Editorial: The Printers’ Strike. (1911)

Editorial from the March 1911 issue of the Socialist Standard

During the past few weeks the equanimity of London Printingdom has been disturbed by a strike of some magnitude on the question of hours. The men have taken action in support of a demand for a 48 hour week, and though at the time of writing the strike is not at an end, it looks very much as if the employees will succeed in obtaining the demand they put forward as a compromise: 50 hours immediately, and a future consideration of the 48 hours question.

Now the attitude of the orthodox Press toward this strike is full of significance. Silence can be more eloquent than speech, and their silence carries an important testimony as to the reality of the class struggle to those that have ears to hear. But of more significance than this, and of infinitely greater importance, is the attitude taken up by the men’s leaders, and reflected in the organ of the movement, the Daily Herald.

We have said that silence can be more eloquent than speech. This paper which the printers have founded to be their mouthpiece in the struggle, no less than the silence of the men’s leaders, is further evidence of that.

The dumb capitalist Press by its very silence proclaims in thunder tones the class struggle, while the quiet tongues of the strike leaders, and the still columns of their organ are vehement charges of treachery and cowardice against those who do know the true position, and a pathetic index of the ignorance of those who do not.

In every quarrel between masters and men, we take up the position that, as between masters and men, the latter can never be wrong. But in the matter of their conduct of the fight, we have seldom found a British trade union in the right—and the present strike affords no welcome exception.

Granted, in the first place, that workingmen must, however little it may affect their class position, struggle continuously to secure the best price and conditions for their labour-power, granted also that at the moment trade unions may be the most effective means to that end, still the vital thing has not been said.

After all, where does trade union effort land the workers ? After each “famous victory,” after the most famous victory that any trade unionist, as such, and under the affliction of the most violent form of palpitation of that imagination, ever dared dream of, where do the victors stand ? They may have held their own ; they may have recovered a little of what was their own. “Simply that, and nothing more.”

This much is confessed by the men’s leaders when they admit that they have been driven to the present action by the great increase of unemployment consequent upon the advance of machinery and the general speeding-up that has taken place in all branches of the printing trade. For if that is so, it is an admission that all they can hope for from victory is the regaining of some of the ground lost of recent years.

Of course, as far as the men’s action goes it is sound enough. Everyone who has anything to sell must fight for the best terms—that is a presupposed condition of the competitive market—and those who have only their labour-power to sell are no exception. But if after each battle the workers have only regained something of what they have lost, or let us even say all that they have lost; if each succeeding conflict is to find and leave them in the same state of mental torpor, with, the same paralyzing faith in the union and the strike as their economic salvation, and no outlook beyond a stronger position as sellers of labour-power, then indeed Hope may sit down by the wayside and turn her eyes backward over the way we have come—for there is nothing to gladden them in the way we are going.

For, think ! These men demanded a reduction of 4½ hours per week, and the limitations of their union are shown by their compromising, in the midst of a “winning fight,” for a 2½ hours reduction. That is less than 5 per cent. of the week’s hours. Those who know anything of the printing trade do not need to be told that this 5 per cent. reduction does not anything like counterbalance the increased output per head which has taken place in the decade or so that has slipped away since the last reduction of hours. The speeding-up and the development of, machinery in all departments have been astounding, and new processes are discovered almost daily.

In the composing department there are the Linotype and other machines, for which it is claimed that the output per man is six times that of the hand compositor. In the machine room speed has been enormously increased, and in addition mechanical contrivances are pushing the workers aside. In the case of cylinder machines, first the “flyers” got rid of the taker-off, now automatic feeders make the layer-on a superfluity. With regard to platen machines the same tale is to tell—first self-delivery, now self-feed. In newspaper production, you give the Hoe Double Octuple press half a ton of ink and a few miles of paper, and it will deliver to you 192,000 8-page papers, folded, per hour.

Magazines and the like are trimmed on all three sides simultaneously at a fearsome rate ; in the stereoing department equal strides have been made ; the process block has banished the old pictorial wood engraver so that not one of his kind now practises in this country. Even the artist and designer, who was wont to comport himself with a leisurely dignity, as one whom mechanical contrivances could not touch, has been brought to a chastened frame of mind by the camera, and may be seen plying the air-brash like a man in a mighty hurry.

In face of all this who will dare to assert that trade unionism, in winning a 5 percent. reduction in a decade, has maintained the workers’ position ? At the very moment of the strike there enters the market a new composing machine of improved form at £200 less cost ! Meanwhile the older machine develops new capabilities which enable it to eat its way into the jobbing offices. And one City firm has in position on one of its printing machines, at present under cover, lock, and key, an American automatic feeder that is going to strike consternation into the hearts of the men.

In the past this development has cheapened production and increased demand. It has given us the halfpenny morning paper—which we all read nowadays—and extended the use of advertising matter. Else had the effect of machinery been even more severely felt. But there are limits in this direction, for few of us can read two papers at once, and it is not wise to count on the abnormal increase of the cross-eyed, even to keep trade unionists in work.

And it must not be lost sight of that it is the machine the workers have to compete with. Machinery is adopted because it is cheaper; hence the very fact that this shortening of hours raises the cost of labour-power must give a fillip to the development of machinery. There is a circle of profitableness to every grade of machinery. On the fringe of that circle stand the doubters, who hesitate to adopt it. But raise the cost of labour-power and they are decided—the circle takes on a larger circumference, and the advance of machinery tumbles men out into the streets to starve.

While this in no way lessens the fact that the workers (it applies to all trades) must continually struggle against the encroachments of the masters, it shows them that the struggle is a hopeless one, and that they must look elsewhere for the true remedy for their troubles. There are among their leaders men who know this—why do they not say so ? There are among those producing their daily newspaper, men who are well aware that Socialism alone is the only hope—why, then, is no mention of the fact made ?

One reason is this—the constituencies are not ripe yet to return Socialists to Parliament, and should enlightened trade unionists demand that their officials run as Socialists, they would surely lose place and pelf.

Printers, when you have won your strike your advantage will immediately begin to slip from your hands. Socialism is the only remedy for working-class ills. We earnestly invitc you, therefore, to study Socialism.

Editorial: The Eight Hour Day. (1908)

Editorial from the September 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Eight Hour Day.

The speeding up of the workman, the ever-growing intensity of the labour exacted from him, renders imperative a longer repose so that he may recuperate his working strength and maintain his maximum productivity. Hence flows the modern tendency toward shorter hours so that the profitableness of the worker to the capitalist may increase. It is the necessary and inevitable outcome of modern industrial conditions even from the capitalist point of view, and is by no means a sign of victory over the ruling class.

If the champions of the eight hour day were to confine themselves to stating the truth about their pet reform there would be little need to quarrel with them, but when they claim as one of the virtues of the eight hour day that it will abolish or greatly reduce unemployment, we join issue. It is rankest charlatanism to foist a piece of some necessary capitalistic patchwork upon the slow-minded as the remedy for the workers’ greatest ill, yet, unfortunately, it is the characteristic procedure of the labour leader.

In the present instance, if the reduction of working hours is to bring about more employment, it could only be by decreasing the output per man, and providing more work by causing the employment of more men to produce the same amount as before. But would it have any such effect ? So far as positive evidence goes it is directly against any presumption of a lessening of the output per man. Even past masters in the art of red-herring trailing give themselves away at times. Thus Sidney Webb and Harold Cox in their book, “The Eight Hour Day,” state in considering the result of a general reduction of the hours of labour in all trades that—

“The successive reductions of the hours of labour which this century has witnessed have been attended, after a very short interval, by a positive general increase in individual productivity. In many cases it has been found that the workers did more in ten hours than their predecessors in twelve. The effort to get more than a certain amount of work out of a man defeats itself.”

__________

The question that matters.

