Productivity deals (1970)

Book Review from the June 1970 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Employers’ Offensive: Productivity Deals and How to Fight Them, by T. Cliff, Pluto Press. 6s.

In the preface to his new book on productivity deals Tony Cliff tells us that it is intended as a handbook to enable shop stewards to understand and resist offers of productivity deals. He regards such offers as “part of a major offensive by the employing class of this country to shift the balance of forces in industry permanently in their direction”.

This book is a continuation of Incomes Policy, Legislation and Shop Stewards which T. Cliff and C. Barker wrote in 1966. The review of that book in the Socialist Standard (August 1966) ridiculed its claim that out of the shop stewards there would come a new “revolutionary working class movement”. Cliff now admits that we were right and he was wrong — “Life” he says “proved much more complex than the theory put forward”. Specifically he admits that incomes policy did not stop the rise of all wages, it did not provoke general working class resistance “economic, ideological and political”, and there did not arise “a new workers’ movement… overcoming the fragmentation of the working class”.

Nothing daunted, he is having another go. What Incomes Policy failed to achieve he now expects to be achieved by the employers’ campaign for productivity deals. Events will prove him wrong again.

His argument this time is that because of the big increase in the size of investment required for modern industry, the rapidity of technological change and the intensity of foreign competition, capitalism needs to plan years ahead and have long-term control of costs, including wages. The problem is alleged to be particularly great for British capitalism because inflation and the adverse balance of payments lead to “stop-go” and a slower rate of expansion, which in turn raises the cost of production per unit of the products. So the capitalist must have productivity deals which undermine the workers’ shop floor organisation, the shop stewards. This will be resisted with the help of Cliff’s handbook and the new revolutionary movement will emerge.

It will be seen that fate has been very unkind to the author; for about the time his book was being printed the adverse balance of payments was converted into a surplus; also inflation is going on in most other countries too; and productivity deals are going ahead often with the approval of the shop stewards.

One of the author’s errors is to underestimate the resilience of capitalism and the resourcefulness of business managements. Having seen that capitalism would rather like certain things he imagines that there are “musts”; but there is no must about it. Long term wage contracts would be useful to the capitalists but they are not indispensable, especially as employers know by experience that unions have little hesitation about presenting new claims during the life of a contract if circumstances favour this. The situation recently arose in America of the General Electric Company fighting for a one year wage contract while the unions were pressing for three years.

Again, employers would like to be able to enter into long period contracts with buyers to supply at a fixed price, but this is not a matter of life and death. The Shipbuilders and Repairers National Association reports that contracts to build ships are now being drawn up with a clause which allows for some form of price variation to meet unforeseen higher costs (Financial Times, 30 April 1970). Many other firms do the same where completion of the job extends over a long period.

What vitiates much of Cliff’s theorising is that he seems to be quite unaware of the past history of capitalism. He draws hasty conclusions from current events as if nothing very much happened before he came on the scene to observe them.

He tells us for example that in this country it was the Macmillan Government in 1962 which first embarked on an Incomes Policy. It was in fact started in 1948 by the Labour Government when it laid down the principle that there was to be no general increase of wages “unless accompanied by a substantial increase in production”. The same idea was present in the productivity campaign of 1920.

He says that ten years ago productivity bargaining was “a new and strange phenomenon to most workers in British industry”. Little is new about it except the name. The capitalists have always been intent on eliminating unoccupied time and wasted effort from the productive process and workers have always with varying degrees of success, resisted: it and tried to bargain about it. The basic attitude of the employers has always been the same as it is now, to try to get all the benefits of increased productivity themselves. Marx, in Volume I of Capital (Chapter XXI), dealing with the bitter struggles over piece work wages and the workers’ attempts to get higher rates in line with increased productivity and profits, ended the chapter with the following:

  “The capitalist . . . declares roundly that the productiveness of labour does not concern the labourer at all.”

