The New Cyprus Republic - Part 2 (1961)

From the February 1961 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link to Part 1

(2) The Rude Awakening

The rude awakening was to come before the new Republic was three weeks old, and Ledra Street, which once echoed with the revolver shots of those bent on replacing the colonial government with one of their choosing, was to echo with the shouts of demonstrating Trade Unionists, striking in support of their fellow workers sacked for “economy reasons”.

The attention of the new representatives had been drawn to the plea, uttered against the dismissal of Public Works Department employees in the Paphos district, four days before Independence. Promises “to see what he could do about it” were given by the Minister of Labour in the transitional government. Combined right wing (SEK) and left wing (PEO) unions then issued strike notices against wrongful dismissal. At the same time, Mr. Beeley, the British representative at UNO, was placing the application of Cyprus for membership before the Security Council, saying “A democratic system of government and the necessary machinery for safeguarding the human rights and the interests of all sections of the community” exists in Cyprus.

While the voice of organised labour was beginning to express itself, the body of employers had been reorganising. Even as the daily press, was relaying as front page news the visits of diplomats presenting credentials at the Presidential Palace, (the old Government House) there appeared notices on their back pages. These were to give notice that “application had been made to the Cyprus Government for a licence ‘to form’ . . . The Cyprus Employers Consultative Association … to safeguard and promote the interests of all employers in Cyprus, especially in securing their fullest co-operation in, dealing with matters affecting relations between employers and their workpeople.” Continued link-ups of employers’ associations throughout the island have resulted in the association covering leading employers and most individual employers’ associations.

Still the sackings continued, amid strong press reaction, with T.U. delegations making representations to the Minister of Labour. A letter was published from the Government Workers’ "freedom is of real value as long as the worker is deprived of the sacred right Union to the Government saying, “No” to work" (Cyprus Mail 26/8/60). On August 27th, while pickets were demonstrating on the streets of Famagusta against dismissals, President Makarios announced a scheme for the expenditure of £331,300 on new public works to reduce unemployment. Then with cruel irony he said “We are in sympathy with those dismissed from Public Works, and certainly we don’t want them in the streets jobless. But I want to make it clear that I am not going to give in to slogans of demagogues. A labour conscience must be developed for the good of the country. Demagoguism and laziness must stop. What our country needs is work and production. Workers will be protected in the new state, but they must also work “.

One can be quite safe in saying that the first pronouncement of a government after its election is to call on the workers to work harder. In this case it came rather later than expected, but rarely has such a call been so cruelly worded. The “unemployed worker” who out of sheer desperation is forced to send deputations to beg for work from his newly-elected government, is roundly berated by the leader of that government for not working. The dismissals continued amid protests. The grant was seen by the workers as a stop-gap measure which, apart from failing to secure the re-engagement of the dismissed workers, would do nothing to relieve unemployment in the future. Plans for abolishing unemployment by means of foreign loans were discussed continually. Finally, a meeting of SEK, PEG, and the Turkish Federation of Labour decided on an island-wide strike for 8th September if the dismissed workers were not reinstated.

We Want Bread

The workers’ representatives negotiated up to the last minute with Minister of Labour and the President, who assured them that it was government policy to help the workers and that they would do everything in their power. But governmental concern was not sufficient for them to reverse their previous dismissal decisions, and a twenty-four hour protest strike was called. Shouts of “We want work—we want bread” went up outside the House of Representatives, while a union delegation went inside to present a solution. In every town mass rally and picket demonstrations were held, with placards saying, “Our children are hungry”, and “Let the promises become deeds”.

This token strike, undertaken by workers half-fearful of bringing the government in disrepute, had the sympathy of the general public, was peaceful, and moreover was an extremely effective example of how the working people, in default of anyone else, were prepared to “safeguard their imprescribable rights”. The strikers returned to work the following day to await the next move by the government.

The naively unrealistic “friendship with all countries” policy was to bring immediate reaction from the United Arab Republic. The friction was caused by the declaration that Mr. Zev Levin would be installed as the first Israeli ambassador to Cyprus. This came in the face of warnings by the Arab League to Cypriot merchants against trading with Israel. The announcement of the appointment was like a slap in the face to Egypt. Since the Suez, invasion launched by the British in 1956, Egypt had given full support to the self-determination agitation wishing to remove the threat of an unfriendly Cyprus on its doorstep.

The first reaction from Egypt was to suggest that the reports were circulated by Israel to disturb the excellent relations with the new republic, but when it became evident that the report was factual, the question was given priority at the Arab League Foreign Ministers’ meeting which started in Beirut on August 22nd. At the closing session of its meeting, the League passed a resolution warning Cyprus that Zionism aims to succeed imperialism in every country and to continue exploiting it. The Cyprus Federation of Trade and Industry, in expressing great concern in the deterioration in diplomatic relations, revealed their real concern in a cable sent to the President. This stated that the economic interests of Cyprus demanded the strengthening of ties between the Republic and Arab countries. In reply to this a message was sent to the President by a committee of businessmen trading with Israel, who expressed support for the “bridge of friendship” policy, and requested a meeting with him to put forward their viewpoint. Although a trade pact was signed with the UAR at the end of September, the Arab-Israeli dispute continued to be one of the main newspaper topics, and no solution seems likely to satisfy all parties permanently.