Instance after instance is given of the increase in efficiency and output that follows the reduction of the working day, showing how chimerical is the idea that a slight reduction in hours will put the unemployed in work.

Even as recently as the opening of the Mining Exhibition at Olympia on July 11th evidence was given of the normal result of a shortening of hours. Thus Lord Airedale of Gledhow: —

“In regard to the question of an Eight Hour Day, and of the consequent restriction of the hours of labour in mines, and the question of the increased cost that they were threatened with by mine owners, owing to the difficulties arising from the limitation of hours, he ventured to think that from what they saw that day of coal machinery, the mining engineers of that country would rise to the situation, and by the application of technical knowledge, he believed the threatened crisis would really not arise. It was cheering to note by such exhibitions that mechanical invention knew no end, and if it paid to use machinery when increased cost of labour came in, they might be assured that the difficulty would be successfully dealt with.”

It should be clear, then, that however necessary to capitalist development the reduction of the hours of labour may be, and however useful it may be in other respects, yet it most certainly is not the panacea for the great and growing evil of unemployment that its champions would have us believe. Besides, the question which overshadows all others in the eyes of the worker conscious of his position is not the paltry juggle with hours of labour, but rather the vital question of to whom shall the product of these working hours go ?

The workers, indeed, instead of wasting precious time and energy discussing and petitioning as to the particular sauce with which they are to be eaten, should at last awaken to the fact that it is not necessary that they should be eaten at all, and should take their stand with us accordingly.

White Papers and Black Records (1948)

From the April 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

The White Paper on the threatened crisis should set Trade Unionists thinking hard.

Cutting out all frills, two main points emerge —Wage Pegging and Speeding Up.

As to the first point: “When it comes to a race between rising prices and personal incomes, prices will always win in the long run, so that conditions become progressively worse for the holders of all personal incomes, but particularly for Wage Earners.” (Daily Herald, February 5th, 1948.) Government apologists go so far as to use the ugly words “starvation" and “wide-spread unemployment.”

Here is a clear admission that a “Labour” Government administering its modified State Capitalism can no more prevent the evils arising for the worker than could Liberalism or Toryism.

Do you remember the ”beloved” Ramsay MacDonald? Unfortunately, the worker has such a short memory. Just to jog memories: ‘‘It is recorded on the authority of Lord Snowden that the Socialist Cabinet in 1931 unanimously approved heavier wage and salary reductions than the National Government afterwards imposed. Mr. Morrison was a member of that Cabinet." (Evening Standard, November 8th, 1935.)

The Daily Herald (February 5th, 1948) belatedly expresses in muddled terms what Marx wrote incisively 100 years ago, “Old ideas of relative value of occupations must be put aside,” adding inconsequentially, “the labourer is worthy of his hire.” This is what Marx wrote:—

‘‘Where the physique of the working class has deteriorated, the lower forms of labour, which demand great expenditure of muscle, are in general considered as skilled, compared with much more delicate forms of labour; the latter sink down to the level of unskilled labour.” (“Capital,” p. 179.)

The Daily Herald, wagging a warning finger at the pampered postman and the naughty factory lass, says with solemn air, “The relation which different personal incomes bear to one another must no longer be determined by historical development of the past.” Here a comparatively insignificant factor is raised to a position of first importance. We leave it to the psychologist to decide whether this piffle proffered to the worker arises from sheer ignorance or in more or less sub-conscious obedience to the interests; of its paymasters, or a loathsome mixture of both. The Fabian gang in the Government could at least have saved the Herald from its "economists.” Perhaps the Herald's editor, Percy Cudlipp, will find occasion to explain further on a ‘‘Brains Trust ” ; better still, the columns of the ‘‘Socialist Standard” are open to him.

The Catechism some of us were taught in our early youth solemnly counselled us to be content with that state of life into which it shall please God to call us. Substitute ‘‘Capitalist Class” for ‘‘God” and you have the true intent of wage-pegging. Sir Stafford Cripps’ fervent belief in Christianity the perfect cure for all crises is quite consistent with his mixture of frantic appeals and threats to the worker to “produce” more and ever more; Attlee and Morrison, the other two Persons of an Unholy Trinity, must find it difficult to hide their sardonic smiles.

As to the second main point of the White Paper: Speeding up is a very ancient device for the squeezing till the pips squeak of the slave, chattel or wage variety. A claim is put out that a benevolent government, oozing concern at every pore for the worker, is forced to propose measures which it believes will be of a temporary nature. Much the same sort of plea was put forward after the first World War; humbugs of the Lloyd George variety are replaced on the political stage by an astuter crowd of actors, smart Alecs who have raised the art of political thimble-rigging to the high degree demanded by a rather more politically alert working class that was so easily taken in formerly.

It is worth noting that a Party coloured with crypto-Communists has learnt something from Soviet Russia in the direction of speeding up in the mining industry. Stakhanovism is being quietly but firmly-infiltrated; the more than platonic flirtation of the Government and the Trade Unions with Miss Piece Work should open the eyes of disinterested Unionists and spur rank-and-file to action.

“Go to it” was the perfect expression of the super-driving Government foreman. How long do you propose letting these highly paid tools of plutocracy, who have climbed on your back to power, alternatively wheedle and bully you, greeting you as "heroes" when you cannon-fodder for them, and yelping the ancient insult, "Ye are idle; ye are idle," when you humbly ask for straw to make bricks for the stately homes of England? While your wife is looking old before her time engaged in a hopeless struggle to make ends meet in a “home" which lacks the most elementary essentials of comfort, let alone common decency.

The Socialist Party of Great Britain has always recognised the importance of Trade Unionism as a factor in the working-class struggle, but is only too conscious of its limitations as a weapon of emancipation. Its "bargaining" function is useful if only for keeping alive a determination not to be driven to mere serfdom. To delegates on the floor of the next T.U.C. Conference, we offer a few points for their earnest consideration: -

First of all, read this: "Mr. J. A. Hall, president of the Yorkshire Mineworkers' Association, told strikers at Hemsworth that they had stabbed him in the back, and said that Mr. Bevin was their best friend in the Cabinet. The Porter Award, with its £5 a week minimum, was the finest piece of mining legislation ever produced. Among the miners was a greedy section who were never satisfied." (News Chronicle, April 10th, 1944.) This is typical talk of the "Leaders" who will be ecstatically cheered when they deign to beam upon you from the platform, snugly ensconced behind a beautiful barbed-wire of Standing Orders.

A member of our Party wrote to the editor: "I sincerely hope there will be a big increase of "greedy miners" who fail to see how they can live anywhere near the standard of life enjoyed by their 'leaders.' I find £6 a week pension barely adequate to run a modest cottage, and make due provision for a possible widow. As one Government (ex) employee to another performing crisis-saving work, I shake hands with the "greedy miner.' "

On October 1st, 1935, at the Brighton Labour Conference, Bevin set about George Lansbury, and properly debunked the Saint of Bow. (See “Guilty Men," p. 33, by Michael Foot; Gollancz.) Is it beyond hope (alas) that one single humble delegate will do something in the direction of debunking both Hall and the Miners' Best Friend?

If space permitted, the sorry history of Trade Union "leadership" told at adequate length, would surely convince the Floor that their sickening adulation of leaders, and patient bearing of whip-cracking needed severe revision.

Just a brief indication of the kind of weapons you forge against yourselves by giving your brains in pawn to the Halls, the Lawthers, the Bevins, the Horners.

G. N. Barnes was once secretary of the A.E.U. He was Minister of Pensions during the first World War. There were 100.000 men "many who ought never to have been taken into the army, and are now physical wrecks " (Daily News, 7/3/16). Pensions were asked (Tories like Hogge warmly assenting) for these hopelessly broken tools. Barnes replied, "They will not get it while I am in office." Comment is needless.

