA, Germany and Poland. A. J. P. Taylor in English History 1914-45 describes the economic conditions which led to the General Strike and to its ultimate failure:

Over-production of primary products dominated the inter-war years, and the impoverishment of these producers brought something near ruin to the old British industries. Exports of coal ran down to almost nothing. British prices tumbled faster than they had risen, and employment tumbled.

During the War the government had taken control of the mines, but the industry was handed back to control by the coal owners in March 1921. Economists opposed government subsidies to the coal industry since the current economic policy necessitated the fixing of the pound to the Gold Standard as a means of arresting its declining value vis-a-vis the American dollar.

In this situation the economists were arguing, as they still do, about the need to increase exports. To do this, prices had to be lowered to compete with rival coal-producing powers. At the same time, profitability must be maintained by lowering wages.

Resistance to reductions in wages had already been tried by the miners, in conjunction with the railwaymen and the transport workers, in the “Triple Alliance" of 1921. The collapse of this industrial action, which became known as “Black Friday”, portended the disaster of the General Strike. Baldwin’s 1925 policy of granting a subsidy to the coal industry, together with his establishment of the Samuel Commission, were measures by which the Government could play for time. By May 1926 the subsidy was due to run out and the mine-owners were continuing their demands for a reduction in wages and longer working hours. The secretary of the Miners’ Federation, Arthur Cook, more militant than his predecessor Frank Hodges, was determined that the miners should stand out against wage reductions. He was supported by the Federation’s President, Herbert Smith. The overwhelming majority of miners backed the strike.

United we stand

Nevertheless, by April 1926 the Government was prepared to make a stand against strike action as it had been in 1921. All the same, Stanley Baldwin and the Conservatives manifestly wished to avert a General Strike which they regarded as an intensification of the class struggle. Baldwin’s policies meant that he had to walk a tightrope between the TUC, and the mine-owners (together with the reactionary elements in the Conservative Party). Although the Conservative government introduced the temporary subsidy in 1925, Baldwin said: “‘All workers in this country have got to face a reduction of wages to help put industry on its feet.”

This was the predictable statement of an administrator of capitalism. It was part of Baldwin’s political strategy not to appear to be the ally of the mine-owners. Instead, he posed as the defender of what was termed as “the British Constitution” against what were considered to be the sectional interests, in the form of the TUC and the miners.

In the Conservative cabinet Lord Birkenhead also represented himself as a pseudo-conciliatory figure. Meanwhile, Churchill, Austen Chamberlain, Joyson-Hicks and Neville Chamberlain were all opposed intransigently to both the TUC and the miners. Steel-Maitland, the Minister of Labour, was himself a mine owner. Members of the Cabinet such as Churchill favoured parades of troops, tanks and armoured cars in the streets against the strikers. Churchill had vigorously opposed subsidies and belligerently claimed that the strikers were Communists under the influence of what he termed as "Red subversion".

The Liberal Party had shown that it was equally determined to protect the interests of Capitalism. Asquith and the Liberal Shadow Cabinet condemned the strike in a straightforward fashion while Lloyd George was trying to gain some political advantage from the affair by declaring that, although the strike was a mistake, the Conservative government was also culpable to some degree.

A similar position of opposition to the strike was adopted by the Labour Party. MacDonald, Snowden, Thomas, Clynes and Henderson in common with the Conservative, Baldwin, all believed in the sanctity of the "British Constitution”, so a rift developed between the TUC and the Parliamentary Labour Party. The "Left”, in the form of Maxton, Lansbury, Wheatley and Cook were under the familiar misconception that capitalism was on the verge of collapse and believed that the General Strike could be turned into some type of revolution.

At that time, the Russian Revolution was still fresh in many people’s memories. The "Communist” Party believed that a workers’ revolution was about to spread across the industrialized countries. However, its support amongst the working class was quite insignificant: its membership amounted to less than five thousand. Two years before the General Strike the CP was making statements such as members of the armed forces should be helping the workers to smash capitalism. The theory of Capitalism being on the verge of collapse was held by the CP and, though it was prepared to use parliamentary methods as a propaganda platform, it also advocated violence and insurrection. It had been barred from affiliation with the Labour Party and so concentrated its efforts on attempting to win support in the trade unions, believing that the formation of factory committees would lead to them being "indispensable weapons in the struggle to force the capitalists to relinquish their grip on industry”. Such an attitude towards the General Strike and towards the idea of revolution was not only adventurist but, what is more important, blatantly anti-democratic.

Tactics

When the General Strike broke out on May 3rd the striking miners were joined by the railwaymen and workers in transport, printing, heavy industry, building and the gas and electricity industries.

The government monopolized the means of propaganda. It was able to put forward its own case in the British Gazette, its own newspaper, the editor of which was the reactionary Churchill. He denounced the British workingmen as "the enemy” and in the columns of the newspaper he demanded that they surrender. The BBC, although theoretically independent and not yet a public corporation, was very much in the government’s pocket and suppressed news which might bring embarrassment upon the government. The TUC published the British Worker which was ineffective since it was forbidden to give out ordinary news or propaganda.

Many myths have been told about the General Strike. Various syndicalist groups and the CP have claimed that the General Strike produced a "revolutionary situation”. Such an interpretation of the events is completely mistaken. There was no opportunity for revolution and certainly no possibility for a Socialist revolution. The strike was one of sympathy and had no revolutionary undertones. The reverse was the case. The General Council of the TUC strove to bring a conclusion to the miners’ strike. It had no desire for a confrontation with the government or the mine-owners. However, the Miners’ Federation was determined to make a stand against the proposed wage reductions and longer hours. Arthur Cook and Herbert Smith were opposed to the Samuel Commission. The mine-owners were equally intransigent, while Baldwin’s cabinet was steering clear of negotiations until concessions had been made by the miners.

The TUC General Council’s decision to call the General Strike was, from the point of view of the “respectable” trade union leaders, a shrewd tactical manoeuvre. By calling a strike of these dimensions the General Council could apply greater pressure on the Government to participate in negotiations to resolve the miners’ dispute. When the attempts broke down, the TUC General Council called off the strike and therefore isolated the miners, who continued their strike in conditions of semi-starvation until November 1926.