Many of the present productivity deals are concerned with the worker giving up trade union restrictive practices for a wage increase. In the first world war workers were unwisely induced by appeals to their patriotism to give up trade union practices and accept dilution, getting in return only a pledge that after the war what had been given up would be restored. When that time came the workers were not in a position to make the pledge stick and, as Sidney Webb tersely remarked in his History of Trade Unionism “Trade unionists were on the whole ‘done'”.

Cliff has a good deal to say about Work Study (Measured Day Work) and job evaluation. Here again there is little new except that the methods have become more elaborate. Nearly half a century ago factory workers were bitterly resisting employers’ attempts to introduce the Bedaux system of unit measurement (the work expected of a worker in one minute). Job evaluation was years old when in 1955 it was formally introduced in the Civil Service. It was being used in a rough and ready way by the Post Office at the end of the nineteenth century and the Post Office long ago developed its own system of units of work to adjust the numbers of staff to the volume of traffic.

There is one superficial change concerning wage bargaining brought about by years of inflation. For a quarter of a century governments have more or less continuously run a policy of depreciating the currency, with the consequence of an abnormal rise of prices and the cost of living. They have done this as part of their belief that they were thereby securing “full employment”. A rising cost of living is politically unpopular so the governments have also strenuously sought to offset some of the rise by finding ways to increase productivity per worker (Reducing the amount of labour required to produce commodities). As in this situation employers could count on getting continuously rising prices for what they sold they were content to put up a more or less token resistance to wage increases required to keep up with the cost of living, offering their real resistance to increases beyond that level, just as when Marx wrote about it a century or more ago. Official figures for 1969 give a revealing picture of what happens.

“Wages and salaries alone rose by 7 and half per cent; but this increase was reduced to 5 and half per cent by higher personal tax payments and national insurance contributions. Most of the remaining 5 and half per cent rise in personal disposable income was offset by higher prices . . . “ (Financial Times, 9 April 1970.)

The workers would be on sound ground in resisting all attempts to intensify their work or worsen its conditions and should always try to get the highest wage possible in the circumstances of the time, the strike, or threatened strike being the one way to test the possibilities. Cliff turns this simple proposition into something needlessly complicated. He produces a handbook for conducing productivity bargaining but declares himself to be “bitterly and unalterably opposed” to such deals. Then he hedges by saying that you can’t just say no to an employers’ offer, and by directing his fire against “derisory” offers and ones which give only “a few miserable shillings”. His real reason why shop stewards cannot just say no is that many workers want such deals and if the shop stewards take a negative attitude they isolate themselves from the workers.

One of his recommendations is that shop stewards should “invent” restrictive practices the abandonment of which will be of no value to employers and then sell these to the employers for wage increases. It is open to question whether the employers’ negotiators are so easily deceived but if Cliff believes them to be that naive it is for him to justify making these tricks public. Certainly the point was taken by Peter Jay who reviewed the book in the Times (25 March 1970) for he recommends to “any business executive who expects to be engaged in negotiating productivity deals” to get a copy and “know your enemy”.

Cliff is a firm believer in leadership as against the Socialist principle that working class emancipation requires the understanding of the workers themselves. He believes however, that the “natural leaders” of the workers are the shop stewards and other “floor” representatives and not the national trade union leaders.

His case against national trade union leaders and for shop stewards is that the national leaders get out of touch with their members, but he then admits that many of the shop floor representatives also “get completely divorced from their base”. Without knowing that he is doing so he actually shows how little use his “good” leaders are for they cannot act beyond the understanding of the workers; he grants “that a trade union leader can’t be expected to march 10 miles ahead of his membership”, and, as already remarked, he admits that unless shop stewards fall in with workers’ support for productivity deals they become “isolated”.

One of his proposals for reforming the trade unions is that “union officials should get the same rate of pay as the average members”. This is a question that occupied the unions as soon as the need arose to have full-time officials and to many trade unionists. Cliff’s proposal looks a useful one. It was being propagated nearly half a century ago by an organisation of trade union office staffs. It is practicable for unions of comparatively highly paid workers and something of this kind is operated by some unions. But where the membership is of low paid workers it can be quite impracticable. For example, in the agricultural workers union, which has its head office near the centre of London, it would mean that the full-time officials would be paid considerably less than their clerks and shorthand typists because it would be quite impossible to recruit staffs in Central London at the wage of an agricultural worker.