Have you older men forgotten Trade Union Leader Hodge, who, as Minister of Labour in that war, was one of Lloyd Georges' most efficient snarling dogs? We hope your Public Library has "Workman's Cottage to Windsor Castle." Read it—take the chance if you have a delicate stomach. Just one quotation: “In the summer of 1930, Mr. John Baker was entertaining a lady friend and myself to tea on the terrace, when Lady Astor came out of the House, in that vivacious way of hers which makes other women jealous, put her arm round my neck, and said, "It's real nice to see your face again. How are you?' She peered at me and asked 'Why doesn’t MacDonald make you a peer?' 'There he is. Lady Astor,' said I, pointing to MacDonald, 'ask him!' "

Well, to quote Sterne on another sad occasion, "Shall I go on . . . No."

Augustus Snellgrove

The Profit-Sharing Snare. Co-partnership Schemes Exposed. (1930)

From the October 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

The economics of cheapness.

Great Britain is losing her hold over the world market. That means producing firms are finding it harder to compete successfully against producers abroad. Every scheme is being tried to regain lost trade and to increase the quantity of goods sold. Industry to-day is carried on for the profit of the owners, and more trade, therefore, means more profit.

The most effective way to capture markets is to sell cheaper than your rivals. How can goods be sold at a lower price? Modern industry answers—”Reduce the time taken to produce them.” That is how the modern cry of Rationalisation pays tribute to the economics of Karl Marx.

Marx showed that the average amount of time taken under prevailing conditions to produce an article determined its value. So in order to sell cheaper, the manufacturers to-day use every possible method to lessen the time necessary to produce their wares.

Piece-work rates, bonus systems and other profit-sharing-schemes are adopted to arouse the worker to greater effort; to produce quicker; and to save waste. This enables the employer to produce more cheaply, whilst the workers are told they will share in the increased profits.

The “Pace-maker” and his function.

The cotton trade to-day is in decline, and these speeding-up methods are being pushed in Lancashire to enable the employers to ensure their profits. The Manchester Guardian recently had an article suggesting piece-work and bonus systems as a remedy. The fixing of piece-work rates, however, we are told by the writer, is difficult, as it means getting “pace-makers,” or sloggers who can lead the rest by turning out more goods. The standards of price per piece can be fixed more profitably for the employers if really rapid workers are employed as “time setters” to cut down the time required to turn out each job. Thus the Taylor system in all its variations of efficiency is offered as a cure for “Lancashire ills.” Its adoption will certainly raise the employers’ profits, but will simply mean in practice that fewer workers are required to do the same amount of work. Any apparent increase in wages by sharing in the profits is only in actual practice a reduction of wages in relation to the increased amount of work performed. The employer’s share is that his profits are increased vastly. The worker is paid a fraction more than before for turning out a much larger product. The sole result is that the increased efforts of the workers reduce the “share” of the total product given back to the workers as wages. That is why prominent employers are so much in favour of these piece-work and profit sharing systems.

One feature of all these piece price and premium bonus ideas was noted by the Manchester Guardian writer; that is the policy of firms cutting down the piece rate once they find efficiency going up and adding to the workers’ wage. So almost as fast as the workers’ output is increased by slogging, the unit price comes down and the workers are back again to subsistence wages. Once the workers raise output it becomes the average standard for all to comply with in order to get the basic wage.

The Co-partnership fraud. 

Many leading employers have recently boomed another artful dodge to ensnare the workers into working in harmony with the employers. Co-partnership or shareholding by employees is the stale device which is being revived. The Economic League—that body of employers’ friends—issue many leaflets praising co-partnership as the way to social peace and workers’ prosperity.

One of the great examples of this scheme is the South Metropolitan Gas Works, who smashed their employees’ strike on the profit-sharing issue, and afterwards raised hours from 8 to 12 per day. This firm boasts that since “allowing” employees to own shares the efficiency has increased, the price of gas has fallen, and better still— profits have risen considerably. In this firm the profit-sharing scheme was made compulsory, so that all workers would take a “greater interest in their work.” It worked out in practice that fewer men were required to do the same amount of work and the tiny “share” of the workers in dividend at the end of the year proved that the owners had really shared in the added wages due to the workers for their increased efforts and output.

The workers get the "leavings."

Lord Leverhulme, of the Soap Trust, was a great believer in co-partnership. But on his death we found from the published will that he owned the entire two millions of ordinary shares himself. Not much co-partnership there ! And by “allowing” some workers to have special “employees’ shares,” receiving interest after the ordinary shareholders, Lord Leverhulme was able to pile up millions in profit. In his book on the “Six Hour Day,” he points out that he always insisted that the co-partner workers must share in the losses as well as profits. This policy was calculated to teach the workers the importance of helping the firm to make profits.

All co-partnership and similar schemes are put forward to kill any organised efforts by the workers to increase their share of the wealth produced. Under the spell of the “divi.” or bonus, the worker is to be enticed away from the struggle to push up his wages or in any way reduce the employers’ surplus.

The Co-partners get the sack.

Cadbury’s and Rowntree’s are examples of “good” firms with profit-sharing policies. Recent efforts on the part of these companies to hold or increase their trade led them to use more machinery to reduce the labour costs. A reduction of workers employed resulted, and Rowntree appealed through the press for employers to give his superseded men a job. After all the work and efforts of the employees in these firms working hard to produce profits they were replaced by machines ! The co-partners were out of work ! Do you need more evidence of the function of bonus systems and co-partnership ?

The fruits of profit sharing.

In the Ministry of Labour Gazette (July, 1930) appears a complete survey of all profit-sharing and co-partnership schemes operating during 1929. These schemes numbered 495, and were participated in by 260,000 employees out of 531,000 employed in these firms. The report tells us that “in all industries taken together nearly one half of the schemes started have come to an end.” We are also informed that “a considerable number of the schemes admit employees to participation in the profits only to the extent that they are able and willing to deposit savings with the firm or purchase shares.”

A famous firm practising co-partnership is the Eastman Kodak Co. Listen to Mr. George Eastman’s testimony of the profit­ able results to the firm :—

“In 1919 several thousand pounds’ worth of shares were distributed to our employees. One result was that after handing over to the workers one-third of my shares, the value of the remaining holdings soon climbed a third higher than the previous total. That was not the purpose in distributing the shares, but the result shows the business value of the act. Since the shares were distributed the market value has gone up over 150 per cent. Part of this increase in value unquestionably has been due to the wide distribution among workers and officials.”—(Co-partnership, Dec., 1927.)

The Chemical combine.

Sir Alfred Mond (now Lord Melchett) is one of the chief apostles of the co-partnership device. He boasted at the annual meeting of the Imperial Chemical Industries, 1929, that 53,000 employees held shares, totalling about 850,000 shares. (This is about 17 shares each.) They are allowed to buy ordinary shares at market prices less 2/6 per share, and preference shares at the fixed price of 21/6 each. He “trusts” his employees not to sell their shares. Why so many employees put their savings into “their firm’s” shares is easily understood, as it is thought to be a means of being kept on or possibly useful in promotion. How little the workers own in the mighty Imperial Chemical Industries can be seen when it is found that the capital of this combine is over 76 millions. The co-partners have no control over “their” jobs nor any control over the business. What are a few shares owned by each worker against the huge amount owned by such Directors of the firm as Lord Melchett, Lord Birkenhead, Lord Colwyn, Sir Max Muspratt, Henry Mond, Marquess of Reading, Lord Weir, etc. ?

Longer hours for co-partners.

How little Lord Melchett is interested in workers’ conditions can be seen by his efforts in Parliament to get a longer working day for miners. The Amalgamated Anthracite Collieries (owned by Imperial Chemicals) controls 12 coal concerns, and has paid huge dividends in recent years.

Who really owns most of the capital can be seen by its share-list, where dozens of shareholders own 10,000 shares and upwards each, and prominent holders like Guest, Keen & Nettlefolds own £395,000 in shares. Lady Buckland, the well-known miner, owns £395,000 in shares in company with two other aristocrats.