The Wrong Road

The idea of revolution had no support amongst the members of the TUC General Council, who were eager to solve the dispute and reconcile the two sides of the coal industry. Large sections of the British working class were undoubtedly sympathetic towards the miners. However, they were not revolutionary and were certainly not class-conscious. The vast majority of the miners themselves were not revolutionary. In spite of all the absurd statements made by the Left and by the Right, the General Strike was not political but was purely economic. A. J. P. Taylor correctly sums up the non-revolutionary attitude of the workers: "They were loyal to their unions and to their leaders, as they had been loyal during the war to their country and to their generals”.

Another historian, David Thomson, in England in the Twentieth Century remarks about the events of 1926: "The Sorelian myth of the ‘General Strike’, of ‘direct action’ on a scale great enough to coerce governments and paralyse nations, was not one accepted by the mass of British opinion, nor even by the organized workers themselves”. “What died in 1926, though nobody noticed, was the myth of syndicalist revolution as the road to better times”.

The failure of the General Strike is underlined by the fact that when the miners were driven to return to work in November 1926, they were compelled to accept the coal-owners’ demands: wage reductions, longer working hours and district agreements. Under the subsequent Trades Disputes Act of 1927 sympathetic strikes such as the General Strike were made illegal and, of course the Government had the support of the armed forces to back this up as well as the tacit agreement or apathy of the majority of the population.

The attitude of the Socialist Party of Great Britain towards general strikes and towards strikes overall is that they can only be used as a means of limited economic struggle. As long as capitalism exists, the strike will be a useful weapon for the working class: most effectively when trade booms occur, industry is expanding and there is a greater demand for workers. Under conditions of depression such as prevailed in 1926 and exist today in 1976, the strike will lose most of its effectiveness. The results of the General Strike and of many of the strikes occurring now, prove this.

If the workers are to abolish the conditions which they experience and which make strikes both necessary and inevitable, they must turn their attention to political action for the democratic act of establishing Socialism.

V. Lutra

The “Daily Herald”—and Truth. (1926)

From the November 1926 issue of the Socialist Standard

The “Daily Herald” of August 30th last contained an editorial in reply to a letter from a railwayman, which is published on the same date under the heading, “Tell us the Truth.” Here is the letter, with certain irrelevancies deleted :—

“. . . I know that the miners’ cause is a just one and wants fighting for, but for goodness’ sake, why are we kept in the dark about the calling off of the General Strike? We railwaymen are looked down upon as Scabs by a large majority of miners. I was at a large meeting at Dewsbury last Sunday, and the speakers were frequently interrupted by the miners calling Mr. Thomas and Mr. Bromley _____, and blaming them for the extension of the present lock-out. Now, in my opinion, the leaders are keeping something back from the workers, and the “Daily Herald” being the workers’ paper, why cannot you let us know what is behind it all? …. The railwaymen are blamed for handling coal. Now how can we help it? … Cannot we be informed as to the whole of the facts concerning the calling off of the General Strike, and the true reason for calling it off ?”

Now let us appraise the “points” contained in the railwayman’s letter ; they may be summarised as follows :—

(1) He feels acutely the invidious position into which he and his fellow workers have been forced by the abrupt termination of the strike ; (2) He considers the reasons already advanced for calling off the strike to be spurious ones; (3) He suspects that the leaders in whom he has reposed his trust are “keeping something back” ; and (4) he appeals to the “workers’ paper “to inform himself and his fellow-workers of ” the whole of the facts concerning the calling-off of the “General” strike, and the true reason for calling it off.”

Doubtless to the surprise of the railwayman, and in the face of all precedent, the “Herald” actually deigns to “deal with” the letter in a leading article, which is headed “Nothing but the Truth.” Letters of criticism from the Socialist Party or Manifestoes from the Miners’ Federation will, of course, continue to receive the attention of the waste-paper basket, but as we can very well believe, the letter in question is “typical of many that have reached us,” and hence the leading article.

“Nothing but the Truth.” Here then, we shall find the long-looked-for facts, honestly stated, free from omissions and interpolations! Now we shall learn why thousands of workers of all callings were abandoned by their “leaders,” and the compensating advantages to the workers in leaving the million miners to struggle and starve alone! We shall find no attempts to divert attention from the sole point at issue! No mis-statements; no evasions; no adroit twisting and equivocation ! Clear, blunt, and candid exposition of the facts ! Here, at last, we will find the truth and nothing but the truth, shall we not? WE SHALL NOT !

In the opening paragraph of the article, the “Herald” indicates its dislike for methods of abuse:—

At the Minority Movement Conference on Saturday, a great deal was said about the calling off of the General Strike, and the “traitorous” conduct of Trade Union leaders. This is the stock-in-trade of Communists. As we know from published documents, abuse and detraction of those who hold official positions in the Labour Movement have been commanded from Moscow as a means of breaking that movement up. 

Here we find once again the “Communists” (so soon, too, after the advocacy by the “Herald” of the “United Front” !) playing the part of a bogey, a part which has been assigned in succession “to Chartists, Atheists, Radicals, Fenians, and Anarchists.” The word Moscow, it would appear, has now become the “stock-in-trade” of political charlatans, and to possess a potency only equalled by the “mystic” word “Abracadabra,” which was so essential to the mediaeval “sorcerers” who preyed upon the credulous aristocracy. The paragraph is obviously intended to divert attention from the weakness of the case put forward.

If the object of the passage quoted is not to distract attention from a weak case, the only other inference we are able to draw is that a “Communist” must never be believed because he is a “Communist,” and not because he can be proved to be in the wrong.

The article continues :—

Unfortunately, such tactics, transparent and discreditable as they are, have an effect upon simple minds. Anything that is constantly repeated gets a lodging in numberless minds. . . . Our comrade wants to know what is the dark and gruesome mystery surrounding the General Council’s action. Why don’t the “Daily Herald,” he asks pathetically, tell its readers the truth? 

