Greasy Pole: The Rise and rise of “Harperson” (2009)

The Greasy Pole column from the April 2009 issue of the Socialist Standard

After the next election, spare a thought for those whose job is to analyse and interpret the result – especially those who must point out, among the national assumption that the votes have led to an effective, much needed change in society, that all that has happened is the substitution of one set of reactionary prejudices for another. Consider, for example, the matter of Harriet Harman and all that is thereby implied. She emerged into the political universe in the guise of a feminist so revolutionary and steadfast that one wit could suggest it would be more consistent with her proclaimed principles if she changed her surname to Harperson. This piece of pedestrian humour harked back to the times when anyone observing the House of Commons benches (and even more so those in The Other Place) could be understood for remarking that the only possible government must be over-weighted with mature, wealthy, overbearing males.

From that observation it was only a short, if misdirected, step in logic to the conclusion that the problems  – poverty, lack of proper housing, social alienation, war – of current society must spring from that prescribed composition of the occupants of the seats of power. And from that position it was tolerable – if not sustainable – to argue that the only certain remedy for those ills was to elect  governments weighted with younger, less monied, more dynamic females.  Which returns us, abruptly, to the matter of Harriet Harman – Chair and Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, Leader of the House of Commons, Lord Privy Seal, Minister for Women and Equality, QC – and hovering contender for the Party leadership in the event that anything should “happen” to  Gordon Brown – like being ditched by Labour after too emphatic an electoral defeat.

Family

Harman is very much a product of the traditionally well-heeled Labour political families with connections significant enough to encourage party members to feel comfortingly patronised by them. (Although what this does for the patronisers is, of course, a matter for speculation). In her background are to be found the Earl of Longford, Lady Antonia Fraser and, earlier, some of the Chamberlain family who once dominated Conservative politics. True to this tradition, Harman was for five years the legal officer of the National Council for Civil Liberties (now Liberty); in that capacity, on the Grunwick picket line, she met her husband. In 1981 (this seems hardly believable now, were it not that for a politician everything is to be believed) she rebelled against the “royalist orgy” of Prince Charles’ marriage to Diana Spencer by joining with Peter Mandelson and others on a cross-Channel ferry for a republican protest away day in France. “We were a happy band, we had a great deal of fun” the then editor of the New Statesman assured us. But this kind of behaviour had to be curbed soon afterwards – in October 1982 Harman joined the other Honourable Members who had fawned so loyally over the doomed royal couple when she won a by-election in Peckham. Her wilder indiscretions looked to be further tamed when, in 1984, she was raised to the opposition front bench, speaking on social services, health and then Treasury matters. After Labour’s 1997 victory Blair put her in charge of the misnamed Department for Social Security but she was sacked after a little more than one year; fulfilling her brief to “reform” the system she had cut the benefit of lone parents but – perhaps more crucially – she had crossed swords too often with junior minister Frank Field.

Iraq

Proving that she has the resilience essential to anyone with ambitions to claw their way up the greasy pole, Harman quickly bounced back; in June 2001 she became Solicitor General – the first woman to hold the job. Since then she has risen steadily, leaving behind her female rivals such as Hazel Blears and Caroline Flint. This is unlikely to have happened without her demonstrating a uncritical readiness to support the government policy on matters such as the “anti-terrorist” laws, the imposition of identity cards, the renewal of Trident. She also voted for the invasion of Iraq – which caused her considerable discomfort later when she appeared to have changed her mind. Responding to a question from Jeremy Paxman on Newsnight she confessed: “If I’d have known if there weren’t weapons of mass destruction I wouldn’t have voted for the war. Clearly it was a mistake”.  However this was no unconditional conversion because she did not keep to her implied promise when agreeing with Paxman that the Labour Party should apologise for the attack. In any case this was all much too late to save the buildings wiped out by the missiles and the bombs and the tens of thousands of people who had been killed. But it was well timed for Harman’s campaign for the Labour Deputy Leadership, after her own poll had persuaded her that the public favoured her above the other candidates.