Is this an example of the widespread diffusion of capital that the Economic League and Mond refer to ?

How co-partnership rivets the employees to the firm which holds their “savings” can be seen from Mond’s speech at a co­ partnership luncheon :—

“What is the effect of making them shareholders? We saw some of it in the last General Strike. Not one workman in Brunner, Mond’s left his job ! while many were heard to observe that they did not intend to jeopardise their dividends at the dictates of any outside person. In the business with which I am connected we have been free from Labour disputes for fifty years.”

Lord Melchett is very reticent about the wages paid by his alkali works, mines and every other of the 50 concerns amalgamated into his trust. But the Chemical Workers’ Union are continually protesting’ against the “low” wages paid in that industry practically controlled by the combine.

The workmen co-partners have no control of the share market. Should they want to sell their shares just now what will they get? £1 ordinary shares have fallen from 45/- last year to 19/- to-day. And the 10/- deferred shares have fallen to 5/- each. (Observer, August 3rd, 1930).

The right "spirit" for slaves.

Perhaps there is no better indication of Lord Melchett’s policy than the following- :

“After all, there is no more competitive spirit than that displayed by the British people. If you put them into a football match they will kill themselves every Saturday afternoon for nothing. Why not introduce the same spirit into industry?”—(Co-partnership, Dec., 1927.)

This is from his speech at the same co-partnership luncheon. How tragically true ! that is the spirit of industry—killing themselves for nothing !

Some of the conditions of the Imperial Chemical’s co-partners’ scheme are interesting :

“The scheme is an investment one, and while no absolute restriction is placed upon the workers, they will not be expected to speculate with their shares. The directors reserve the right to refuse to allot further shares to a worker who does not enter into the right spirit of the scheme.

The maximum individual allotment will be such number of shares as can he purchased by an expenditure of a sum not exceeding 20 per cent. of the annual wages or salary of the employee. To this 20 per cent. an additional 1 per cent, for each year of service above five may be added.”—(Co-partnership, Dec., 1927.)

The conditions are, of course, laid down by the firm ! The worker must enter into “the right spirit,” and he must not buy (even if he could afford it) too many shares. Perhaps he might then give up working and, like the real “partners,” live upon profits !

The purpose behind Imperial Chemicals “profit sharing” can be gleaned from the following paragraph : —

“This departure from the normal method of dealing with manual workers is described in the current issue of the Imperial Chemical Industries Magazine as an “experiment,” the continuance of which must depend on its economic result. The creation of the Staff Grade will involve a heavy initial cost which must be balanced by compensating increase of efficiency.—(Co-partnership, Sept., 1928.)

Lion and lamb shall unite!

Another well-known “Co-partnership” firm is the Brush Electrical Engineering Co. The Chairman of that concern, speaking of the results of co-partnership in his firm, says : —

“The scheme also gives us confidence of being able to maintain a fairly satisfactory dividend on the share capital, and it enables us to satisfy our customers that good service deserves a fair and adequate, though not excessive, reward for the shareholders and the staff of workers, both mental and manual.”—(Co-partnership, Sep., 1928.)

The same employer, speaking at the annual meeting of his firm this year, explained some of his principles thus : —

1. Greater economy by elimination of waste.
2. Higher efficiency by elimination of inefficient machinery and methods.
3. Larger output to neutralise low prices by removal of Trade Union restrictions.”—(Co-partnership, June, 1930.)

The last principle is striking, in view of the fact that the supporters of the movement, as the above magazine shows, are prominent Labour leaders, like Citrine, Ben Turner, E. F. Wise, E. L. Poulton (General Secretary of Boot and Shoe Workers). This last leader spoke at the Co-partnership Conference, May 10th, this year, and he served up this slop :—

“If the co-partnership principles are properly adopted, we shall soon get out of the slough in which we find ourselves at the present time.”

The financial steam roller.

One prominent co-partner advocate is Angus Watson, of the Newcastle firm selling Skipper Sardines. His firm was recently bought out by the monster international trust, Unilever, Ltd. Angus Watson resigned as Director, and commented very bitterly on the effects of combination of firms and rationalisation. The worker who had played his part building up the firm’s assets was ruthlessly pushed out by machinery and the power of capital. What can copartnership do in face of the modern International Trust?

Edward Cadbury, the cocoa manufacturer, admits our indictment. Speaking at the Quaker Employers’ Conference :—

“He said they would all agree that the workman ought to have some voice in the management, but at present there was no way in which he could be given any effective control in large scale industry; stressing the words ‘effective control’.”—(Co-partnership, Sept., 1928.)

Reviewing the Life of Lord Leverhulme, by his son, the same paper says :—

“Lord Leverhulme’s ideas did not extend to giving any share of the control to the workers. In his particular case he did not see the reason, and perhaps there was not the demand.”

All the evidence we have produced shows that copartnership and profit-sharing schemes are merely another method of inducing the workers to continue a system in which the real control and ownership is in the hands of the employers and in which all the work must be carried on by the workers.

C.

50 Years Ago: Shorter Working Hours and Unemployed (1958)

The 50 Years Ago column from the September 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

The speeding up of the workman, the ever-growing intensity of the labour exacted from him, renders imperative a longer repose so that he may recuperate his working strength and maintain his maximum productivity. Hence flows the modern tendency toward shorter hours so that the profitableness of the worker to the capitalist may increase. It is the necessary and inevitable outcome of modern industrial conditions, even from the capitalist point of view, and is by no means a sign of victory over the ruling class. If the champions of the eight-hour day were to confine themselves to stating the truth about their pet reform there would be little need to quarrel with them, but when they claim as one of the virtues of the eight-hour day that it will abolish or greatly reduce unemployment, we join issue . . . 

In the present instance, if the reduction of working class hours is to bring about more employment, it could only be by decreasing the output per man, and providing work by causing the employment of more men to produce the same amount as before. But would it have very much effect? So far as positive evidence goes, it is directly against any presumption of a lessening of the present output per man. Even past masters of the art of red herring trailing give themselves away at times. Thus Sidney Webb and Harold Cox in the book, The Eight Hours Day, state in considering the result of a general reduction of the hours of labour in all trades that

“The successive reductions of the hours of labour which this century has witnessed have been attended, after a very short interval, by a positive general increase in individual productivity. In many cases it has been found that the workers did more in ten hours than their predecessors in twelve. The effort to get more than a certain amount of work out of a man defeats itself."

[From the Socialist Standard, September, 1908.]

Editorial: What the Cotton Lock-out Means. (1931)

Editorial from the February 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

Yesterday the miners. To-day the weavers. Next the railwaymen. Then— ! ! So goes on the attempt to force down wages all round—and the Labour Government lends the capitalist their valuable assistance as mediators—on the capitalists’ side.

At the moment of writing, a ballot is being taken amongst the Lancashire weavers on the question of giving Trade Union officials power to negotiate with the employers. If the weavers vote in favour of the proposal, then they accept the principle of more looms per weaver ; if they turn the proposal down, they are faced with the problem of getting food and heat in mid-winter. The masters have chosen the time for the struggle and have seen to it the time was favourable to themselves.

The origin of the strife in Lancashire was the attempt on the part of the employers to get each weaver to work more looms than formerly—eight instead of four. The Manchester Guardian for January 21st publishes a statement by the Nelson and District Weavers’ Association, from which the following extracts are taken.

The trouble started in 1928. The “Burnley employers approached the weavers’ committee with a request to be allowed to try and experiment in certain mills in the town. The terms were that at ten firms no more than 4 per cent. of the looms should be slowed down, provided with better yarn, with weft on larger cops, and should be tried for an experimental period of twelve months, at the end of which the experiment should be discontinued if either side was not contented with it. Each weaver on the experiment should run eight looms, and only ordinary Burnley printers’ cloth should he made.”