In the excerpt below, which follows immediately after the last paragraph quoted, the “Herald” comes tardily to the point at issue :—

The ”Daily Herald’ has done that all through. The truth is simple. No mystery ! Nothing gruesome or sinister ! The General Council ended the Strike because they believed that the Samuel Memorandum offered the best chance of settling the coal dispute which the miners were likely to get; and events are now proving that the Council were right.” (Their italics.)

What these “events” are the “Herald” does not enlighten us, and our imagination is unequal to the task of conjuring up what is meant. Perhaps the passing of the Eight Hours Act or the repudiation of the Samuel Memorandum by the Government are the “events” alluded to? Or is the Government’s backing of the coalowners in their desire for district settlements the culminating proof of the tightness of the action taken by the General Council ? We would like so much to be informed of these “events” which prove that the miners are in a better position through the withdrawal of the backing of the other unions. But perhaps the transcendental sagacity of the General Council is beyond the ken of ordinary minds! We note that the General Council ended the strike because they “believed” the Samuel Memorandum “offered,” etc. Blessed are they that believe! Verily the General Council must have mistaken this Samuel for his biblical namesake, whom we are told was “called of God,” for he appears to have been a god-send to the Council in their anxiety to find a pretext for ending the strike. Indeed, despite the fact that neither the Government nor the coalowners had accepted the Samuel Memorandum (and both have since repudiated it) and also in spite of Samuel’s own declaration that he was acting entirely on his own initiative and without authority from the Government, the “Herald” would have its readers to infer (if we take the statements in this article in conjunction with others previously made by the General Council) that the General Council “believed” that the Samuel Memorandum “offered” the best chance to honour their repeated promises,

to stand firmly and unitedly against any attempt to degrade further the standards of life in the coalfields.” (General Council Industrial Committee, Feb. 26.)

On April 14th, the T.U.C. Negotiating Committee re-affirmed their declaration of February 26th :—

This Committee reiterates its previous declaration to render the miners the fullest support in resisting the degradation of the standard of life, and to obtain an equitable settlement of the case with regard to wages, hours, and national agreements.

And again on May 1st, the “Daily Herald” informs us :—

A firm declaration was presented to the Premier by a joint Sub-Committee reiterating the original declaration that there must be no reduction of wages, no lengthening of hours, and insisting on a National Agreement with a national minimum percentage.

Further, in the “British Worker” of May 11th, Mr. A. Pugh declares that :—

From the moment the mineowners issued lockout notices to their workpeople the question at issue, so far as the General Council was concerned, was the withdrawal of those notices as a condition preliminary to the conduct of negotiations. From that we have never receded.

Such firmness and unity. Such eagerness to “believe” in the good faith of capitalist emissaries—such reluctance to vindicate their own ! The “Herald” says “the truth is simple,” but from our experience of its component parts we are unable to classify the General Council with the truth in relation to simplicity.

In the portion of the article which follows, the “Herald” endorses the validity of its claim to be the Paper with the Punch (especially for the workers !) :—

If the miners’ representatives had agreed to accept that Memorandum as a basis for negotiations, work could have been resumed three-and-a-half months ago, and no mineworker would have got less than 50s. a week. The only men who would have had to sacrifice anything would have been those who were most highly paid. This, as Mr. Bromley explained to the locomotive men, seemed a reasonable settlement.

O Truth, how many falsehoods are broadcast in thy name! In our September issue, we published particulars from pay-tickets, promiscuously selected, of a South Wales coal-hewer, and the amounts received weekly demonstrate clearly that even before the lock-out the highest paid grade of miner was not guaranteed a wage even approximating to 50s. a week. Mr. A. J. Cook, the Miners’ Secretary, in the course of a cutting reply to the same leading article we are analysing, also riddles the 50s. myth :—

All we were ever offered was that wages should not be reduced to less than 7s. 6d. a day, and all wages below that were still to remain the same. No weekly guarantee has ever been given at all. (“Daily Herald,” August 31.)

For reasons easily comprehended, the “Herald” has kept a wise silence with regard to criticism of its erroneous statement. In the passage “work could have been resumed three-and-a-half months ago,” the “Herald” unwittingly discloses that the anxiety of the General Council was not so much to secure the withdrawal of the lock-out notices (one of the declared objects of the strike) as to induce or coerce the miners to accept a compromise which would further reduce their appalling standard of existence. Additional confirmation of the “firmness,” and “determination” of the General Council to fulfil their pledges to the miners may be noted in the remarks of their Parliamentary spokesman and Privy Councillor Mr. J. H. Thomas, who appealed to capitalist M.P.’s “to avert what I believe to be the greatest calamity for this country.” (Hansard, May 3rd.) If an early resumption of work by the miners was the sole desire of the General Council, we are at a loss to understand how the continuance of support from the unions involved in the strike could have prolonged the miners’ struggle more than it has been by leaving them in isolation. But the “Herald” has a logic of its own ! We might also inform the “Herald” that the miners could have resumed work more than three-and-a-half months ago, nay, they need not have been locked out at all, had they agreed to any terms of employment that might be offered by the mine-owners ! After all, it is not the miners who determine when and how they shall work, and the “Herald” seems to overlook the fact that such trivial matters are the prerogative of the employing class, who will only relinquish those rights when they are wrested from them by a class-conscious working-class, politically organised to achieve emancipation.

The final quotation from the article follows on directly from the previous extract.

When it (the “offer”) was finally rejected by the Miners’ representatives, the General Council felt that it would be “futile” to ask the Unions to continue their sacrifice for another day. . . . That is the reason why the Strike was called off. There is no other. The truth is plain to everyone who looks for it. We have restated it here in response to our railway comrade’s appeal, and because it is necessary to point out once more that the Minority Movement’s attack is not honest criticism offered in the interest of the Labour Movement, but deliberate venom intended to help on the destruction of that Movement, and the substitution of Communism for it.