Hence the two main policies upon which the new state was to have based its action had come to grief; and with it the idealistic policy of independence and industrial peace in a capitalist world of political and economic line-ups.

Opening the Seventh Cyprus International Trade Fair, President Makarios stressed the importance of the island as a trade link between East and West. In doing so he was merely following the path mapped out for him by numerous government leaders in as many countries, engaging in the monotonous and dangerous pastime of market-grabbing. The urgency of his appeal is underlined by the recently published Economic Review for 1959, which lays stress on the continued unfavourable trend in the terms of trade.

Storms Ahead

In spite of continued expressions of optimism in the future of the new state, from the point of view of economic and political stability, and trade and foreign relations everything points to more storms ahead. Cyprus has mainly an agricultural and mining economy, the latter accounting for more than half the value of exports. Agriculture can absorb no more of the labour force; already it accounts for over half. Although the most important single activity, it is uneconomic and heavily subsidised. A large number of farmers, unable to pay off loans, are threatened with the enforced sale of their land.

The question of capital investment to finance such projects has been the subject of much dispute. The Ambassador to Greece for the Soviet Union, Mr Sergeyev, with the appearance and behaviour of a miniature Khrushchev, visited the island and offered aid “without strings”. AKEL of course advocate taking up the offer, whilst others advise caution and consideration of other offers.

The question of future intercommunal disturbances has recently been given prominence by the statement of a Turkish political leader, Mr. Denktash, that attempts by Greek Cypriots to undermine the Zurich and London Agreements would lead to chaos and civil war. Scarcely a day passes without the Greek and Turkish dailies on the island throwing mud at each other. The prospects of even elementary political organisation involving both communities seem remote at the moment. The brightest hope, from the working, class point of view, is the admirable demonstration of unity during the recent strikes and demonstrations, which the workers have threatened to repeat. Both Turk and Greek spoke as one. The Trades Unions have recently opposed the principle, imposed by the Constitution, of a 70 per cent./30 per cent. division of Civil Service jobs between Greeks and Turks as being discriminatory and introducing political factors into a purely labour field.

Difference of Opinion

The difference of opinion between Makarios and the mayors mentioned earlier is developing into a full scale feud. A week after Independence Day it was announced that the mayors would publish a book stating their opinion of the Agreement. At the same time they served notice that they would revive the feud with Makarios, who went on record as saying “that some of them deserve to be tried by people’s courts”. Their next move, taken with a number of doctors, editors, lawyers, and party leaders, was to send a telegram to the Secretary General of UNO on the eve of the maiden speech made by the island’s representative, Mr. Zenon Rossides. As though to belie his references to newly independent Cyprus as “a bridge of unity for understanding and co-operation”. The telegram pointed out that the settlement was imposed on them, and infringed their fundamental right to self determination. Two more telegrams followed immediately, one from the Turkish Communal Chairman in support of the agreement and another of opposition from the Greeks. It is quite probable that an influential body, a kind of unofficial opposition outside Parliament, will develop.

In municipal matters a Greek and a Turkish Municipal Chamber administers the respective communities with moneys allocated by the government according to the 70 per cent./30 per cent. Ratio. This rigid partition in municipal matters is also found in education and in separate representation at parliamentary level.

Police Power

In this government as in so many others, the responsibility of power has had a very sobering effect on the erstwhile rebels. They have become respectable, cautious, and apprehensive. No doubt it is the current crime wave, including some murders of those who were informers during the emergency, that has prompted the President to announce an island-wide arms round up; after which very serious action is to be taken against those holding arms. The response to this was the negligible total of 30 guns; shocking the government into the threat of snap road checks and surprise house searches. Indeed, police power has already been strengthened by the government decision to retain the pass system, introduced by the British Government during the emergency, where by all adults over twelve years old must be in possession of civilian identity cards.

The possibility of an outbreak of violence between the Communists and the Eoka faction, which had spasmodically flared during the emergency, cannot be far from the President’s mind. Reports have come from Athens of renewed political activity by Grivas, and of his statement concerning the further clarification of certain points in the Constitution. We are reminded that it was in Athens that he first organised a private army, during the German occupation in 1943. During the civil war that followed liberation, the royalist Grivas had aligned his army against ELAS, the Communist army which he had known for a long time, intended to take over Greece, and which had put a price on his head. After Greece had been forced into the camp of Western Capitalism, he made an unsuccessful attempt to get into the Greek Parliament. The subsequent failure and disillusionment turned his interest to his native Cyprus, where the growth of Communist Party influence gave him cause for concern. Although AKEL had supported the earlier Enosis movement, the Greek Civil War and its outcome had resulted in a typical about face. As always the communist attitude was inconsistent and vacillating, but union with a member of the Western, as opposed to the Eastern Capitalist blocks was not to their liking. Whilst apprehensive that self-determination would result in Enosis, their present attitude appears to be in favour of independence. The present set-up suits them very well, giving them plenty of room of manoeuvre Cyprus into the communist camp. True to the principle of “catching them young”, both groups have already formed youth organisations.