The Burnley Committee referred the matter to the Amalgamation of which they were members, and it was ultimately agreed that the experiment should be carried out, the period to be April 1st, 1929, to March 31st, 1930.

The weavers very soon found out what they had let themselves in for. Almost from the beginning of the experiment the employers ignored the terms of it. Looms were speeded up and, instead of Burnley printers’ cloth only being made, different kinds of cloth were made and they returned to inferior yarns. When the weavers’ representatives attempted to obtain information of the progress of the experiment, the employers met them with the statement : “We have a lot of matter here which we can make neither head nor tail of ; you can come and look at it if you like.” This, of course, was merely a “blind.” The employers were ignoring the agreement and going ahead with their arrangements for cheaper production—and incidentally the future swelling of the unemployed army by thc weavers thrown out of employment by the doubling of the number of looms per weaver.

When the Swift arbitration award, blessed by the Labour Government, reduced other weavers’ wages, the experimenting employers cut the wages they had pledged themselves to retain until the end of the experiment. It had been agreed that if either side were dissatisfied, the experiments should be discontinued. The weavers are now dissatisfied, but the employers say the experiments must go on.

That, in short, is the position at the moment.

The weavers have been badly caught ; they have been trebly caught. In spite of the bitter experiences of the past, they trusted the soft words of the employers. On the plea that cheaper production was essential to rehabilitate Lancashire industry (how often the old trick is worked !), they allowed themselves to be hoodwinked into producing a greater quantity of cloth with less labour, thus speeding-up the time when their labour would be redundant and an increasing number of them thrown out of work. Finally, they have allowed the employers to protract the negotiations until the time was most favourable for themselves to bring matters to a head. In mid-winter it is harder for the workers to stand a period of unemployment. On top of that, the employers can afford to have their mills idle for a while just now without much loss as the following comment of the Manchester Guardian (July 21st) testifies : —

“The least unsatisfactory feature of the stoppage is that it has come at a time when demand is very slack, and, although it is bound in have very serious results, it seems impossible that either employers or operatives will have caused a great deal of business to be lost……

There are stocks of cloth in Lancashire, and many producers can still guarantee delivery, so that the available supply should go part of the way towards meeting any demand which would normally have been experienced here.”

As we have so often pointed out in these columns, the aim of the capitalist at all times is to obtain the maximum of production at the minimum cost in wages, and wherever they can accomplish it without seriously interfering with their profits, the capitalists are always anxious to push down wages. Consequently the employers are always on the look-out for means of increasing output per worker by improvements in machinery, by extension of hours or of work, or by better methods of organisation. The wholesale adoption of mass production, in spite of a glutted market, is an instance of this.

The capitalist class as a whole grows relatively richer every year, and the working class grows relatively poorer. The workers must fight to resist the constant attempts of the masters to extract more work for less pay, but they should endeavour to choose the time most suitable to themselves, and they should not give ear so readily to the eternal negotiators and mediators who negotiate and mediate against them.

In spite of the heroic efforts of the workers, they are fighting the battle on the wrong ground. On the economic field the capitalist is the stronger, and while the worker accepts capitalist ownership of the means of the production the capitalists will remain the stronger. This unpalatable truth must be faced by the workers and they must grasp the fact (and grasp it soon, or risk utter degradation) that the capitalist class has neither natural nor supernatural right to the control of society, and only owns and rules because society, the vast mass of which is composed of workers, gives it that control and can take the control away as soon as the desire exists. The declaration of principles on the back page puts the position simply and clearly.

Editorial: Affluence in the U.S.A. (1929)

Editorial from the November 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

Comfort ! that’s what we want. And prosperity also, peace and prosperity. And what, about affluence? Ah! affluence; that is the stuff. Give us affluence, and all else follows. And to think that the problem has been solved. Yes, solved. The Daily Telegraph—a respectable and reputable organ, surely—has said so. As recently as September 18th, too. The dull business of reporting has its compensations after all, for what nominally could be duller than the reporting of luncheon and dinner speeches? There was the luncheon the other day, for instance, of the American Chamber of Commerce, at which a Mr. Thomas J. Watson let himself go. The Daily Telegraph thought it worth half a column, and headed it, attractively enough :

“MACHINE AS THE KEY TO PROSPERITY.”

“AMERICAN WORKERS’AFFLUENCE.”

“THE COMFORT AGE.”

Then followed the tale told by Mr. Thomas Watson :—

“Our experience of the application of machinery in industry,” he said, “is that it makes men dear and their products cheap.” From this he developed the usual bilge of the introduction of machinery ultimately reducing prices, resulting in wider distribution, and so on. Following which he gave a few figures. Now figures are not attractive things, and most people simply hear them or see them and rapidly glance at something more arresting. But these, in view of the headlines, are really interesting. In 1914, he said, the average annual wage was $590, roughly, we will say, £2 8s. per week.

” Adjusting the average wage for changes in the buying power of money, the worker in 1925 received at least 35 per cent. more than in 1914.”

And that is affluence. That is the Comfort Age. The equivalent of a 16s. rise on a weekly wage of £2 8s. is affluence. Save the mark !

True, Mr. Thompson did not permit himself the words comfort, prosperity and affluence. But one course we can recommend him. He should get into touch with Mr. G. De Vere, who has recently returned from a tour of U.S.A. He was telling us all about it over the radio about a fortnight ago, and just as the spectator sees most of the game, so the visitor apparently often sees more than the native. One of his first ports of call was a camp of the Y.W.C.A. in the Hudson Valley, where a delegate meeting of industrial women was in progress. Here he gathered that normal unemployment was very serious, although no reliable figures existed, and that the previous winter’s unemployment had been more serious than usual. Groups of women workers were beginning to push for better social conditions.

At a big factory near Boston he saw the conveyor-belt system in operation, and later he found few factories where the system was not in use. The workers stand or sit on either side of a moving belt, and each contributes some small operation to the article on the belt, until the finished product is delivered at the end. One can imagine joy-in-work reaching its apex in the belt system. Experiments were being conducted in changing the speed of the belt at different times of the day, and in what is called psychological study. Several foremen he interviewed regretted the early scrapping of men in the prime of life by the introduction of machinery, and also the rapid wearing out of those who were retained. In Mr. De Vere’s own words, “from twenty to twenty-five years was the average period of efficiency at fast work, after that it was generally a question of lighter or slower work, or the scrap-heap. In fast Detroit shops the period would be shorter.” Craftsmen do not earn so much as fast repetitive workers. Some Britishers he asked for a comparison of the conditions in the two countries, said the U.S.A. was a better country to earn money in, but not so good to live in. Social life as we understand it, does not exist in the U.S.A. factory towns.

In Hartford, Connecticut, he heard of some amazing increases in workers’ production by means of motion study with micro-motion pictures taken on the job. Trade-unionism generally is at a discount, the company-union being almost universal. Of course, in a land of comfort, prosperity and workers’ affluence, such social safety-valves as unemployment insurance and sickness provision would be anomalies. One worker he asked what men did when out-of-a-job, replied, “it is a case root hog or die.” Doubtless they would die rather than falsify the Telegraph’s headlines.

In a summing-up at the end of his address, De Vere said, “for the mass of the workers, I doubt whether the standard of life is much, if at all, higher than in England. Life is expensive, especially with regard to such things as rent and clothing.”