So we see now that when the offer that was not made was rejected by the miners, the General Council felt (not thought) that it would be futile to ask the unions to continue their “sacrifice” for another day. They therefore most benevolently decided upon the sacrifice of thousands of members of the constituent unions, and complacently provided the conditions for a future massacre of the remainder when the deserted miners are finally pulverised. The further reference to the Minority Movement does not assist the case advanced by the “Herald.” As we have persistently stated it is not possible for the Minority Movement or any other freakish body to introduce Communism merely by changing the leadership of the General Council.

We have dealt with this leading article of the “Daily Herald” at some length only as a specimen of the fustian that is passed off by that journal as being : “From the workers’ point of view.” As a medium for disseminating news, the “Herald” is behind its Capitalist competitors; as an exponent of Socialist ideas, it is worthless and of more value to the Capitalists in bemusing and mis-teaching the workers than many other journals which do not claim to speak wholly on behalf of the working-class. Until a larger number of the workers understand and desire Socialism, a daily paper devoted to the propaganda of Socialist principles remains a project for the future. In the meantime, the Socialist Standard will continue to advance the object of the Socialist Party of Great Britain, which seeks to organise all workers who desire to replace the present system of capitalism by a system based upon the possession and administration by the whole community of the means necessary to produce and apportion wealth to the full needs of all.

W. J.

A "Simple" Cure For Industrial Trouble. (1929)

From the April 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Daily News of Wednesday, February 27th, 1929, reports : “That the General Council of the Trade Union Congress considered the draft interim report on Unemployment which has been prepared by the Mond-Turner Conference.”

The report was adopted with a few modifications. The news goes on to say: "That the report deals with more or less palliative measures for unemployment and that more preventive measures will be covered in the final report, assuming that the Conference continues its work. It discusses the practicability of the Organisation of National Works to supplement measures, such as credit facilities, to foster a general revival in trade." The question on providing pensions at 65 was also discussed.

This appeared on page 9. On page 11 we find another report. It is headed. Psychology Removes Worries in British Workshops. Six Girls Now Do the Work of 120. Increased Output and Greater Economy.

The report is a long one, but the following extracts will suffice:—

  "The phenomenal labour saving referred to above was achieved in the design and equipment of a new safety glass works. Radical changes have been achieved in production methods and labour-saving devices have been introduced which have led to a marked reduction of manufacturing costs. Thus in the case of two connected operations six girls will now do the work which formerly required 120. Waste of material has been reduced from 18 to 5 per cent, and the new factory will be able to produce in one shift almost double the output originally specified. The scope of the National Institutes of Industrial Psychology includes, the layout of factories, the sequence of processes, the elimination of waste of effort, material, and time in production, the selection of appropriate employees, and, lastly, the greater efficiency and contentment of the employees by improved working conditions.” 

The report finishes by quoting the World's Economic Conference's opinion: 

  "That the workers should be safeguarded from temporary unemployment, resulting from this rationalisation, otherwise the movement will encounter the same opposition as befell the first attempt to introduce Taylor’s system of scientific management.”

Viewing these reports together, the thing that suggests itself is the fact that here we have two organisations, both claiming to strive for the good of the workers and yet one nullifies the effects of the other. The trade unions struggle for shorter hours and more pay and confer with the masters in an endeavour to foster trade to bring about more employment and when they have succeeded the masters employ psychologists to find out how they can do without a great percentage of the workers, leaving those still in employment more efficient, turning out as much if not more work with less waste and yet being contented with their job, keeping at bay those elements of industrial unrest which are so disturbing to the capitalist. Thus the trade unions find themselves precisely where they were, but with probably a bigger army of unemployed to deal with. Being Socialists, we realise that psychology when used simply for the benefit of mankind can be a great aid to human happiness, but in the hands of the masters, being used as a means to further exploitation, it becomes yet another burden upon the backs of the workers. The watchword of industry to-day is produce more, yet all the time the competition for the world’s markets is becoming more fierce and the markets more limited, making the disposal of the commodities less and less certain with the result that the unemployment figures increase and the different countries, in spite of peace pacts, etc., are heading straight for war. It is a time for serious reflection, fellow-workers.

Do you not find all these social remedies simply cancel each other? It is a ceaseless following of blind alleyways in which the workers get bewildered and hopeless. Unless they understand the Socialist position, they are tempted to make useless angry demonstrations and riots which can only result in loss of life or injury to our class and give the Government a chance to demonstrate their power and make an example of a few of the workers. There is only one sound policy to pursue, and that is the constant preaching of Socialism. When we have sufficient knowledge as a class, we can obtain political power. Remembering that the salvation of the workers must be the work of the workers, we must neither put our faith in the Lord, nor leaders, nor psychologists. Given the knowledge, the rest, by comparison, will be simplicity itself. Join the S.P.G.B., fellow wage slaves, and help to spread that knowledge that Socialism may come in our time, and we enjoy the fruits of our labour.

May Otway

Editorial: The General Strike Fiasco: Its Causes and Effects (1926)

Editorial from the June 1926 issue of the Socialist Standard

The long anticipated month of May has come and nearly gone, and with it have evaporated both the fantastic hopes of the hot-heads of the Communist Party and the baseless fears of the nervous old women of both sexes who run the Primrose League and kindred organisations. Mr. A. J. Cook has repeatedly promised us “the end of capitalism” if the mineworkers attempted to force the miners’ wages still further down; but in spite of the fact that the attempt is being made, with many prospects of success, the “revolution” obstinately refuses to materialise. In its place we have witnessed what looks suspiciously like the dying kick of Trades Unionism in its present form.

Four years ago (in our issue for April, 1922, to be precise) we definitely advocated combined action by the workers to resist the wholesale onslaught by the masters upon wages and working conditions. We did not promise a sweeping victory nor encouraged illusions regarding the ever-downward tendency of the standard of life of the workers under capitalism, but we did lay stress upon the necessity for making the best, instead of the worst, of a bad job, by means of an organised test of strength along class lines.

Experience had repeatedly shown that the old sectional mode of industrial warfare was obsolete; that, while the development of industry had united the masters into giant combinations, with interests ramifying in every direction, supported at every point by the forces of the State, representing the entire capitalist class, the division among the workers, according to their occupations, led automatically to their steady defeat in detail. The only hope, even for the limited purpose of restricting the extent of the defeat, lay, therefore, in class combination.