Goodwin

Labour MPs in the Commons are often driven to a restless embarrassment at Harman’s performance when Gordon Brown is away and she takes over at Prime Ministers Questions. This is not a time for the considered, meticulously argued response; the MPs want something to make them jeer and wave their order papers. It does not help to have Harman fumbling and stuttering, for example when she said that Fred Goodwin, the sacked ex-boss of the Royal Bank of Scotland, was awarded a knighthood for his work for charity when, as any City wide-boy knows, it was for “services” to banking. The same can be said when she, a solicitor and a QC, announced that the government would stop Goodwin collecting the pension awarded him by the bank he wrecked, in spite of the fact that to do so would be illegal. But these are only incidents in Harman’s drive for the top, in which she is ready to attempt to conceal all unhelpful facts and bend  any others. 

Ivan

Grunwick or an exercise in opportunism (1977)

From the August 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

Humbug and hypocrisy will never be found absent when the “militant left” set about discovering new principles. The latest discovery, notwithstanding it is 150 years old, is that workers should have the right to form trade unions. They have been reminded by the events now taking place at the Grunwick factory in north London that the employers also have the right to resist trade unions. What’s more, the capitalist state will always back up the employers’ right with the coercive forces at its disposal, in this case the police. What both trade unions and the left militants have ignored is that this same state is under the control of the Labour Government—a Government which was supported and is still supported by the trade unions and the left-wing organizations, the Socialist Workers’ Party, the Tribune Group, and all the others taking part in the picketing.

Is it not hypocrisy that people like Jack Jones, Scargill and McGahey and other trade-union leaders who have entered into a social contract with this Government to keep wages down, should now be clamouring for Grunwick to increase them? What kind of humbug is this when Ministers and MPs of the same Government, including those Ministers and MPs sponsored by the trade union in the dispute, APEX, ostentatiously place themselves in the picket line (taking good care to warn the press well in advance of their arrival)? How can these people represent the interests of the working class and serve their capitalist masters at the same time?

The National Union of Mineworkers, who couldn’t afford to pay their members strike benefit, are bringing coach-loads of miners from Scotland, Wales and all over England at union expense to join the picket. What a waste of working-class funds and efforts! Len Murray, the General Secretary of the TUC, the right hand of the Labour Government, has warned all the political elements to stay out of an industrial dispute—his member unions having invited them in. We would advise Murray and the TUC to stay out of politics and do the job they are paid to do, and leave the running of capitalism to the capitalists.

The Grunwick affair is proving to be a very useful diversion for the trade-union leaders and their sterile policy of keeping a Labour government in office. Together with Labour, Communists, the Tribune group, and other self-appointed militants, they have demonstrated once more their total ignorance of how capitalism works. Everything they have touched has crumbled. Joining the picket line, they think, may redeem their image. This utterly discredited collection still continue to mouth the word “socialism” and pay lip-service to the class struggle.

The dispute itself is the old story of a capitalist employer who does not want his workers to join a trade union, and has sacked those who made the attempt. The majority of workers in the factory unfortunately will not support their fellow workers and have continued to work. The trade-union movement has dealt with many similar situations over the years, and has evolved procedures for dealing with them. By quietly and patiently negotiating with the workers concerned they have been able to show that membership of a trade union was in their interest. It is a measure of the incompetence of APEX, the trade union involved, that they are unable to persuade workers where their interests lie. Instead they have tried to impose trade unionism from above, and are enlisting the aid of the courts in the process. They may be sure that the foxy Labour Government will keep them fully occupied with High Courts, Courts of Enquiry, Courts of Appeal and other legal procedures which are meat and drink to the employers, just as they are expensive for the workers. Standing behind the employers is the reactionary National Association for Freedom subsidized by other anti-union employers.

It is absurd for the union to maintain a picket for over eleven months when quite clearly it is ineffective and must cause considerable hardship to all the workers concerned. They are being used as a pawn in the present attempt by APEX to enlarge its membership and possibly enforce a closed shop—which is not in the interests of the working class.