So there you have it. Either the Daily Telegraph uses its own private dictionary for everyday words, or else comfort, prosperity and affluence have aspects with which we are not acquainted. We cannot fit any of the three words to a life spent alongside a conveyor-belt, with every physical movement so studied as to eliminate every jerk of the muscles that does not spell profit. Big wages may mean anything, but it is of the nature of wages inevitably to be a reflex of social standards. Where big wages equal big rent, food and clothing bills, and little wages equal little dittoes, the words big and little cease to distinguish anything real. And when, in addition, the journey to the scrap-heap has become abbreviated to a twenty or twenty-five year period, one again wonders whether the editor of the Daily Telegraph contemplates changing his occupation for one of comfort, prosperity and affluence. Doubtless his fatal weakness for self-sacrifice will assert itself, and we shall find him denying himself the temptations of American affluence for many years yet.

Letter: Old Age Pensions in U.S.A. (Letter from a reader in America.) (1929)

Letter to the Editors from the August 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

Comrades,

In recent years it has become a quite common occurrence for the various Capitalist newspapers in England and elsewhere to point to the U.S.A. as an example of unparalleled prosperity. A land in which the workers are enjoying a “Golden Age of Labour.” Where automobiles are owned by each and every worker who cares to own one. (Until he omits to pay the next instalment.) And where, in short, the problems that afflict the workers and the rest of the Capitalist world do not exist.

Those of us who are compelled to sell our labour power in the U.S.A., and who are interested in working-class conditions, can only smile and wish that the conditions of the working-class as set forth in the foreign press were real, instead of existing as the “suppressed desires” of so many journalists with whom the wish is “father to the thought.”

This kind of Capitalist propaganda is not limited to envious foreigners, for here in the U.S.A. the gospel of prosperity is preached far and wide.

The question of importance is : Do the American workers enjoy prosperity? In order to answer this question, I will quote from an article appearing in the “New York World” (Sunday, June 2nd, 1929). The article deals with the growing need for old-age pensions in the U.S.A. The author is Mr. Herbert H. Lehman, Lieut.-Governor of the State of New York. He is a leading member of the Democratic Party, and we are informed by his interviewer that Mr. Lehman has close contacts with industry and banking.

To begin with, the gentleman informs us that:—

“The prosperity of every country depends on the well-being of its workers. Although the United States is enjoying a period of great prosperity there are two major labour problems, already the cause of wide discontent, that will become more acute as production speed increases : the dearth of employment for able-bodied men between 45 and 65, who cannot meet the speed demands of industry ; and the condition of the dependent aged who have nothing to look forward to but the poorhouse.”

As further proof that this is not a future tendency, but an existing fact, our writer continues with :—

“As production speed increases and labour-saving devices multiply, fewer and fewer jobs will survive that do not require the speed of youth. In addition to the decreasing value of the middle-aged man in speed work, the spread of group insurance increases the discrimination against him because he is a more expensive risk than the young man. The age employment limit, now set between 45 and 50 by many industries, seems likely to be pushed even lower. In the meantime medical science is steadily increasing the span of life. Between the machine that takes his job and the achievements of science that make him live longer, the worker is caught between two millstones.”

The writer is not in favour of the poor-house, partly because he dislikes the stigma of charity, but mainly because he is one of the few members of the Capitalist class who realises the costliness of building and supporting poorhouses. In fact we are told that :—

“I am convinced that even if the poorhouse system of New York State could be enlarged adequately to meet the needs of our aged dependants, the cost would be considerably larger than that of an assistance system which would allow the old people to live in their own homes.”

As an alternative to poorhouses he suggests pensions for the aged.

This suggestion so far does not meet with the approval of the rest of the Capitalist class. Their arguments in opposing this measure range from its being “Socialistic” to the danger of its being responsible for the “loss of incentive” on the part of the workers when given such aid. But our writer is not at a loss for answers to all of these criticisms. To the first criticism his reply is :—

“Some of the opponents of old age pensions have been shouting about “Socialistic policies.” The pensioning of the aged is no more Socialistic than the care of the sick and the insane.”

Thus the demands of the English Labour Party find favour in the ranks of the American Capitalist Class. And as for the menace to working-class incentive we are informed by the writer that:—

“Certain critics of old age assistance, argue that such a policy would withdraw all incentive to save and would tend to pauperise the labouring classes. This contention scarcely carries conviction when we remember that the maximum pension thus far considered is $1 a day in case the worker had no other income. This would be sufficient to supply only the barest necessities of Life. No one would deliberately choose such a state of poverty.”

No ! No one would. The amount of choice the American worker has in staving off the inevitable of poverty and destitution can easily be imagined when we are informed by the same gentleman that :—

“I cannot see how the average worker can be expected to support his family and save enough money to take care of unemployed old age, regardless o£ apparently high current wages. The margin of earnings over the minimum cost of respectable living is too small.”

Just what he means by “respectable living” he does not inform us. Although our author is a business man, he is not altogether “hard-boiled.” In fact, it is because he is a business man and knows something regarding the workings of the Capitalist system that he lets slip his journalistic crocodile’s tear.

“All of us know personally cases of industrious small shop owners who raised large families and were useful citizens ; but when they became too old to work found themselves without resources and faced what seemed to them the disgrace of ending their days in the poorhouse.”

And between sniffs of sympathy we are left to wonder if their usefulness is to be found in their raising “large families.” The worst is yet to come, for—

“Shoemakers, butchers, grocery storekeepers and bakers—they eke out a living but not enough to insure the future. In the next decade their plight will be worse than ever because many of them are exhausting the savings of a lifetime in a vain fight against the encroachments of chain stores.“

So this is an example “of prosperity in America.”

The obvious and only conclusion one can draw is that the workers of the U.S.A., like the workers the whole world over, are faced with the self-same problems; the problems of poverty and destitution. These problems have a solution, and the solution lies in the abolition of the present social system that produces such conditions, and in its place the establishment of a system of society wherein the wealth of society shall be enjoyed by all in common.

I am,

Yours fraternally,

Sidney Felperin

Blogger's Note:

Sid Felperin was a longstanding member of the SPGB's companion organisation in the USA.

50 Years Ago: Perils of Modern Industry (1961)

The 50 Years Ago column from the May 1961 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Committee [Departmental Committee on Accidents in Places under the Factory and Workshops Acts] was appointed in 1908 by the then Home Secretary, who was compelled to take this step owing to the enormous yearly increase in the number of reported accidents in factories and workshops that had taken place. The total rose from 79,020 in 1900 to 100,609 in 1905, while between 1905 and 1907 there was a further striking increase, the figures being

              Total. Fatal
1905 100,609 1,063
1906 111,904 1,116
1907 124,325 1,179

The conclusions arrived at by the Committee as to the causes of the increase appear to have been made as vague as possible. But we read in Section IV, “Causes Tending to Increase or Decrease Accident Risk.”

“A considerable amount of evidence was given to show that work was now done at a greater speed and higher pressure than formerly." And further that “Much of the increase was attributed to the general raising of the standard of effort in all spheres of life." Evidence was given that in the textile trades machines run faster than formerly; in wool weaving, for example, looms working at 80 picks a minute were thought fast ten years ago, but now the new ones run at 100 picks a minute.

As regards engineering, the increased speed of cutting tools was referred to, and evidence was given showing that the speed of punching, shearing, bending, and squeezing machines had increased. In iron and steel works, and in tinplate works, the Committee were told that improved machinery had led to increased speed.

There was something of a diversity of opinion as regards Piece Work, but generally the evidence was that piece work, task work, and bonus systems of payment tended to cause undue hurry.

[From the Socialist Standard, May, 1911.]

50 Years Ago: Traffic Problems (1963)

The 50 Years Ago column from the January 1963 issue of the Socialist Standard

Truly the motor is everywhere, but on the crowded roads of the metropolis its presence and speed have raised a problem for which the multitudinous highway authorities seek in vain a solution.

To such a pass have things come that the attitude of the average motorist is practically that the roads are his property, and that all others are trespassers, to be hooted off.