In any event it is misdirected. What is of much more importance is that union membership should see to it that they formulate policy themselves and insist on officials and executives and shop stewards carrying it out.

Cliff’s book is dotted with references to Socialism and the abolition of capitalism but without any real understanding of what Socialism implies — on occasion he indicates that he thinks state capitalism (nationalisation) is Socialism. Emancipation is not going to be achieved by non-Socialists led by shop stewards because it requires a Socialist working class getting control of the machinery of government.

So little does he understand the futility of putting a party of capitalism in control of the machinery of government that he and his organisation (“International Socialists”) were telling the workers to support Labour candidates at the last two elections — and are doing so again at this one. His book is not going to achieve the new revolutionary working class he anticipates.

Edgar Hardcastle

Old myths refurbished (1966)

Book Review from the August 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

Incomes Policy, Legislation and Shop Stewards by T. Cliff and C. Barker (introduction by Reg. Birch). 136 pages. 2s. 6d. Published by London Shop Stewards Defence Committee.

The authors' purpose in this book is to explain why an incomes policy exists, why the workers should oppose it and why the shop stewards are the key to the achievement of "Socialism". But, as will be shown, they are not really aiming at Socialism and their belief in the Shop Steward Movement is built on faulty observation of the conditions of capitalism and on failure to distinguish between "militancy" and Socialist understanding. Above all they do not face up to the fact that the act of revolutionising the social system requires control of the machinery of government by a Socialist working-class. They attack the political and industrial leaders of the workers but not the idea of leadership: what they want is different leaders. They are not consistent in this and in some places they appear to be arguing for self-reliant action by the workers and not "leave it to their leaders", but elsewhere we are told that the shop stewards are the "natural leaders".

The particular target of their attack is full-time trade union officials because these officials do not support the shop stewards and unofficial strikes—"the majority of the union bureaucrats cannot be depended on any more".

There are some trade unions in which the full-time officials vote on the Executive Committee and others in which the full-time officials have no votes, but there is no evidence in this book that makes any practical difference to the policies of the unions.

The authors argue that the shop stewards and factory committees are the militants, held in check by the national executives but they have overlooked the reasons why unions have full-time officials and the conditions in which factory floor militancy vanishes.

In the early days unions had to fight to secure that the union officials could get recognition to negotiate with the employers, who much preferred to deal direct with the workers in their employ. It was to prevent sacking and victimisation of workers on the factory floor that unions demanded the recognition of the union official who could not be directly intimidated.

Cliff and Barker argue from post-war British history that it is the shop stewards and factory committees which are most active; but they have failed to draw the right conclusions from the almost complete destruction of the shop steward movement after the first World War, although they report it:

  By about 1920, with a rise in unemployment and an enormous offensive against the working class from the employers, the shop steward movement that had been born during the war was as good as wiped out.

When unemployment is heavy the shop stewards and factory committees are most vulnerable: faced with the sack they have no choice but to become passive, or, as has happened, become the instruments of the employers. Guillebaud, in his The Works Council (Cambridge University Press 1929) showed how, in Germany, although the works councils were set up by law and flourished when unemployment was low, they collapsed when unemployment became heavy in 1923. Then it was the National unions which alone could offer some protection of the workers and of the works councils themselves.

Extravagant claims are made for the shop steward movement in this book. They are given the credit for the big increase in the number of strikes in the years 1959 to 1965 and they are said to give us "the possibility of the rebirth of a revolutionary working class movement".

It is true that the number of strikes, except in mining, has increased (but why leave out the strikes in the mining industry which have fallen heavily?). But the authors should look further before drawing conclusions. If they took account of the numbers of trade unionists they might have to conclude that, measured by the numbers of strikes, the workers were more "militant" at the end of the 19th Century. But it is in any event a shallow view. Many factors influence the number of strikes—a sharp rise in prices for example and prices have been rising faster since 1960, after which most of the increase in the number of strikes has taken place. Attempts by employers to introduce new working conditions (shifts for example) may also be a factor.