Under colonial rule, there is often identification of the ruling class with the colonial power. The belief used to be current in the “left wing” that after the achievement of national independence the resulting disillusionment would provide the experience necessary for the working class to see the class issue more clearly. Of course, this is not believed by Russia who is just as anxious as any other country to woo the newly independent states, to capture their trade and to use them as counters in international diplomacy. In any case it is a fallacious argument and certainly not borne out by the facts.

The struggle in Cyprus resulted in many hundreds of working class dead and wounded. The voice of its Capitalist Class, as yet young and weak, but struggling to be heard, finds a ready mouthpiece in its government which has shown itself to be just as chauvinistic and trade conscious as any of the other governments set up as a result of national independence. It has taken its place with the other capitalist states in a world of actual and potential aggression, and will add its voice to the general discord which is called “trade and peace”, no doubt falling into line behind one or other of the major powers.

Socialist Knowledge

This is not a step forward for the working class of Cyprus or anywhere else, and far from there being any sign of them becoming socialist, independence has thrown the nationalistic aspirations of Greek and Turk into relief. The introduction to the Cyprus working class of socialist knowledge with its clear-cut class issues, uncomplicated by nationalistic arguments, is badly needed to dispel these bars to its emancipation.

Then it will realise that its struggle, whether resulting in Enosis or independence, effectively enables its capitalist class to capture more elbow room to develop, and secure a hold on labour, in order to exploit it more efficiently in the name of the new Cyprus Republic.

R. J.

Letter: A sane society (1984)

Letter to the Editors from the November 1984 issue of the Socialist Standard

A sane society

Dear Editors,

May I be allowed to say a few words on the miners’ strike of the kind I have not yet seen clearly expressed in the columns of the Standard?

Can I first of all get back to socialist basics and say that disputes like this one are inevitable in a social set-up in which the interests of one group of the population (wage and salary earners) are inherently opposed to the interests of the other group (employers, private or state). When the first group gains, the other loses, and vice versa. That is why even when workers say they don’t like other people’s strikes, they will always go on strike themselves if they consider it necessary.

Can I add that if strikes are, therefore, inevitable in the present society it is very much in the interest of the workers involved in them to see to it that their action is as democratically based as possible. Otherwise they play into the hands of their employers making it easy for the latter to use public opinion, the media and the forces of the state (police, judiciary, etc.) to make sure they come out on top — as in the present miners' dispute.

But there is of course no glory in strikes — not even in successful ones. They are an unpleasant necessity in a society divided into two groups with irreconcilable interests. And even if, in the present case, the NUM got its way, all it would be doing would be reserving for yet another generation of young men a future no sane society would reserve for any of its members — a future which consists of spending most of your waking hours during your whole working life in a hole under the ground. This is what "preserving mining communities" really means.

A sane society would use the technology now available to bring coal up from the ground solely by automation. As an article in the New Scientist magazine in September showed, the robot mine is a perfectly feasible proposition. The main reason it has not yet been developed is because, in the words of Tom Carr, director of the NCB's Mining Research and Development Establishment, "it’s too damn expensive to automate completely”.

And there we have it. What counts isn’t human wellbeing but cost and profit — which are of course at the crux of the present strike as well.

The alternative to this — and the one for which socialists stand — is a world in which cost and profit are not the criterion by which judgements are made. The alternative is a world in which human needs come first, in which there is no buying and selling, no employees and employers, and no strikes. This is the lesson to be drawn from the miners’ strike, whatever its outcome.

H. Moss 

Swansea

NHS dispute: In place of life (1982)

From the October 1982 issue of the Socialist Standard

In May the long-awaited and greatly feared industrial action by workers in the National Health Service began in South London. Hundreds of ward orderlies, cleaners, catering staff and hospital porters declared a one-day strike. Similar action was taken in Manchester, where three people were arrested after nurses clashed with NUPE pickets outside Oldham and District General Hospital. On May 19 over 600,000 NHS employees took the day off in various parts of the country; and on May 27 and subsequent Thursdays for several weeks two-hour stoppages by selected groups were staged. The action was stepped up in June.

In the months since the beginning of the dispute, hospital waiting lists have soared, admissions have plummeted and tempers have frayed. Rumours are rife that the strikes may be extended to accident and emergency services within the near future.

The aim behind this action is to improve the pay offer for 1982-3 made to nurses, midwives and ancillary staffs by the Department of Health and Social Security. Initially, the offer proposed an increase of 4 per cent on basic income for most ancillary workers, and an average increase of 6.4 per cent for most nursing and midwifery grades, “in recognition of their special skills”, with veiled promises from the Secretary of State for Social Services, Norman Fowler, of future additional payments to nurses “to be drawn from government contingency funds”. Ambulance workers, doctors and dentists and hospital electricians and maintenance staff, whose pay settlements are made separately, were offered average pay rises of 5, 6 and 8 per cent respectively.