The Socialist Standard has only a small circulation, and our words passed unheeded by the mass of the workers, doped both by the organs of capital and the counsels of their own leaders. They were too absorbed in the petty details of their sectional struggles to perceive the general conditions governing those struggles. They could not see the wood for the trees; or they saw it only in the blurred form visible through the spectacles provided for them by the Labour Party. Those of their number who looked to “nationalisation”, piecemeal or wholesale, to solve their problems and end the class conflict, considered themselves “advanced”; and their duly sceptical fellows were regarded as reactionary and hopeless. Thus, economic and political ignorance kept the workers divided and the defeats went on.

Yet even worms will turn, and rats forced into corners will fight; and it would, indeed, have been nothing less than supernatural if at length the steadily increasing pressure of their backs against the wall had not forced the hard truth into the workers enslaved minds. There is a limit even to the stupidity of sheep; and not all the smooth-tongued eloquence of their shepherds could prevent the flock from realising that they may as well hang together as hang separately.

The first official indication of this changing outlook occurred last July when the threat of a further attack upon the slave-rations of the miners led the TUC to intervene. The modesty of the workers’ aspirations was proved by the ease with which their representatives were satisfied. The granting of a subsidy to the mineowners (in order to gain time and enable the Government and the master class as a whole to prepare for the wider struggle) was hailed by the entire Labour Press as a “great victory”. Subsequent events have shown the absurd hollowness of that claim.

When the miners were working through the winter increasing the stocks to enable their bosses to lock them out, their leaders wasted precious time and money in futile negotiations with those employers. While the Government proceeded coolly and leisurely with its scheme for maintaining essential services and breaking the resistance of the workers, the General Council of the TUC took no step to similarly organise the efforts of the working class. Practically every section of any size (miners, engineers, railwaymen, transport workers), all had grounds for demanding increases in wages; yet instead of co-ordinating these demands in a common plan and thus giving a solid basis for united action, sectional negotiations were proceeded with, in honour of that capitalist shibboleth, the “sanctity of contract”. The enemy was allowed, not merely choice of ground and weapons, but the opportunity to get in the first blow.

Much ink has been spent on discussing the responsibility for the breakdown of negotiations, yet it was plain for months that war was inevitable. Mr Baldwin had made it plain that “all wages must come down”, and that position, in practice, is still adhered to by the class which he represents. So far as the rank and file of trade unionists were concerned, the renewed attack on the miners was merely the commencement of a series of further attacks all round; and this fact, not some belated “sense of justice”, explains their ready response to the signal for the general stoppage. Lacking any clear insight into their class position in society, however, they were guided by feeling rather than by reason, and blindly left the conduct of the struggle to the executives of the unions and the General Council.

The weakness of the leaders in the face of the common foe, their abject “begging and pleading for peace” (in the words of J. H. Thomas), merely expressed the disorganised condition of the movement as a whole. No such weakness characterised either the Government or the mineowners.

The lock-out notices were posted at the time appointed and the terms for their withdrawal were laid down. Having allowed themselves to be bluffed and held off by months of diplomatic confab, the General Council were forced, relentlessly, to act or abdicate. Yet to the last their irresolution was apparent.

Mr A. Pugh in a statement to give “the real truth” in the British Worker of May 11th, said:

  From the moment the mineowners issued lock-out notices to their workpeople, the question at issue, so far as the General Council was concerned, was the withdrawal of those notices as a condition preliminary to the conduct of negotiations. From that we have never receded.

Yet according to the same statement, they continued negotiations right up to the evening of Sunday, the 2nd of May, two days after the lock-out notices were actually operating! They waited for the Government to give them the final ignominious kick, and this was duly administered on the pretext that the printers of the Daily Mail had more determination than their “leaders”.

Once the stoppage commenced, however, these same leaders assumed all the airs of omniscient military generals. Pompous exhortations to the rank and file to “hold fast” and “remain calm and dignified” were issued in their official Strike Bulletin what time they were already succumbing to the siren-like blandishments of that “friend” of the workers, Sir Herbert Samuel.

Not once had the leaders any cause to complain of lack of support. On all hands they admitted that the workers were solid behind them. In the issue already quoted they announced,

  The number of strikers has not diminished, it is increasing. There are more workers out to-day than there have been at any moment since the strike began.

 Further,

  the engineering shops and shipyards are to stop tonight . . . The men have awaited the instructions impatiently, and all over the country they received their marching orders with enthusiasm and a sense of relief.

As an expression of working-class solidarity the response of the rank and file was unquestionably unprecedented; but the long months, nay, years of delay found effect in the official confusion between “essential” and non-essential occupations, the handling of goods by some unions which were banned by others and the issuing of permits one day which had to be withdrawn the next. Just prior to the strike the railwaymen were working overtime providing the companies with the coal to run their blackleg trains. Afterwards they refused to handle any traffic at all while the transport workers tried to pick and choose. The lack of practical unity with which to give expression to the sentiment and secure the end in view justifies, up to the hilt, our long-standing criticism of Trade Unions upon their present base.

The confusion on the industrial field was reflected in the political sphere. In spite of the obvious fact that they were involved in a class struggle and that the machinery of government was being brought to bear at every point, the Council fatuously endeavoured to represent the issue as purely industrial. They endeavoured to confine the efforts of a class to the point at stake in one industry. They thus denied the very basis of their own existence, i. e., class interests; but if they were blind to the logic of the conflict, the Government were not. They brazenly declared the whole affair to be an attack upon the Constitution and Parliamentary methods. In order to obscure the class character of their own acts, they invoked the mildewed pillars of the “nation”. According to their spokesmen, the Council with whom they had been negotiating had suddenly become “an alternative government”. With unerring judgement they saw in the manifestation of working-class solidarity the latent possibility of revolution.

The only objective of a social revolution, however, is Socialism. The very facts, that the Government were in power, that millions of workers had supported them less than two years ago at the polls and that those who did not were, in the main, far from understanding Socialism, rendered any immediate question of revolution ridiculous. It was the ultimate outcome of the ceaseless struggle to which their apprehensions gave expression.