And the authors should also take a look at the results of the strikes. After taking into account the effect of rising, prices, average hourly earnings have been rising by a smaller percentage as the number of strikes has increased.

And they forget that in favourable conditions unions can sometimes gel results by threatening to strike but not needing to do so.

It is when they write about "revolutionary aims" and socialism that Cliff and Barker are most confused and obscure. They claim to want socialism but tell us that the greatest problems facing the workers at the present time are incomes policy and trade union legislation. Why isn't the achievement of Socialism the greatest problem?

They talk of the "rebirth of a revolutionary working class movement", but why "rebirth"? When was the British working-class organised in a revolutionary movement for Socialism?

And why should the shop stewards' movement have any such consequence? They admit the obvious fact that the factory floor struggles are "essentially private fights, particular to workers in one shop or one factory".

They mention that one activity which strengthens the hands of the shop stewards is that they maintain control over the distribution of overtime!

How do these narrow struggles give birth to Socialist understanding?

Even the authors' opposition to the Government's incomes policy betrays that they do not aim at Socialism with its necessary feature of the abolition of the wages system for they talk in terms of opposition to "an Incomes Policy under capitalism". Is there then to be an incomes policy under their "Socialism"?

They attack George Brown's plan because it envisages a relative decline in nationalised industry and ask "What about good old Clause Four?"

Clause Four is the clause in the Labour Party constitution which commits them to mass nationalisation or state capitalism. So what, from the Socialist standpoint, is there "good" about Clause Four.?

Cliff and Barker also note that the government is "by no means the best employer", so why do they want more nationalisation?

The authors are very coy about the Socialist movement they want to see. It is to be the "the mightiest socialist movement yet in the history of Britain". It is to come out of the Shop Stewards' Movement and is to be "a new socialist movement". May we ask what is the name of this new party and what is its object?

Reg Birch, who writes the Preface, likes the rest of the book but not the talk about the increase in the number of shop stewards automatically leading "the development of a Socialist movement"; but he is equally coy about the name and object of the political party of his choice.

After all, the three of them agree in holding up the Shop Steward's Movement as the movement of revolutionary promise. So why can't they tell us about the new society they seek? Is it really Socialism or only Clause Four capitalism that they are after?

And as the authors urge the workers not to take a "deep interest in parliament" what is their political party going to do?

It would be interesting to know what the three of them were doing at the last General Election. Were they urging the workers to vote only for Socialism? Or were they supporting one or other of the parties of capitalism, the Labour Party and Communist Party for example?

Edgar Hardcastle

Politics First (1968)

Book Review from the April 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

Industrial Democracy in Great Britain. edited by K. Coates and A. Topham. Macgibbon and Kee. 63s.

It is insolent of those who idealise industrial action to link this, as Coates and Topham do, with Marx. For Marx held that, necessary and useful as industrial action was, what it could achieve was limited; to end wage slavery the working class should take political action to convert the means of production from class to social property. The industrial side of the class struggle is thus in a sense subsidiary. This book is a collection of writings advocating a greater say in industrial administration for workers on the shop- floor and, frankly, is uninteresting. The authors’ comments are mealy mouthed and in places inaccurate. We are told that lames Connolly “split the old Social Democratic Federation to form a new Socialist Labour Party". This move was in fact an expression of the dissatisfaction of the younger SDF members; it is quite wrong to attribute the founding of the SLP to Connolly. Another sign was the founding in 1904 of the Socialist Party of Gt. Britain — not mentioned, of course.