In June, the offer to nurses and midwives was increased to 7.5 per cent; ambulance workers and hospital pharmacists were to receive 6.5 per cent and other ancillary workers 6 per cent. These offers were immediately rejected by all except nurses in the Royal College of Nursing, who have now also voted to turn down the offer.

The nurses' and ancillary workers’ claim was. and continues to be, for increases averaging 12 per cent on basic rates, with a reduction in hours of work and more annual leave, and future index-linked pay increases. For the first time, the ten TUC-affiliated unions representing health service workers were to co-ordinate the campaign for these increases through their membership of the TUC’s Health Services Committee. Of the ten, the most important would be the National Union of Public Employees (NUPE) with 300,000 technical, ancillary and nursing staff members in the NHS, the National Association of Local Government Officers (NALGO) with 100,000 NHS members and the Confederation of Health Service Employees (COHSE) with 150,000 members employed mainly in psychiatric and mental subnormality hospitals. The Royal College of Nursing, which is not affiliated to the TUC but has for some years flirted with the idea of limited industrial action by its 195,000 nursing and midwifery members, declared its support for the campaign in June, though without any change in its "no strike” policy. As it represents more nurses than any other union, the RCN’s support was of crucial importance to the success of the campaign.

Official union plans were to reduce the health service to an emergency service within a few weeks, beginning as early as possible after April 26, organisation being initially by local union branches. TUC policy prevented the withdrawal of emergency cover and there has been no change in this at the lime of writing, although spokesmen for individual branches have asserted that the policy is not sacrosanct.

Since the strike began to bite, with a lull at the height of the Falklands escapade (a propitious exercise for the government from more than one point of view), the propaganda war between unions and DHSS has been vigorous and almost unbroken. The government has naturally gone to great lengths to sugar the pill which its workers are expected to swallow, promising “new arrangements" (unspecified) for nurses' and midwives’ pay in the future, based perhaps on a "comparability scale” of the sort mooted on August 18, and talks on new arrangements for ancillary staff. It has also descended to the unusual tactic of publishing blatantly misleading advertisements to NHS staff in national newspapers (of which more below). But the DHSS campaign has concentrated on the message that, owing to the nature of their work, health workers are morally not entitled to strike or take other action which. in the words of Norman Fowler, "must damage patient services and lengthen waiting lists”.

This judgment has posed a considerable dilemma for health service workers. Indeed, it was thought at first that public outrage against the withdrawal of one of the most vital services — outrage assiduously stimulated by the national newspapers — might seriously weaken the strikers' resolve. In fact, unexpected support for the 12 per cent claim received initially from hospital employees in the National Association of Health Authorities of England and Wales, and from doctors of the usually very conservative British Medical Association and in Scotland and Yorkshire, have greatly improved the NHS workers’ public image. (The Lancet, one of the two most respected medical journals, on August 13 1982. actually called for Fowler’s resignation over the matter. But doubts remain among the strikers about the "justice" and efficacy of their action.

The NHS is the largest employer in Britain, with nearly 800,000 workers, and is the tenth largest employer in the world. NHS pay policy, while it is in the end controlled by the government, is influenced, for some groups of workers, by "independent assessors" like the Doctors' and Dentists’ Pay Review Board. (Senior hospital doctors also retain the archaic right to confer “merit awards" upon one another, which may add around £18,000 to an annual income of £21,000 at top consultant rates, without any party to the exercise being accountable to Parliament or the DHSS.) No independent bodies exist to assess the pay of nurses, midwives and the majority of ancillary workers; the nurses’ and midwives' Whitley Councils are merely negotiating forums. Pay increases in the NHS have not been index-linked and are consequently subject to the vicissitudes of government policy, and have tended to be very low.

The 1974-9 Labour government, pledged to rectify this situation, increased NHS wages and salaries in their first year of office. By October 1975 wage rates were approaching those in other industries, but in subsequent years they again fell behind. The present rate for an unskilled male worker in the NHS is about £65 a wreck. After a 12 per cent increase, the basic rate would still be below the net family income at which supplementary benefit becomes payable (currently £82 a week). So a high level of overtime working is necessary for ancillary workers with families — if it can be had. But there are still workers like the laundry attendant interviewed in the Observer of August 15, who earns £71 take-home pay for a 40-hour week plus 18 hours overtime, and who must support families on that. A first year nurse working full-time on the wards receives £63 (gross) a week, after working frequent night shifts and “unsocial hours" as part of the job contract. Board and lodging costs for nurses in hospitals have risen by between 18 and 33 per cent in the past year. According to COHSE, many of these people would be better off on the dole.

On August 6, the DHSS paid about £85.000 for an advertisement in the main national newspapers “to ensure that all NHS staff are aware of the facts". It stated that a ward sister’s “estimated weekly gross average earnings” would be raised by the current pay offer to between £132 and £170 a week. For a staff nurse, the increase would bring in from £107 to £131 a week; for a male ancillary worker (position unspecified) £91-£146 a week, and for a female ancillary worker, £82-£139.