The role played by the Labour Party corresponded with that of the General Council. While disclaiming any desire to see the Government defeated by the strikers, they nevertheless proclaimed from their platforms that the Government were responsible for the “trouble”. “Had the Labour Party been in office”, men were told, “such a situation could not have arisen.” They relied upon the short memories of their followers who omitted to remind them of the loco’ and transport strikes during “Labour’s” term of office, and the application of the Emergency Powers Act by these false “friends”. In their eyes the Government’s chief crime lay not in its support of the mineowners, but in its breaking off of negotiations with the General Council. The lock-out and the strike were secondary matters compared with their being shut out from the counsels of their beloved friends, the bosses.

True to their sham romantic outlook, the Communists covered themselves with “glory” by circulating wild rumours as to disaffection among the troops. They performed the worst possible service to the workers by trying to persuade them that the soldiery would not fire if called upon. Fortunately few people took them seriously, and in the main, the only sufferers from their advice were themselves. The importance of possessing political power was brought well to the front in repression of anything in the nature of incitement, and the bulk of the workers showed their keen appreciation of the fact in their orderly behaviour.

A sinister secrecy surrounds the capitulation of the General Council on May 12th. At the time of writing they have yet to give an account of their action to their constituents, the TUC. Their cool contempt for the intelligence of their followers easily gauged by the correspondence between themselves and Sir H. Samuel, which they had the audacity to publish in the British Worker of the 13th.

The emissary of “peace” frankly stated that he “acted entirely on his own initiative, had received no authority from the Government and could give no assurances on their behalf”. Yet on the strength of this diplomat’s unofficial memorandum (rejected on the 12th by the miners’ officials) the General Council “terminated the strike assuming that the subsidy would be renewed and the lock-out notices would be immediately withdrawn.”

We are not prepared to state in what exact proportion the ingredients of treachery and cowardice were mingled in the composition of the General Council. Suffice it that the miners remain locked-out and that, thanks to the capitalist terms of peace, even the rank and file are not deceived as to what actually happened. Union after union has signed a treaty of surrender which leaves the workers worse off than ever. In addition to this the unemployed army on the Exchange books has swollen to the tune of half-a-million, thus giving the employers an unparalleled opportunity for further inroads upon wages and working conditions. The height of enthusiasm reached by the workers during the strike is now matched by the depth of demoralisation of the leaders everywhere apparent.

The outlook before the workers is black, indeed, but not hopeless, if they will but learn the lessons of this greatest of all disasters. “Trust your leaders!” we were adjured in the Press and from the platforms of the Labour Party, and the folly of such sheep-like trust is now glaring. The workers must learn to trust only in themselves. They must themselves realise their position and decide the line of action to be taken. They must elect their officials to take orders, not to give them!

Most important of all, however, they must change the object of their organisation. Even in the now unlikely event of the miners gaining the day over the wages question, how much will the necessary sacrifice avail them? The reorganisation of the industry, to which they have agreed, will, on the admissions of its promoters, spell more unemployment among the miners! Are they prepared in face of recent experience to trust any capitalist promise such as is contained in the suggestions of the Samuel memorandum? At the very best they will but be marking time.

On every hand it is evident that the downward pressure upon the slave-class will continue until they unite to end their slave-status. The sentiment of solidarity must be embodied in practical organisation based, not upon the mere transient necessity for wage adjustments, but upon the permanent need of the workers for the abolition of the wages system.

That can be secured only through the establishment of socialism by the conversion of the means of living into the common property of the whole people.

To that end the workers must organise as a class, not merely industrially, for the capture of supreme power as represented by the political machine. For this purpose neither the Labour Party nor the Communist Party is of any value. The former is hopelessly compromised with the ruling class, while the latter ignores the basis of political power. It is useless for the workers either to “trust” leaders or to “change” them. The entire institution of leadership must be swept by the board.

The one thing necessary is a full recognition by the workers themselves of the hostility of interests between themselves and their masters. Organised on that basis, refusing to be tricked and bluffed by promises or stampeded into violence by threats, they will emergence victorious from the age-long struggle. Win Political Power! That is the first step.

This Year's T.U.C. (1961)

From the October 1961 issue of the Socialist Standard

Common criticisms of the T.UC. are that it spends time on political and foreign policy questions that ought not to concern trade unions; that the block vote can result in decisions being taken that represent little more than the balance of opinion on the executive committees of a few large Unions; and that the General Council can secure the acceptance of policies that do not harmonise with the view of rank and file trade unionists.

The Guardian took up the first criticism after the 1960 Congress, which it said, spent its time mainly on issues “almost irrelevant to all the real problems of the Unions," and which would not even discuss a Resolution put down by a small Union urging more time for industrial affairs. Some civil service representatives share that view, and it has been argued that Unions of “white collar workers" in particular are reluctant to join the T.U.C. because their members are not predominantly supporters of the Labour Party. It may well be that it is largely this factor that keeps outside two large Unions, the National Union of Teachers and the Local Government Workers Union (NALGO), as well as some others of the four hundred and seventy Unions that are not affiliated, though for the smaller Unions finance is probably a considerable factor. As half of the 184 Unions affiliated to the T.U.C. are not affiliated to the Labour Party, it might be thought that a majority of T.U.C delegates might be prepared to consider altering Congress procedure to make it less like a second Labour Party conference, but Congress votes are dominated by the big Unions and nearly all of these are affiliated to the Labour Party and are apparently opposed to any change of procedure.

The second criticism, concerning the block vote, was heard often in the years when most of the ten largest Unions habitually voted the same way and between them could outvote the remaining 174 Unions. It has been heard less in recent years because the big Unions have been divided, with the largest Union of all, the Transport and General Workers, voting against the the General Council's recommendations on such issues as armaments. No doubt if votes at Congress were cast by each Union in proportion to majority and minority opinion on Union executives and among their members some decisions would go the other way, though in the main it would show itself only in the form of closer votes and smaller majorities.