Workers have no special power “at the point of production”. The real seat of power is what controls the government machine and capitalist power rests on their control of this. Industrial action won’t dislodge them. It is significant that Coates and Topham can find nothing to quote on the shop stewards' movement from 1926 to 1935, a period of great unemployment. All the pre-war items on this issue are from members of the so-called Communist Party — Tom Bell. J. T. Murphy. Tom Mann, W. Gallacher, Wal Hannington and Harry Pollitt — thus endorsing the view that at one time the CP was a revolutionary organisation which went off the rails when it embraced parliamentary action after the war. But the CP has always been an opportunistic party, its only principle being to act in accordance with the interests of Russian state capitalism. Thus they called a meeting of shop stewards in April 1940 to protest against the employers using the war as an excuse to attack working conditions. At another meeting in October 1941 the same people were reported as cheering a man who declared “If a man doesn’t pull his weight in war production then, whether he is a labourer or engineer, he should be put in the army". We all know what had happened in between! From 1941 to 1947 the CP supported production drives and this only changed when the wartime alliance broke up. One of the pre-war Communists quoted is J. T. Murphy. Murphy was expelled from the CP in 1932 because he would not accept the slogan “‘stop the transport of munitions"; he wanted "credits for the Soviet Union!" Murphy's following had been built up among engineering workers in eastern Sheffield, an important munition producing area. This incident well shows that the shop steward's following is based on industrial issues. They don't carry their supporters with them when they branch out into politics.

Coates and Topham recognise that democratic control of industry will not work if production is still to be geared to the market (look at the co-ops, they say). They know that for this to be effective the market and money must go. Only they fall for the old stepping stone policy:

Given the establishment of a democratically self-regulating industry in a climate formed and dominated by the market, a struggle will begin between democracy and the market.

Once some people thought that nationalisation was a step to Socialism. All they achieved was to bring certain industries under the collective control of the capitalist class via the state. All this talk about “worker’s control” and industrial democracy will probably have a similar outcome: employers will latch on to it as a stepping stone to involving their workers in production problems—with a view to increasing profits.

Adam Buick

Letter: The UCS "Take Over" (1971)

Letters to the Editors from the November 1971 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Sirs,

On reading your August edition of the Socialist Standard, I was shocked and disappointed at the inaccuracies and blatant lies given out under the heading "Revolt on the Clyde”.

In a previous article entitled “Do You Know About Socialism?” you attack the working class of this country for their placid acceptance of the controls and restrictions placed on them by the capitalist system. And yet when a section of the working class make a stand against this system of suppression you immediately condemn them out of hand for being unrealistic.

The author of the derogatory article states, "That workers in a declining industry like shipbuilding have any economic power capable of overcoming the all too real and socially accepted political power of the government is a myth”. This statement shows a gross ignorance of the world shipbuilding situation today. A little investigation would have shown that the true situation is the reverse of that stated. World tonnage for ships launched has been steadily increasing over the past ten years, and there is no evidence to suppose that this increased demand will not continue.

The statement, "Locked in the yards with no work and no money the workers would only be able to hold out for a short while”, again shows a lack of understanding of the situation. Due to tremendous response from all over Britain in the way of donations to the UCS fighting fund and weekly levies imposed by trade unions, the shop stewards should have sufficient capital to re-employ UCS workers as soon as they are made redundant until March 1972. There is also sufficient work in the yards to keep the men fully occupied until then. By this time it is envisaged that the government will have altered its viewpoint on the situation.

It is further implied in the article that UCS in its present form is not viable, and that the cause has been partially lost because "thousands of Clyde shipyard workers did lose their jobs while Benn was Labour Minister”. May I point out that the thousands mentioned were laid off during the creation of UCS as part of a productivity agreement with the unions concerned. Since then the company has increased productivity and improved labour relations no end and can now confidently quote £5.5m. for the 17,000 ton cargo ships which are so much in demand as against Japan’s quote of £5.3m.

The government sponsored Shipbuilding Industry Board says in its report that the shipyards are in better shape than they have been since the war. "They deserve encouragement and support”.

Since the shop stewards took control of the situation at UCS, words such as "occupation" and "workers’ control” have been bandied about, not by the stewards but by irresponsible articles written by authors lacking in either basic socialist morals or common sense. In direct contrast the men in control of the UCS at present have shown themselves to be responsible, realistic and genuinely concerned about the current unemployment situation.