The following day, health workers staged protest strikes in several Scottish hospitals, and COHSE announced that it would report the DHSS to the Advertising Standards Authority. For, as a NUPE official commented, the higher figure mentioned in relation to ancillary staff would apply to no more than 160 top-grade employees, and then only after working up to 20 hours overtime. All the other figures similarly assumed maximum rates of overtime and additional earnings. In fact, most ancillary workers in cleaning, catering and other general service fields are women working part-time, who would be quite unable to earn such amounts.

The DHSS has since admitted that surplus payments were included in its calculations, but insisted they were “statistically valid". Union statistics clearly show that this was not true, whatever “estimated weekly gross average earnings” may be taken to mean. Need we be surprised? Lies and distortions are constantly fed to us to try to persuade people to smoke cigarettes, to insure for private health care, to support the armed forces, so why should the government not use the same tactics in wage-bargaining?

The way in which the health workers’ scruples about striking have been used by successive governments to hold down wages is demonstrated by the recent awards of between 14.3 and 18.6 per cent to top civil servants, the judiciary and senior officers in the armed forces, of 9 per cent to gas workers and 7.5 per cent to public sector manual workers outside the NHS. For the health workers, according to Norman Fowler, 6 per cent should suffice and 12 per cent is "unrealistic" — as if 12 per cent on a pittance made for anything other than a slightly larger pittance.

The question of pay is not the only one to trouble NHS staff. In recent years the loss of small hospitals and the concentration of beds and ancillary services in large district general hospitals, the reduction in patient turnover time and the cut-back in recruitment have greatly increased the work-load on existing staff. In Brent Health District in London, it has been calculated that earlier discharge of patients (five days earlier, in some cases) and a reduction in the time for which a bed is left empty between successive patients have allowed a 25 per cent reduction in beds without affecting waiting lists. As there has been no increase in the number of staff employed in Brent, either in the hospitals or in the community where patients now do most of their convalescing, this has imposed a heavy extra burden on hospital workers. The day-to-day running of a hospital is very labour-intensive; it is difficult to reduce this by introducing machinery. And it must be remembered that 75 per cent of NHS employees are women who, besides their traditionally lower earnings, tend to have pressing commitments and a full job of unpaid work at home.

Women's average earnings now are 37 per cent lower than men’s; 87 per cent of part-time workers and 75 per cent of lower-paid workers are women. Promotion prospects for women in the NHS are poor, and many are forced to take on agency (private) nursing — a notoriously unreliable source of income — in their off- duty hours. On those precious days when they are not working unsocial hours and night shifts for the NHS, they may be doing so for the agency. In truth, they are a peculiarly exploited group of workers.

The long hours are made even more intolerable by the conditions in which they have to be spent. Many hospitals are still situated in old and wholly inappropriate buildings, particularly geriatric, psychiatric and mental subnormality hospitals and small general hospitals in underfinanced and inner city districts. Less than a quarter of existing hospitals have been built since 1948, as against half of the existing schools and houses; 40 per cent of hospitals in England and Wales were built before 1918. and 6.5 per cent before 1850 (In Sickness and in Health — David Owen). The task of caring for sick human beings in such decayed surroundings may be a particularly frustrating and at times a revolting one, and not without risks. Occupational accidents are by no means uncommon: orthopaedic injuries constitute a particularly grave risk for nurses, through proper lifting aids not being installed.

Even in the best-run hospitals workers may be exposed to infections, air-borne drugs, chemical toxins and radiation at a high level. Among the identified effects of this exposure are miscarriages, which occur twice as commonly among women with an occupational risk of inhaling low levels of anaesthetic gases than among others. Occurrence of tuberculosis is five times as common among microbiological laboratory staff in hospitals as in the general population (Hospital Hazards —leaflet produced by the British Society for Social Responsibility in Science, 1981). It is true that the NHS commonly gives its staff priority over other patients when they are in need of medical advice or treatment; but that can hardly be regarded as a perk. People clearly do not join the health service for the sake of their own health.

In an attempt to play down the penalties of employment in the NHS, Fowler referred to it in Parliament as a “service which enjoys secure and growing employment”. This hackneyed argument no longer holds water. It is true that the number of people employed by the service is expected to rise by around 10,000 in 1982-3 but it certainly is not true that individual employees arc secure in their jobs. In such a labour- intensive industry, the tightening of belts demanded by successive governments over the last two decades has meant lay-offs, either through hospital closures or as a result of the policy of reducing staffing levels by “natural wastage”. The resulting increase in work loads for remaining staff has been partially offset, at least in the short term, by the conscription of student nurses and police cadets, who can be made to work hard for little pay, and by steadily increasing numbers of voluntary workers. These people effectively mask the effects of job losses, and even of strikes; the fear that voluntary labour may be used for strikebreaking has often inhibited workers from taking industrial action in the past. This is not to deny the useful work performed by voluntary workers, particularly in geriatric and psychiatric care, and care of the mentally handicapped. But the extent to which voluntary labour has replaced paid labour in hospitals of all kinds puts in doubt both the future standard of care in these hospitals and the good-will extended to voluntary workers by employees whose livelihoods they threaten.