. . . the sinister result of modern traffic conditions has a deeper meaning than is realised or expressed by commentators in the Press. It signifies the growing pace and intensity of industrial fife, the universal acceleration of production, and the decreasing value of the life of the worker when put in the balance against the pleasure or profit of the class that owns the country. The huge and increasing size of industrial centres, and the greater distances between the workers' homes and the factory, the need for more quickly transferring labour, the greed of the rack renter of the central districts, the knowledge that the workers' time is money to the capitalists, the rush for profits of a transport trust, and the all-pervading atmosphere of hustle, recklessness. and speed is engendered by capitalist greed and the ever-increasing world-wide competition—all these are symptoms of the deep-lying social malady.

But so long as class ownership remains, for just so long will the long list of killed and maimed continue fail grow, and all remedial measures fail to keep pace with the break-neck speeding up of our daily tasks.

From the Socialist Standard,
 January 1913.

The "War" Against Poverty. (1913)

From the January 1913 issue of the Socialist Standard

Anyone who has followed the Press during the last few weeks will have been struck by the reiteration, day after day, of certain articles in bold type, announcing to a more or less interested world, the fact that we are in the midst of a “Great Trade Boom," and that we are also engaged in a great “War Against Poverty."

As is usually the case, the capitalist newspapers have tumbled over each other, as it were, in their efforts to prove to all and sundry what a glorious condition of prosperity the workers are enjoying. They hare also been ably assisted in those efforts by journals professing especial sympathy with labour, which is a gratifying feature—to the capitalists.

Among others, Mr. Chiozza Money and the “Daily News" have been at great pains to show what wonderful records have been created, both in imports and exports, with a consequent increase in wages.

This may appear all right to the "man in the street," who doesn’t trouble to analyse these statements, but simply reads his daily paper and swallows all that it dishes up.

As a matter of fact, however, during the last fifteen years, wages— that is, real wages— have actually decreased seven per cent. The average income of those "who toil not" during the same period has increased by over four times as much!

According to Mr. Money “the worker is getting a share of the increased product of industry.” Maybe! But Mr. Money omits to point out that, relatively to the cost of living, the workers are worse off than they were twenty-five years ago. Instead of the workers being more contented and looking brightly forward to what Mr. Money terms “the good new times,” their outlook is blacker and their condition more, precarious than ever.

The “Daily Mail” (3.12.12) endeavours to explain the cause of this “boom” in trade. “The growing output of gold,” they say, “the increase in credit which has accompanied it, and the advance in production with the help of the modern application of electricity, are probable and practical factors.”

Now, if anyone had asked the writer what, in his opinion, was the cause of the increased misery of the workers, a better explanation could hardly have been furnished than that supplied by the “Daily Mail” to explain quite another point. The only difference is the point of view. Whereas the “Daily Mail” seeks to show that the “boom” benefits everybody, this is not really the case. Only the capitalist class is benefited. Gold production has increased enormously during the last half-century, due to improved methods of production. As a consequence of this the value of gold has fallen. Thus gold being cheaper, more of it is required in order to exchange for any given commodity than formerly—assuming, of course, that the value of other commodities remains the same.

This depreciation in the value of gold means high prices, hence a decline in the purchasing power of money. On the other hand, owing to the constant improvement of machinery, with its inevitable resulting army of unemployed, it cannot be said that “booms” in the long run benefit the workers. Cases there are where workers have been put on overtime, and others given jobs, in order to cope with a rush of trade, but trade “booms” are at the best only temporary, and are invariably followed by periods of depression due to over production. Even at the time of writing indications are not wanting that portend an early breakdown. This, of course, will mean a further augmentation of the unemployed army.

The inability of the workers to buy back that which they have produced results in a glut of the market, and we have the spectacle of thousands of men, women, and children going hungry and ill clad, simply through having produced too much! This apparently involves a contradiction, but to the student of social conditions its truth is terribly plain. And this condition, I might point out, is inevitable under a system wherein goods are produced for profit instead of for use.

These are facts that the average social reformer doesn’t trouble to enquire very deeply into. He believes that by pressing for legislation to the capitalist class, who control and administer the political machinery in addition to controlling the machinery of industry, we can gain immunity from the depredations of that class!

All the so-called remedies for the elimination of poverty that are at the present time being shouted all over the country by the "war against poverty” campaigners and others, betray the deplorable fact that even the “leaders" themselves don’t know the commonsense principles upon which a working class movement should be based. This is inexcusable in view of the fact that the real solution of the poverty “problem” is as easy to understand as falling off a log. The solution lies in Socialism. This, as a rule, is outside the vocabulary of the average labour leader, who generally has some axe or other to grind.

Let us take a glance at some of their so called remedies.

There are several reform parties in the field, and prominent among them is the I.L.P., with its cry of “War Against Poverty!” They in turn are assisted by the B.S.P., Co-operative Unions, Women's Guilds, and other freak organisations—in fact, anybody and everybody so long as they keep Socialism obscured.

One of the points aimed at is the establishment of a legal Minimum Wage. Will this alleviate poverty in any degree ? Let us see.

Money, being a commodity, is subject to the same laws as any other commodity. Its exchange-value varies. As its value increases or decreases its purchasing power is higher or lower as the case may be. Given a legal Minimum Wage of a fixed amount of money, and the continued rise in the cost of living, and in a short time the minimum would represent s greater depth of poverty than unrestricted wages give to-day.

It is true that the reformers at their various meetings have added amendments to the resolutions, calling for a rise in the minimum if the cost of living rose, but one can hardly conceive any government establishing a minimum wage that had to be periodically adjusted to rising or falling prices.

But even if they did, the operation of economic law (as has been shown in the columns of this journal) must inevitably defeat the object of the reform. Substantiation of this comes from Australia, where the establishment of a Minimum Wage has led to the wholesale dismissal of men who are no longer young and active, and has intensified the struggle all round.

The Minimum Wage is a snare and a delusion, intended to lure the working class into supporting the Liberals. It is unscientific and calculated to lead the workers into the bog of false economics.

The B.S.P. are in the same boat as the I.L.P., for they claim that “the legal enactment of a Minimum Wage for all adult workers, a maximum working week, and maximum prices of commodities are proposals advocated by the (then) S.D.P., which clearly indicate the revolutionary nature of their policy.” (“Justice,” 22.7.11.)

Just how far such a policy is revolutionary may be judged by the statement of Sir George Askwith (known as “the strike-breaker”) at a meeting held by Mr. Harold Cox only the other day. “In a comparatively short time,” said Sir George, “we might be face to face with the grave consideration of the question of a general minimum wage.” So, whether we “demand ” it or not, it is quite conceivable that we shall be forced to have it—in the interest of the master class.

Another “demand’’ is for an Eight Hour Day. This needs very little examination in order to show the “benefits” accruing from it. The speeding up that has resulted from its introduction in such places as Brunner Mond’s, Nather & Platt’s, and various municipal bodies is well known. Such firms afford fine examples of the hours being reduced without in any way curtailing the output.

Any worker engaged on an eight hours a day job will testify as to who benefits by the restriction of hours. Only recently the hours on the Birmingham Tramway System were reduced from 60 to 54. This has since been nullified to a great extent by “speeding up” the journeys, and the men complain that they are as badly off as before. Cases could be quoted where hours have been reduced from 10 to 7½, and yet the actual output has been the same.

In 1911 151, 056 workers had their working time reduced, yet we find that the total production was greater than in 1910. Clearly an eight hours day will not benefit the mass of the workers.

"Provision for School Children” is another item which provides an example of tinkering with effects without removing the causes. How much better would it not be to eudeavour to understand the cause of child misery, and work for its removal, instead of advocating fatuous reforms that have only the effect of blinding the workers with false hopes! Instead of applying salve to the social boil, why not purify the system, and thus eradicate disease?

Children should be well fed, and well clothed too, but is it to be expected that the capitalist class will abolish poverty when such a condition is absolutely inseparable for their position of social dominance.