These men are fighting for The Right to Work, a right regarded by true socialists to be basic and by the present government to be contrary to the theory of capitalism.

A victory for this right just now will not only be a victory for the Clydeside workers, but a victory for all those who regard socialism as the only true and fair system for this country.

I therefore respectfully suggest that your publication refrains from the type of public sniping and destructive criticism we are accustomed to in the capitalist press and get on with the job of educating the people of this country in preparation for socialism.

You could begin by assigning the author of the article to the organisation of appeals on behalf of the UCS fighting fund and therefore practically assist those who are currently leading the fight for a basic socialist principle, The Right to Work.

F. J. Coyle, London, W.5.

REPLY:

We have never condemned the UCS workers. Quite the reverse. The article in question wished them luck “in using their bargaining strength to get the best of redundancy terms they can”. Which is essentially what the so-called work-in is about. It is not the beginning of a workers’ revolution, nor the expropriation of the capitalists at the point of production but, as Mr. Coyle recognises, simply a trade union tactic of an unusual kind.

We do not doubt that the UCS shop stewards are what Mr. Coyle describes as “responsible” and “realistic”. For all their fiery words, they must know that all they can hope for is some deal, either with the government or with some capitalist like Archibald Kelly, that will save as many jobs as possible. It is to their credit that they do not seem to be interested in leading the Clydeside shipworkers into a head-on clash with the forces of the State, despite the nonsense mouthed by those criticised in our article (and despite some of their own earlier statements made in the heat of the moment). In passing, we would challenge the accuracy of saying that the stewards now “control” the yards seeing that for the time being it is also in the interests of the liquidator that work on the unfinished ships goes on.

The shop stewards must know, too, that any deal is bound to involve some redundancies. We stand by what we said on this, that whatever happens some (more) Clydeside shipworkers are bound to lose their jobs because of the profit situation in British shipbuilding. The UCS workers cannot win in the sense of achieving “no redundancies” and any deal the unions and/or the stewards are likely to get—like the last one when Benn was Minister — cannot avoid some men being declared redundant. To assume otherwise is to assume that capitalism can cease to run on profits. This is not to say the workers should not put up a struggle. They should, if only because the more militant they are the better deal they are likely to get, as past trade union struggles have shown.

How successful will be the particular tactic they have adopted remains to be seen. But it is not something to be condemned out of hand just because it has not been tried before (if it was really an attempt to expropriate the capitalists rather than a mere trade union tactic that would be a different matter; that has been tried before with disastrous results and we would have no hesitation in condemning it). The Socialist Party of Great Britain has always given its general support to the industrial side of the class struggle, which is what the UCS workers are involved in, while leaving the specific tactics to be adopted in this struggle to the workers immediately involved. If after considering the situation carefully the UCS workers have democratically decided on a peaceful, disciplined “work-in” that is up to them. As we said, we wish them luck. Mr. Coyle may also be interested in knowing that members of the Socialist Party through their trade unions have contributed to the UCS fighting fund.

Mr. Coyle charges us with certain inaccuracies but he has misunderstood us. First, the reference to shipbuilding as a declining industry was to shipbuilding in Britain not the world. Incidentally, by “economic power” we meant the trade union strength of the shipbuilding workers rather than the competitive position of the shipbuilding industry. Second, does Mr. Coyle think that from August 1971 to March 1972 is not “a short while”? Third, we specifically stated that we were not going to get involved in “board room disputes”. Whether or not UCS in its present form is viable comes into this category and readers can judge from Mr. Coyle’s enthusiastic comments on UCS’s labour relations and costs where this can lead.

Finally, Mr. Coyle seems to think that Socialism could be established just in “this country”. We do not; we say Socialism can only exist on a world-scale. Mr. Coyle also thinks that the so-called Right to Work is a basic socialist principle. We do not, as we explain elsewhere in this issue.

Editorial Committee (October 10)

See also: Report on Clydeside (December 1971 Socialist Standard)