It seems likely that the government will take advantage of the present chaos in the public service to urge increased openings for private contractors in NHS ancillary services and for medical insurance schemes. Even before the dispute, the growing proportion of the NHS workforce hired from private companies was a source of concern to workers who feared it would divide and weaken the unions at times of industrial action, as well as masking the effects of redundancies in the regular workforce. In Sweden. 70 per cent of ancillary services are contracted out to private operators; and such an arrangement would be favoured by the present government, since contract workers are easily hired and fired, and are often more flexible than permanent workers.

Perhaps the most notable feature of the dispute is the distinctive attitude of the nurses and midwives. Until now, these workers have been well known for their willingness to perform an exceptionally demanding and highly responsible job, often under totally inadequate conditions and for the most punishing hours, in return for very low rates of pay. They have been eulogised on paper and on the screen as earthly angels with unshakeable traditions of discipline and dedication. It has often been assumed, both by governments and by the public at large, that in keeping with their singularly “feminine” (because caring) role, nurses should also be politically weak, and should do the feminine thing by obeying the (predominantly male) authorities, just as they are expected to obey the (predominantly male) doctors. Nurses have tended to accept this and have therefore become among the most conspicuously exploited of all workers. Offers of sympathetic strike action from non-nursing trade unions often reflect this all too clearly. Such support may come across as tactless or patronising and may actually reinforce the popular prejudice that a "caring profession" must inherently be vulnerable to exploitation. Even when their union colleagues can turn this prejudice to their own advantage — as during this dispute, when health ministers confessed that only popular sympathy for the nurses prevents them from taking a tougher line with the other health service staffs many nurses feel like weak and therefore second-class union members.

PC

Blogger's Note:

I'm not 100% sure who 'PC' was. My initial thought was that it could have been an early pen-name for Carl Pinel, but I've since been told that it could have been (Doctor) Peter Cook. Fingers crossed that one of them reads the blog, and clears the matter up for me.

The Passing Show: Agitators (1962)

The Passing Show Column from the July 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

Agitators

It has been an accepted ruling-class myth for a long time now that strikes are caused by people called agitators. Whenever industrial trouble breaks out, the management’s bloodhounds set out to track down “the agitators”, the sinister background figures who are at the bottom of it all. The papers try to convince us that the workers concerned are perfectly happy with whatever wages and conditions the management sees fit to grant them, and that they would work away at their benches making ever greater profits for their masters without a single complaint — were it not for “the agitators". This must be one of the least convincing theories ever produced, even by a ruling class. It received another severe blow recently, at Ford’s Dagenham works. Here, as at many other factories, these powerful agitators who bring the men out on strike when they don’t really want to stop work are usually identified as the shop stewards. At the end of May the Ford Motor Company rejected outright a pay claim, not offering even sixpence a week more. So the shop stewards, ”the agitators”, called a one-day token strike in protest. But the men simply turned down this proposal, and continued work.

With the band in front

This underlined still further the obvious fact that workers come out on strike when they want to come out on strike, and not merely at the behest of agitators. No agitator in the world could make men strike if they didn't want to. Shop stewards, men who serve on strike committees, and so on, simply march with the band in front. Children love to run to the head of processions, and march in front of them, to pretend that they are the leaders. But if the band turns off down a side street, the “leader” has to go with it or be left marching on his own, a general without an army. And there is no sadder sight than that.

All day and every day

We are often treated in the press to learned articles about “the real reasons” for the trouble at any industrial plant where there have been a number of stoppages. But there is no need to go beyond the fact that the workers are exploited, plus the methods adopted by managements to screw out ever more surplus value. It is now agreed by almost everybody that the tasks which the workers have to do to stay alive are boring, monotonous, repetitive, soul-destroying, and offer no opportunity whatever for them to satisfy their basic human creative instincts, their need to do a job in which they can take a pride. The correspondent of the Observer (3-6-62) quoted one of the men at Dagenham:

The monotony of the work is another thing that gets you down. You take the Anglia handbrake. Putting it in involves turning four screws, 30 handbrakes an hour, all day and every day.

This particular job consists of putting in 120 screws every hour in every working day throughout the foreseeable future. The worker has to do every two minutes exactly what he did in the last two minutes. These newspaper articles, surely, are tackling the problem from the wrong angle. What causes astonishment to the impartial observer is not that there should be so much trouble at Ford’s, but that there should be so little elsewhere.

Salvation of souls

There is so little beauty in the lives of people living under capitalism, and such a large proportion of the few beautiful buildings remaining to us from earlier ages is destroyed every time we have a war, that one would think what we have is worth preserving. But some authorities in the Church of England believe otherwise, Not long ago the President of the Society of Antiquaries of London was protesting that the Chancellor of the Diocese of Ely had decided to demolish three ancient parish churches — Denton, built largely in the seventeenth century, and Woolley and Islington (Norfolk) which are mediaeval. In reply to this protest, a reverend gentleman from Worcester said that the purpose of the Church “is the salvation of souls and not the provision and upkeep of museums and ancient monuments.”