When the workers can be got to recognise that the cause of all poverty and social misery is the control by one class over the means of life of the other, the end of poverty will be in sight. Poverty has no need to exist, but until the working man ceases to vote his master into political power, so long will it continue.

Any of the reforms enumerated above can be applied without in the least effecting any permanent improvement in the lot of the workers. They are essentially capitalistic, and as such should be emphatically denounced by the Socialist. who sees in Socialism the only remedy.

The opportunities for studying Socialism are open to everybody, and when we find so called labour leaders heading in a different direction, we are forced to the conclusion that it is against their interest to abolish capitalism. Indeed, they aim only at propitiating it, for they claim that they wish to get ‘'the best” out of the system. We have continued to point this out, and experience has verified our judgment. Such a policy has no place in the propaganda of a Socialist party. The issue— freedom or slavery —is too clear for that.

Both the B.S.P. and the I.L.P. believe and teach that capital would exist under Socialism, and also that wages would be paid and that government would continue. No wonder the “rank and file” are politically blind, when they are taught to believe that the conditions essential for the introduction of Socialism are identical with those necessary to capitalism.

The strewing of the path with these red herrings, fouling the trail, as it were, of Socialist propaganda, renders the work of the Socialist more difficult, but whilst it may, in a small sense, retard the ultimate realisation of Socialism, it cannot expunge its principles or prevent its final triumph.

There is only one party that is engaged in a real war against poverty— that party is the Socialist Party. Being a Socialist Party, all our efforts are logically centred upon Socialism. It is to the interest of the workers to rally under its flag, and help to speed the day when we shall have gained the right to live, when those who create the wealth shall enjoy it, when every man, woman, and child shall have the opportunity to develop to the fullest extent their human powers, and thus, for the first time since the dawn of history, realise the true meaning of life.

Tom Sala

"Bedaux" and the Workers (1937)

From the December 1937 issue of the Socialist Standard

Charles E. Bedaux is the inventor of the high-pressure system which bears his name. For many years the system has been well known among workers, who mistrust and detest it. Recently, Mr. Bedaux was to have "managed” a tour by the Duke and Duchess of Windsor to U.S.A. On November 3rd, the Baltimore branch of the American Federation of Labour passed a resolution strongly condemning the tour, and this was followed by other resolutions. In 1916 a company, was formed to exploit the Bedaux system, with headquarters in New York and branches throughout the world. The company pays a highly respectable dividend. Bedaux, who began life as a semi-skilled worker, now employs a large income in extravagant and expensive tastes.

According to the official account, the “ Bedaux” principle is a means of measuring human power in terms of a common unit. This unit is christened “B,” and equals so many seconds of work and so many seconds of rest, always totaling one minute. The “rest” is by no means actual but only that natural relaxation of effort which, as part of a process, allows work to proceed. The completion of a certain job requires so much “work and rest,” i.e., a certain number of B’s. Sixty B’s per hour is regarded as normal, and Bedaux engineers calculate from observations of factory conditions how much work and rest on an average would make up one B in order that there may be sixty B’s per hour.

The method by which the investigators manage their computation is, however, a closely guarded secret. The Trades Union Congress, in their inquiry, remark:—

   As regards the assessment of the B.’s. it must be said that in the opinion of experts in industrial psychology the task undertaken by the Bedaux engineers is an impossible one. There is no known method of calculating the unit of work (in this sense) scientifically. It is not a question of merely measuring physical effort. It is rather a problem of measuring physical and mental effort undertaken in complex and varying circumstances. It is impossible to evaluate such a unit scientifically, and the Bedaux claim in this respect must be dismissed as unsound."—(“Bedaux,” Trades Union Congress, page 11.)

One thing is certain, that such a unit will be chosen as will in practice reduce running costs, and substantiate Bedaux’s claims to the capitalist. The “ expert "engineers" are sometimes unaware of the specific factory conditions, and the times set are difficult or unworkable; with the result that workers complain or resist. When their opposition is successful, a lower “B” unit is set up after “investigation." The high-flown claims of the system to scientific accuracy become, therefore, nothing more than mere trial and error carried out at the expense of the workers; the usual factory practice of finding out just how much the workers will stand. Moreover, since the Bedaux engineers are highly paid, the management is anxious to hurry the job, which increases the inaccuracy. In recent years the engineers have also advised on factory management, etc., with a view to higher efficiency and speeding-up.

Wages are based on a basic hourly rate. The Bedaux system is said to guarantee to workers this rate based on sixty B's per hour. But it is obvious that once a “norm" has been established, any workers who fall below that productive level are not retained. Those who do more than sixty B's per hour receive a bonus, but only seventy-five per cent, of the normal rate. The remaining twenty-five per cent, is paid to indirect labour— partly foremen and overseers, who thus have a direct incentive to speeding-up.

It is plain that, when applied in the workshop, the system becomes deeply intricate. Usually (unless as sometimes occurs, a worker is trained specially to check up the pay sheets) the staff are dependent on the employer’s good faith. This is the worker’s first and most natural resentment— that the, system is unintelligible. The boss may be “doing” him. A deeper grievance is in the nature of the intensive speeding-up, required by the maintenance of a normal rate. Not only does this increase the strain, mental and physical, endured by the worker, so that only the youngest and fittest survive, but also sets up a sense of conflict between workers themselves.

On November 6th the Daily Express reported a visit to an East End factory. One of the workers, aged twenty, said to their correspondent: “The Bedaux system is all right in some ways. But we were more contented before. Now we are always arguing with one another over little things. We work so quickly that small things upset us.”

Another worker in the same factory said: ”. . . I would sooner work as we did before. It seems to make the time go quickly, but we are not all friends any more. We were always laughing and singing and happy-go-lucky. Now we have time for nothing—but cross words.” This rosy view of the past is perhaps exaggerated; but both workers reveal what Bedaux means to the workers in nervous weariness and strain.

Workers become more than ever before cogs in a machine. There is no room here for a worker taking pride in his work. He will probably be discharged as too slow, and increase the number of those whom reorganisation has already thrown out of work. Bedaux claims that employment is increased by its introduction. This may apply to a particular worker, or even factory, but it is patently untrue over industry as a whole. This, of course, applies equally to every other. “efficiency” system.

A number of cases are quoted in the T.U.C. pamphlet referred to above, in which trades unions opposed the introduction to Bedaux, and in many cases concessions were obtained. The pamphlet adds, however: “It is not suggested that in those cases where the system thus modified has been accepted that there is any enthusiasm or even approval for this method of wage payment."

The reaction of the trades unions in U.S.A. to a tour organised by Charles E. Bedaux is therefore understandable. In England, where the system has sold less well, there have been strikes against its introduction at Norwich, Wolverhampton, Acton, Leicester, Silvertown, Birmingham, and elsewhere.

Essentially the Bedaux system, apart from certain special features, is a piece-work system, concealed behind a complicated theoretical structure. Its attractiveness to certain capitalists is in the results achieved. Productivity per worker, according to the Bedaux Co., Ltd., has risen in many cases from fifty to-seventy-five per cent., and sometimes to over 100 per cent. Workers' earnings, however, lag behind with an increase of ten to twenty per cent. (New Statesman and Nation, November 13th, 1937). The system is plainly one in which high organisation plays the part of additional labour-saving machinery, exploiting the worker more fully than would otherwise be possible. In the meantime, British Bedaux, Ltd., with a capital of £300,000, makes profits averaging nearly £50,000 a year. First and foremost, Messrs. Bedaux, Ltd., is a business house engaged in making profits for the shareholders.

By holding out to workers the inducement of higher-wages it saps their health and energies in an orgy of production. Labour laws and agreements, notwithstanding, the capitalist has succeeded, by methods more subtle than ever before, in extracting the last ounce from the worker before he is scrapped, no longer able to keep up the pace.

C. Kilner