The trade union movement seem determined to present this affair as a major issue in the industrial struggle. It is not a major issue—the major issue in the class struggle is Socialism. We do not want sweat-masters or enlightened employers. We do not want capitalism on the best terms unions can obtain: we want to end it. Nowhere in the dispute has any time been devoted to the issue of Socialism versus capitalism, which is the only thing which matters. Trade unions at the moment have no time for Socialism or the Socialist Party of Great Britain, but the class conflict between employer and employee can only be resolved by abolishing the conditions which give rise to that conflict. If workers in or out of trade unions refuse to give their support to the SPGB they must not be surprised that capitalism hurts them.

We stand for the abolition of the wages system. That objective can be obtained now providing workers give their minds to it. If the workers can show an atom of the interest in Socialism they have shown in the Grunwick dispute we would be well on the way to building up a strong Socialist movement.

Jim D'Arcy

Should the Unions back Labour? (1977)

From the October 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is not often that the Socialist Standard finds food for thought in the News of the World. Exception is made for the issue of 4th September 1977. The News of the World usually sets one feature article on its centre spread, as a bluff that it is a serious political paper. Its writer on 4th September was Paul Johnson, a fugitive from the New Statesman—the former editor, in fact. Mr. Johnson expatiated on the recent TUC Congress, and asked: “What’s in the Labour Government for the rank-and-file members of the trade unions?”

He gave a very definite explicit answer—“Nothing!” he said, and proceeded with expertise and despatch to analyze the situation. The union leaders, he said, have it made:

  They are wined, dined, cajoled, cosseted and flattered. They can have a life-peerage for the asking, and fat Quango-jobs are showered upon them.

But what about the members? What has support of the Labour Government done for them?

 Nothing. In fact, worse than nothing. Unemployment, which directly undermines trade union bargaining power, is at its highest since the Thirties, and now creeping to the 1,700,000 mark. Standards of living have fallen, with real wages per average family now £8 a week less than when Labour took office. At the same time, the so-called "social wage”—that is, the benefits ordinary people receive in welfare services—has also declined, as a result of public spending cuts on hospitals, schools, housing, roads and public amenities. Life, then, is hard under Labour: harder than most people under 40 have known it.

And the Callaghan theme-song continues to be “Look for the silver lining”, which he has been singing for two years now—without the sympathetic magic working. Now! says Mr. Johnson, for those reasons:

  It is not in the interests of trade union members for their leaders to give unqualified backing to a particular party and government . . . The only proper task for the trade union leader is to engage in tough negotiations about pay and conditions on behalf of his members . . . The sooner the rank-and-file tell their bosses to get back to their true work, the better for everyone’s wage packets.

Thus the News of the World to its 9 million readers! Naturally we are not unaware that it is busily endeavouring to ingratiate the Tory Party with the trade unions. (It has indignantly rejected Sir Keith Joseph’s support for George Ward, of Grunwick ill-fame.) We wrote in the Socialist Standard in 1904, before Mr. Johnson was born, that the nascent Labour Party “should not receive the adhesion of working men”. But our reason was a socialist one. The only party working men can reasonably support is a Socialist Party.

Mr. Johnson (like most erstwhile Labour politicians) suffers from Leader-disease. When the rank-and-file “tell their bosses”—the trade union leaders—“what to do”, they cease to be their bosses.

Horatio.

How many Grunwicks to Socialism? (1977)

From the August 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

Time to take stock. After more than a century of trade-unionism, in 1977 the elementary struggle for recognition is still being fought. The Labour Party, formed in 1906 to gain trade-union representation in Parliament, is the Government of the day responsible for running capitalism and maintaining the so-called law and order of the ruling class. The coercive state, which includes the police, behaves no differently today than it ever has. The state is the executive power of the capitalist class.

Labour governments have never sought a mandate to end capitalism; when in power they can only run the system for the dominant class. All those leftists and trade unions picketing outside Grunwick have repeatedly urged workers to vote for capitalism and wage-slavery run by the Labour Party.

Instead of inscribing on their banners “Abolition of the wages system” as Marx urged trade-unionists to do more than a hundred years ago, they are fighting to get one reactionary capitalist not to stop exploiting workers but to recognize the unions’ “right” to bargain and dispute about the degree of exploitation. The ugly eruption at Grunwick is only a highly publicized manifestation of the class struggle. It will not be the last. Trade unions can only resist the pressures of the system. They cannot change its effects because they do not challenge the capitalists as owners of the means of production. This ownership is the crux of the matter, and the solution lies in the political field.