It is as if the worshippers of Athena Parthenos decided to knock down the Parthenon which was built as a temple for Athena, on the grounds that nobody now wants to pray to Athena in it—which of course nobody does. The fact that a particular superstition was once practised in a particular building doesn't make it any the less beautiful, but obviously the diocese of Ely sets more store upon the preservation of superstition than of beauty.

Cloisters

A similar instance of the benefits of private ownership is the case of William Randolph Hearst and the Spanish cloisters. Hearst, it appears, never even saw the cloisters, which dated from the twelfth century; but he heard that the monks in a remote part of Spain were prepared to sell their cloisters, so he sent along one of his employees to buy them. He then had to assuage the anger of the local villagers (real or pretended) at the removal of this relic by further large payments to them. Next he hired workmen to dismantle the cloisters stone by stone, had a sawmill built to make the cases to pack the stones in, and then had an extra twenty-one miles of railway constructed to transport the stones when they had been packed. They were taken all the way to Hearst’s gigantic fake castle at San Simeon in the United States, and there stored in enormous warehouses along with other art treasures which Hearst had bought from every corner of the world. This vast collection, not even unpacked, was still there when Hearst died years later.

Amber fountains

The next actor in this tragic farce is George Huntingdon Hartford II, an American multi-millionaire who has bought Hog Island near Nassau in the Bahamas, re-christened it Paradise Island, and is now at a cost of twenty-five million dollars turning it into a fantastically luxurious kind of Super-Cinerama playground for other multi-millionaires. A double room at the Ocean Club is said 'continued bottom left to cost up to £50 a day. It is not yet finished. Above the Ocean Club a “gently rising succession of terraces" is to be constructed, and at the summit, above the illuminated swimming pool, the purple creepers and the amber fountains, there will be erected, and floodlit, William Randolph Hearst’s twelfth-century Spanish cloisters. Huntingdon Hartford bought it. complete with packing-cases, from Hearst’s estate. But there is one small fly in the ointment. The plans for the cloister cannot now be found, and no-one knows how the stones are supposed to go together.

It seems that everything that capitalism touches, it defiles.

Alwyn Edgar

On the Spot at Con-Mech (1973)

From the December 1973 issue of the Socialist Standard

Nor entirely satisfied with the mass media’s reporting on the Con-Mech dispute, I went along to find out for myself. As I arrived outside the Sheerwater factory, I saw a group of four or five men on the pavement. Among them I recognised Lindsey Greig, who is one of the two shop stewards. He is 21. A graduate of Warwick University, he joined Con-Mech this summer. From the company’s point of view he is a “trouble maker” and had “spent much of his working time soliciting membership for the AUEW”. The other shop steward, Ron Connor, an ex-miner from Co. Durham, has experience of trade union membership, but is also young.

Con-Mech is a small factory-cum-office on Sheerwater GLC estate outside Woking, Surrey. The Group make bread slicers and parts for bulldozers and other earth-moving machinery. According to a circular issued by Mr. Robert Dilley, the company’s chairman, on September 28th, there are 67 people employed of which he claims 51 are “eligible to join a Union” — any union. I asked him over the phone if this figure included staff workers, typists, etc., but he emphatically denied this. However the workers and the AUEW who have checked the branch’s books, assert that the total number of shopfloor workers eligible to join the AUEW was only 31. Indeed I would think that this is the correct figure, as Dilley’s 51 could only have got in with dangerous overcrowding. It is a small factory.

Before September 19th the union had only four members, of whom Ron Connor was one. At the branch meeting 22 Con-Mech workers including Greig became union members. Next day the union members elected Greig and Connor as their shop stewards and decided to apply for a meeting between the District Secretary Geoff Hardy (a member of the Communist Party) and the Company to discuss recognition, etc. The shop stewards’ account of how this application was met is indicative of the employer’s attitude:

Our first discussion with the Management was brief and to the point. We were told that under no circumstances would they afford recognition, and that the two elected Shop Stewards could “pick up their cards” on the way out. (Undated leaflet issued in the name of Ron Connor as Secretary of the Strike Committee.)

It seems that on every point at issue there are two different and mutually contradictory stories. How many shop-floor workers were eligible for the AUEW? Dilley says 51, the union only 31. How many came out on strike? Dilley says only 20, the union 26. How many are still out on strike now (Oct. 26)? Dilley says only 9 — the rest, he says, are either back at work or else have collected their cards and got jobs elsewhere. But the union say they are paying strike pay to 16 men on their books. Were the shop stewards sacked? Not according to Dilley, but it is hard to see why, immediately after their interview with him, there was a mass walkout and decision "to withdraw labour until such time as not only the two stewards were reinstated, but the Company conceded recognition”.

On September 28 Dilley took the case to the National Industrial Relations Court under Sir John Donaldson on the grounds that the strike constituted an "unfair” industrial practice because there had been no seven days’ notice. At which stage the question ceases to be a relatively simple one of an industrial stoppage over a recognition issue, but becomes bedevilled by the AUEW’s stoic masochism and boycott of the NIRC (surely they could have countered Dilley by putting their case on reinstatement of the shop stewards and recognition?), but also by the Labour and TUC opposition to the Industrial Relations Act and NIRC.