The third criticism, that the General Council can disregard the views of rank and file trade unionists, is by far the most fundamental. What does it amount to? Obviously the General Council cannot singly do what it likes. It has to get the endorsement of delegates and at times is defeated, as happened this year on the presence of German troops in Wales and last year on nuclear weapons (a decision which Congress this year reversed). Perhaps the explanation of the advantage possessed by the General Council is that they confront Congress with a formulated policy which they recommend for acceptance, whereas the delegates, like the members who send them there, either have no policy and are willing to follow the lead from the platform or are divided over the several different and contradictory alternative policies: which raises the question what ought to be the broad aim of the trade unions.

Looking at the trade unions in the world today it is astounding to recall that in their infancy they were regarded by the employers and governments with real fear, as revolutionary organizations that threatened property and the social system itself. Now the danger has been largely contained, partly by concessions and legislation, but also through the aims that the Unions set themselves. Instead of thinking of themselves as part of the world working class struggling against the employers and the capitalist system, the aim of the trade union leaders in each country is to be consulted by the employers in the running of the industry, and by the government in the determination of national economic policy. While the rank and file trade unionists cannot be said to be positively opposed to this policy of their leaders they are much more concerned with fighting their own employers over wages and conditions, hence the periodical clashes between what the members feel and what their leaders, including the T.U.C., think ought to be done.

There is, of course, a sort of fatal logic about the direction in which the Unions are going. If it is once accepted that world-wide working class action for Socialism is impossible then it can seem to be “realistic" for the Unions to try to help British capitalism against its foreign competitors, by trying to gain markets for exports, by keeping down costs and avoiding strikes, by giving support to armaments, and in the last resort, to wars. All through Congress debates this readiness to think in terms of "British" interests instead of world working class interests comes out, as it did for example in the decision about wage restraint.

Rank and file trade unionists and many of their delegates may think that Congress unconditionally repudiated the idea of a "wage pause" or a restraint on wage claims, and will have paid little heed to the fact that the spokesmen for the General Council put the matter differently. What they did was to offer—on terms—to collaborate with the government in the planning of economic policy: and planning, whether its supporters all realise it or not, necessarily includes the planning of wages and wage increases.

The T.U.C. never has unconditionally excluded wage restraint. In the years 1948 to 1950, in response to the appeal of the Labour government, the majority of the delegates accepted it. Even in 1950, when it was turned down on an E.T.U. resolution, the door was still left open. The E.T.U. resolution rejected wage restraint but only until such time as profits were "reasonably limited," prices controlled and "a positive planning of our British economy" is introduced. This idea has continued as the speeches at this year’s Congress show.

Mr. H. Douglas, speaking for the General Council, said: —

  If the Chancellor was worried why had he not called in the General Council before and put his facts on the table? It had never failed to respond to an appeal for action. Why had not the Chancellor consulted them instead of slapping them in the face? (D. Telegraph 7.9.61).

The new General Secretary, Mr. Woodcock, spoke similarly: —

  We say it is not right for a government of this country to make a decision on a wages pause without any consultation with the trade union movement. That is exactly what the Chancellor did.

The speakers went on to say that they are still willing, on terms, to have a hand, with the employers and the government in working out economic plans. A Daily Herald editorial (9/9/61) puts its linger on the double-edged nature of planning. Though chiding critics of the T.U.C. “who believe that the function of trade union leaders is to help the government to hold down wages,” the article went on to admit that planning is “a practical exercise in which all sides have to make painful concessions in the long-term interest.”

And Mr. Charles Timaeus, writing in Reynolds News (10/9/61), interpreted the speeches referred to above as implying “that a wages pause might be acceptable in certain circumstances and in certain conditions"

Whether the government will make concessions in order to secure trade union collaboration remains to be seen, but one thing is made very clear by the anxious comments in various Liberal, Tory and financial journals, that is that they attach a great deal of importance to avoiding a head-on clash with the trade unions in the coming months. They know the losses the employers can suffer in widespread strikes and are not at all happy that the present government should have behaved as if it wanted a show-down at all costs.

It only remains to emphasise again the truism that the trade unions will not usefully change their direction until the members themselves think out their class position in capitalism and see that what is needed is world-wide working class action to establish Socialism. The alternative, collaboration in each country with the government, may end by bringing the unions nearer to being what the so-called trade unions are in Russia, part of the governmental machine of capitalism.

Edgar Hardcastle

Strikes — and General Strikes (1973)

From the May 1973 issue of the Socialist Standard

May Day has been chosen as a day of trade-union protest, arising out of a decision reached at a special Trades Union Congress held on 5th March. Some unions are making it a one-day strike, others are limiting it to shorter walk-outs and others again are merely holding protest meetings, or standing aloof. The strikers may number several millions and the event was widely reported in the press as a TUC General Strike.

In fact it bears hardly any resemblance to the planned and purposeful organizing that a serious General Strike would call for. Its timing alone shows that the General Council of the TUC is well aware of how little effect it will have on the Government, whose wage policy it is designed to change. The resolution carried on 5th March reads:

Congress calls upon the General Council . . .  to invite affiliated unions to join in a day of national protest and stoppages against the wage control policy and increase of food prices.

It also called upon the General Council to organize this “as quickly as possible”.

On 5th March the government’s wage policy (The Counter-Inflation Bill) had not become law; it was still  being debated in Parliament. If they believed in the effectiveness of the day of protest as a means of forcing the Government to drop its policy, the TUC could have organized it without delay. Instead, they waited until after the Bill became law at the end of March and then chose May Day. Had they chosen a date before the Bill was passed their bluff would immediately have been called — because it would have been demonstrated at once that the Government had not been deflected from its intention to enact the new law, any more than the Government was deterred from going on with the Industrial Relations Bill against which the TUC organized a similar day of protest on 12th January 1971.

Compromise

Discretion has been the order of the day for the TUC, and with some reason. In nearly two centuries of trade-union history it is impossible to find a single occasion on which a government and Parliament have been prevented by strike confrontation from passing a law they were set on. The reason for this is a simple one. Governments calculate that their legislation has the backing of a majority of the electorate, or at least will be accepted by them at the next election; and nearly three-quarters of the electorate are not trade-unionists.