The so-called National Association for Freedom, and the Tory MP, who rush to serve the master class whip in hand only show how virulent the conflict of class interests is. The only “freedom” that concerns them is the freedom of the owning class to amass profits. The few Labour MPs and Ministers who have shown their faces in a bid to salve their consciences only demonstrate the uselessness of leaders and their complete impotence in face of the property interests and profit motive of capitalism. They set out to tame capitalism and have become its helpless servants.

Socialists do not seek to capitalize on industrial disputes, particularly when one group of workers clashes with another. The task for Socialists is to urge workers to look beyond the incessant turmoil of the day-to-day struggles engendered by capitalism. To take up the struggle for Socialism and end the servitude of wage-labour once and for all. The same energy and effort now being expended on purely limited objectives could, given Socialist understanding, change society completely. Then, from a world-wide basis of common ownership of the means of production and distribution, mankind can redirect social production to the free satisfaction of human needs. Better than an eternity spent bickering over pittances!

The attainment of Socialism awaits majority understanding and the use of the ballot-box for that exclusive purpose. Workers of all lands, unite for Socialism!

Harry Baldwin

Wage-labour and capital: The case of Grunwick (1977)

From the December 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

A year ago few people had heard of the dispute at the Grunwick film-processing laboratories; today, the effort of the strikers to win union recognition has become a national cause célèbre. The events surrounding the dispute have been obscured by the press, which would have us believe that Grunwick is some kind of elaborate game in which one side tries to drive a bus through a gateway and the other side tries to stop them. The principle involved is lost amid reports of how many policemen were injured and how many demonstrators arrested. It is also difficult because socialists, while seeing the trade-union struggle as necessary, also recognize its futility in terms of the revolutionary political action we call upon workers to take.

Members of the SPGB have attended the Grunwick demonstrations in order to sell literature and distribute a leaflet putting the Party’s view on the dispute. The first paragraph of that leaflet states:

The dispute at Grunwick will come to an end . . . but the class struggle will go on. The Socialist Party of Great Britain believes in the urgent need for workers to join together, not simply for the defensive right of union recognition, but for the purpose of organizing for social revolution—NOW. The need for class unity for Socialism is the pressing task of the age.

That, above all else, is the message of the SPGB. To abandon it would be to abandon our claim to be socialists.

So what’s Grunwick really all about? The strike began over a year ago when one of the employees at the firm walked out as a result of an argument about overtime. She persuaded fellow-workers to go out on strike with her. A majority of the workers from the mail-order section of the factory in Chapter Road, Willesden, walked out. They were disgusted by the conditions in the factory where managers shouted at and abused the workers, where they had to put their hands up before they could go to the toilet, and where employees were instantly dismissed for disobedience.

The owner of the factory, George Ward, dismissed them for going on strike. They took their case to Brent Trades Council (the representative body of local trade unions), which referred them to APEX. For months they picketed outside the factory, demanding higher pay and better working conditions and union recognition. Nobody listened to their case. In June this year the TUC was persuaded to take it up. Trade- unionists from all parts of the country came to support them. Mass picketing has now gone on for some months, so far without resolving the dispute.

What do the Grunwick strikers want? One thing they clearly do not want or even know about is Socialism. They want the opportunity to belong to a trade union, and for their employer to recognize it and reinstate the workers who were sacked for joining it. Without being organized in trade unions, the working class would be in an even poorer state than it is now. Trade unionism alone, however, will not solve the problems capitalism throws up for the working class. Union combination can improve wages and conditions only in accordance with the economic anarchy of the profit system. It cannot be stressed too much that if workers want an end to exploitation, it is political action to capture the state and establish Socialism they must be committed to.

Nevertheless, disputes like Grunwick demonstrate the inherent problems of capitalist society. First, it shows clearly the role and the immense power of the state. Why are thousands of police brought to guard the property of one man? Because the state is the executive committee of the ruling class and is bound to protect capital against wage-labour. In private, representatives of the state try to persuade Ward that he’s swimming against the tide and should recognize the union; but in public, the workers must be blamed.