While the unions have not been able to use confrontation to prevent laws being passed, they have been able to influence the laws in which they are particularly interested in another way. The workers need trade unions, but so also do the employers: under modern conditions the relatively orderly functioning of industry without organizations with which employers can negotiate pay and conditions is unthinkable. The government and the employers need trade-union law. But so also do the unions, if only to give them access to the courts to protect their £140 million funds. (In the early days and again from 1859 to 1871 this protection did not exist and the unions were at the mercy of those who misappropriated their funds.)

So, on numerous occasions, the unions have been able to “do a deal” with government or opposition, Tory, Liberal or Labour, for relaxations of the laws in return for the offer of trade-union concessions or support at elections. The last occasion was in 1969 with the Wilson government. The bargain then was that the Government, while not dropping their intention to go on with their Industrial Relations Bill, cut out certain clauses offensive to the unions in return for a TUC pledge to deal with “unofficial strikes”; at Wilson’s insistence this was written into the TUC Constitution.

The latest move of this kind is the suggestion by Scanlon of the Engineering Union that if the Government would amend the Industrial Relations Act the way would be open for the TUC to seek agreement with the Government on inflation and wages policy. He expressly disclaimed any intention to challenge Parliament.

More Effective Ways

All of this is a far cry from the idea of a serious General Strike. The purpose of such a strike, as with any other strike, should be to use the stoppage of work to hit the employers financially by stopping the production of wealth and profits. Its method would not be to create chaos by bringing all workers out but to bring out the smallest number that would be effective in the industries where the impact would be greatest. (In the 1926 General Strike the strikers called out to help the miners numbered under 2 million.)

As Marx showed and as experience supports, strikes are most effective when capitalism is expanding, factories are working to capacity and profit prospects are good — for it is at such times that the employers least want to interrupt production and are most likely to make concessions. Indeed, provided that the employers know the threat is a serious one, the concessions may be forthcoming without a strike or with one of very short duration. It was the weakness of the 1926 Strike that government and employers looked at the TUC General Council and decided that the threat was bluff. The same is true of the TUC decision of 5th March, which was so little regarded that it caused hardly a ripple on the Stock Exchange. It would have been very different if the threat had been taken seriously.

The 1926 General Strike has another warning: the absurdity of leaving such matters to the TUC General Council. The TUC General Council (unlike the central body in Denmark, where a General Strike recently took place) is not a trade union, does not engage in the ordinary wage-negotiating functions of a union, and is rather a kind of political organization for the big trade-union supporters of the Labour Party. Action by, say, half a dozen unions, under rank-and-file control, would be the appropriate way.

Careful Decision

The approach of the Socialist Party of Great Britain to strikes has always been based on the facts of capitalism on which our whole principles are framed. Those who control the machinery of government, including the armed forces, dominate society — hence the necessity for a Socialist working class to use the vote to gain that control for the purpose of achieving Socialism. It follows that the employers with their wealth and the backing of the State can always win against strikes if they think the issue important enough. As it was put in the Socialist Standard in April 1919:

   On the economic field the masters are in a far stronger position than the workers and can beat them any time they decide to fight to a finish.

It is for the unions therefore to weigh up carefully at a given time whether the employers will be likely to make concessions in order to prevent production being interrupted. Strikes should not be "on principle” and fought to a finish, but for what in the circumstances appear to be attainable objects.

The "illegality” of strikes is not itself a deciding factor. The unions, in their two hundred years, have often been expressly illegal or outside the law and have often been able to ignore laws which are on the statute book but which employers and the government tacitly allow to be ignored. It is, however, essential for unions when weighing up a situation to decide whether in the particular circumstances the government will actively intervene and decide to carry the fight to a finish against the unions, with their certain defeat.

Edgar Hardcastle 

Editorial: The Crushing of the Miners. (1926)

Editorial from the August 1926 issue of the Socialist Standard

The miners’ lock-out has lasted three months, during which every effort—political and economic—has been made to drive them back on the masters’ terms. The employers know well the slender resources of the workers, and they are evidently waiting till hunger has scourged the miners enough to force them back. In the meantime the owners are selling their huge stock of coal and realising the profits from the coal stores so kindly prepared by the miners in the nine subsidy months. The demand for an embargo on coal is being continually made by miners, but, after the huge betrayal of the General Strike, such a step will not be taken. The Labour Leaders in Parliament have been doing the employers’ work well, talking of "back to the Report,” "the Samuel memorandum,” "reorganisation,” and such capitalist schemes with the reduced wages and "increased unemployment” that these things mean. The miners were prevailed upon to stop criticising the General Council and to "work together for victory,” and on such empty words the joint meeting of trade union executives to hear the General Council’s report was not held. But since then the great "left wing” leader—Mr. Bromley—has been very useful to the masters by publishing parts of the "apologia” of the General Council. Mr. Bromley’s words have been used all over the country by the mine-owners to aid them in their work of crushing the miner. The reasons given by the Council for calling off the General Strike are the unyielding nature of the miners demands, but these very demands were the ones the General Council called the General Strike to maintain! Such are the gods of labour—right wing and left wing.

After backing the wrong horses for the General Council, boosting Messrs. Bromley, Tillett, Hicks and Company, the Communists again show their uselessness by demanding "A General Council with Greater Power,” "A New Leadership” (Workers’ Weekly, July 23rd, 1926). This, in spite of their idols of the left wing, proving to be enemies of the working class.

Left to fight alone for the miserable status quo of miners’ wages and hours, the miners have all the powers—political, financial and economic—working against them.

The employers are not content to use their money power against the miner. They with their fellow property owners control the powers of Parliament—by means of workers’ votes. The owners, therefore, pass Emergency Power Acts, Eight-hour Laws, Reorganisation Bills, and thus they cement their hold over the working class. The lesson then is plain—not a change of leaders—but control of political power by a working class understanding its historic mission of abolishing miners—and all other workers’ slavery.