Second, it is interesting to note who is in control of the state on this occasion. Not the Tories, the traditional representatives of private property and freedom to exploit, but the party of the trade unions and Clause Four: Labour. No doubt more Labour ministers are sentimentally attached to the unions than their Tory opponents, but when their commitment is put to the test they prove far more concerned with the right to exploit than with the right to strike.

Third, the fact that most of the workers at Grunwick are Asian immigrants means they are more easily intimidated, more desperate for work (immigrant unemployment is much higher than the average, especially in this area of London) and that they are less experienced in trade-union organization. The main reason for Ward’s employing them is that they will accept worse pay and conditions than other workers. Similarly many of those involved are women.

Socialists are not concerned with the “rights” and “wrongs” of the Grunwick dispute. We do not see the class struggle in terms of moral injustice. Under capitalism everything, including the prevailing morality, is loaded against those who are forced to sell their labour-power. To see George Ward as the root of all evil, as the Left has done, is to create the illusion that the defeat of Ward is more important than the defeat of capitalism.

What of Ward’s supporters? There is the National Association for Freedom which represents the more backward and reactionary section of the capitalist class. The Conservative Party is divided over Grunwick. The division is an index of the attitudes within the ruling class towards trade unions. The “right wing” of the Tories, represented by Sir Keith Joseph, stand for the traditional Tory attitude that the capitalist should be the sole master of his business, answerable only to the demands of profit and in no way to his employees. The other Conservative view, represented by James Prior, Shadow Minister for Employment, is based on the so-called “free market” in which trade unions are free to negotiate with employers and reach settlements without state interference.

That was the view taken by the Scarman enquiry which was set up to look into the Grunwick dispute:

The company by dismissing all the strikers, refusing to reconsider the reinstatement of any of them, refusing to seek a negotiated settlement to the strike and rejecting ACAS offers of conciliation, has acted within the letter but outside the spirit of the law. Further, such action on the part of the company was unreasonable when judged by the norms of good industrial relations practice. The company has thus added to the bitterness of the dispute, and contributed to its development into a threat of civil disorder. (Our emphasis.)

Clearly it is in the interest of the ruling class to strike a balance between excessive exploitation and threats to the smooth running of capitalism. That is why they reject open hostility to trade unions in favour of “enlightened capitalism”.

What of the Left at Grunwick? As usual, they have confused the issue. They have vastly overestimated the importance of it. It is not, as they claim, an attempt by the capitalist class to destroy trade unions. In fact, trade unions are of use to employers (especially when reformist hacks like Ray Grantham are in control of them). In our leaflet we told workers to reject leaders:

Whilst the organized labour movement accepts reformism they are happy—it is time to reject their leadership and organize independently. THE EMANCIPATION OF THE WORKING CLASS MUST BE THE WORK OF THE WORKING CLASS ITSELF.

The Left, far from telling people to reject leadership and organize democratically, naively call for yet stronger and more militant leaders. These are the people who see themselves as the vanguard of the working class, who are going to lead us to the barricades. They have been conspicuous by their silence when members of the SPGB have been arguing the socialist case to people at Grunwick. They have been seen standing in the background selling newspapers and muttering something about “traditional demands” and “the need for action”. Perhaps it is because these self-appointed leaders share Lenin’ belief that workers are too stupid to understand Socialism—far better have them shout slogans at a bus-full of confused workers. As our leaflet said:

The enemy is not those still working at Grunwick. We must unite to persuade them to the side of their own class interests. The enemy is not the police. They too are members of the working class. When the movement for Socialism grows they will stop doing the dirty work for the parasite class who give them their orders. THE REAL ENEMY IS THE SYSTEM OF SOCIETY WHICH PUTS PROFITS BEFORE PEOPLE AND PARASITES BEFORE WORKERS. We must unite to abolish the cause of the sickness of society, not just fight against the symptoms.

Marx argued the case for a future society without buying and selling, wage-labour or capital. That alone is the object of the Socialist Party of Great Britain. We urge all readers to involve themselves in the struggle for a world in which trade unions will be unnecessary because the buying and selling of useful things, including human energy, will be a thing of the past.

Steve Coleman

Strikes: the Socialist Viewpoint (1978)

From the January 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

Because the Christmas holidays compel us to go to press early with this issue, the above articles were written at the beginning of December.

The Firemen

The Firemen’s strike which started in November provides an outstanding example of how capitalism regards the working class. The firemen, who had never gone on strike before, had a long-standing grievance over pay. Their demand was for a 30 per cent. increase. The Government’s response was that it would not agree to any rise of more than 10 per cent, in the “public sector” of employment; although rises in industry go above this figure, and though wages are now running substantially behind prices.

From the beginning of the strike, the principal question raised was the moral one: were not the strikers acting without conscience towards their fellow men? Firemen were repeatedly asked by radio and television interviewers to envisage children and old people in blazing buildings. Soldiers were hastily organized to use military fire-fighting equipment. When deaths did take place in fires, they were reported on the front pages of the papers.

This humane aspect is readily taken up as a weapon by the capitalist class and its government. Nurses, teachers, doctors and other workers who perform vital services always have put in front of them the consequences if they strike. The argument must be (and is) heeded; but it would sound better if it were not connected with our rulers’ desire for cheapness. And if they themselves put other people’s lives before their own profit and security. An illustrative comparison is the decision of governments not to “give in” to ransom-demanding hi-jackers, i.e. their preparedness to let any plane-load of people be killed rather than to suffer a political disadvantage.

Who has put lives at risk in the firemen’s strike: the firemen—or is it the Government? Callaghan’s stated concern was that one concession would pave the way for others and undermine the "pay policy.” The unstated part was that this could lead to the Labour Party losing political power. While this consideration over-rules the merits of the firemen’s case, it should be pointed out that it is not “life” in general that is jeopardized by the situation: it is working-class life. The fire-prone areas are industrial districts and close-packed housing in Glasgow, East London, etc., not where the well-to-do have their residences. The latter can, in any case, retire to their cottages in the country where the part-time fire brigades are outside the dispute.

All workers should see the cynicism of the ruling class in this matter. As employees, they have to struggle against pressure on their living standards; as the working class at large, they are the victims of every “situation” and crisis in capitalism—and then told it is their greed and lack of moral fibre that is to blame.

Robert Barltrop

Bitter end at Grunwick

The Grunwick strike was called off after more than a year of agitation because the strike committee decided "that there is no point in further mass picketing, and there is little hope of any other tactics bringing victory” (The Times, 29th November 1977). “Victory” meant reinstatement of the eighty strikers and union recognition in the Grunwick factory.

Thus ends a sad episode in working-class struggles. Its history was described in last month’s Socialist Standard; it is to be hoped that some lessons at least will be learned from it. The Times report said: “The strikers feel that the union is not on their side.” It would be better put that the union mismanaged the whole thing from the start, and ended having spent (according to the Financial Times, 8th November 1977) approximately a quarter of a million pounds of funds to no purpose.

In front of everything else, strikes practically never achieve their objectives when they are prolonged. Effective action is short and sharp; since the aim is to disable the employer, the most effective strike of all is the one which never takes place, i.e. the strikers’ demand is met because the employer is anxious that production shall not be held up. If this is unpredictable, the unions should (as Marx advised them to) test the situation. But when employers show that they are prepared to resist indefinitely, the unions should recognize that they have virtually no hope of winning. Grunwick demonstrates this.

Second, the strike must be united. A ballot of all the members or employees should be the condition for its taking place, and also a ballot on returning to work. Only a section of the Grunwick workers took part in the dispute, and the basis of the strike was weakened correspondingly. It was hoped that workers in other unions could be persuaded to cut off services such as electricity and postal deliveries (post office workers did so for a time). This again should be more than a hope. It should rest on a voted-upon decision by the other unions to act in sympathy, and should take into account the possibility of action by the government.

The performances of Labour MPs and left demonstrators, striving to make political capital out of the Grunwick dispute, were wholly discreditable. They distorted the issues, alienated public sympathy, and contributed to the eventual demoralization which an unsuccessful prolonged strike produces. We sympathize with the strikers whose action began as a revolt against the contemptible Grunwick employer Ward. They may have learned things about trade-union organization, and about wage-labour and capital.

Robert Barltrop