At which point I’ll get back to those pavement pickets. Their main motive for being out was nothing to do with the Industrial Relations Act and party political matters. What they wanted was union recognition, not as an end in itself, but as a means to an end, a means of compelling management to do something about unsatisfactory conditions. I was told of safety hazards on some of the machines, of poor ventilation, of the shopfloor being cluttered and dirty. I heard that rates of pay were arbitrarily and unfairly fixed — the longer you stayed the less you got in relation to blokes who had just come in on "outside” rates of pay. For instance, Lindsey Greig, a young newcomer, got a lot more than an older, better and more experienced worker.

Another factor was the high speed arrival and departure of shopfloor workers. There would be seven or eight new ones every Monday, and of these hardly a couple would still be in the place on Friday. There was a tendency to take young workers, including students, and there was a high proportion of immigrant workers — Italians and Pakistanis came to nearly half the workforce. In the event, the Pakistanis have mostly stuck with the union so far, but the Italians went back in.

In the absence of a union, inexperienced, young or immigrant workers are least likely to be aware of safety hazards in operating the machines, and in case of accident are unlikely to be aware of their legal rights on compensation; also they might not be in a position to press any claim. Is this why Dilley is so opposed to recognition of the union? Is he afraid that someone might report him for empty firebuckets? Or get him to modify some of his plant, e.g. the monstrous machine outside in his backyard which chops up metal into different lengths and which the operator can only switch on or off when inside the building? Or to give up some of his old-fashioned habits, like sacking people at the drop of a hat?

The first sentence of Dilley’s circular of September 28th claims: “For twenty-five years the employees and the management have enjoyed excellent labour relations.” The men totally disagree, and they point out that last November there was a stoppage lasting several hours over pay and conditions, which ended when another director conceded a pay increase. In the next sentence, we read: “the conditions of employment have always been superior to those laid down by any Union”. The proof of the pudding is in the eating: there would be little cause for men to stay out on strike with only £6 strike pay for weeks on end and still remain resolved to force union recognition if conditions were as "superior” as Dilley alleges. The men however know very well how badly their conditions and rates of pay compare with other factories in the area, whose workers are solidly supporting them (e.g. in such practical ways as laying on hot tea twice a day, or getting statements photo-copied for the pickets to hand out, not to mention helping out with picket duty).

The employer seems an awful ass, dogmatic and intransigent, characteristically the type who has been using NIRC. The Union leaders seemed at times to have had a stronger eye on making party policy propaganda for the Labour Party than with the immediate interests of their members on strike. But the strikers themselves have shown commendable solidarity and stamina — qualities which, added to socialist understanding, will overthrow capitalism and establish Socialism.

Charmian Skelton

Blogger's Note:

By the look of this obituary for Lindsay Greig from 2015, he would have been a member of the International Socialists group (now known as the SWP) at the time of the dispute. In fact, the strike at Con-Mech is mentioned in the obituary.

Running Commentary: On the gridiron (1982)

The Running Commentary Column from the December 1982 issue of the Socialist Standard

When the baseball players of America went-on strike in the summer of 1981, we pointed out the similarities between their action and that of industrial workers trying to defend their standard of living. Most American workers, with a fair bit of prompting from the media, took a cynical attitude to the dispute, which was seen as a squabble between two sets of rich people. Now the players of the National Football League, who perform in steel helmets and liberal amounts of padding and look more like spacemen than footballers, have also taken “industrial action”.

Normally games are televised live on Sunday afternoons and Monday evenings but since the middle of September the networks have been showing instead Canadian Football, old “classic” games, or baseball, now in the last days of its season. None of this satisfies National Football League addicts.

Television income is one of the points at issue. The players have asked for fifty per cent to be allocated to them, to be divided on a seniority scale, and changes in the system of medical checks. They are unhappy about the way drug testing is conducted, want each player to have the right to a second medical opinion and a surgeon of his choice, and to be told all pertinent information about his injuries. The very fact that these medical demands have to be made shows how dissatisfied the players are with the present situation. At the time of writing, labour and management remain deadlocked on all these points.

The point about the players’ high wages deserves some further comment. In a number of cases high salaries can be the front behind which surplus value reaches the pockets of wealthy capitalists. However, the American brand of football is hard, bruising work and the great majority of players come from the working class, often from the desperately poor. Under capitalism wages represent the value of labour power — that is. the average cost of producing and reproducing the worker. American football is such a dangerous game that even in a deep recession — with welfare checks (dole) a probable alternative — it is only the high pay and other lucrative trappings that induce men to make a living of it.

American football is well able to pay such wages: with only a few top clubs widely scattered over a large country, even the unsuccessful play in front of near capacity crowds. On top of this is the large income from television. This contrasts sharply with the situation in Britain where a large number of clubs are in competition and many are near to bankruptcy. Recently the Rugby League players in England threatened to strike, but this dispute has been smoothed over. The threat of being driven out of business is often used by capitalist spokesmen, sometimes in defiance of the truth, in order to dissuade workers from pursuing pay claims. In the case of the Rugby League, however, a prolonged stoppage may well have closed many clubs. The Rugby League game is only part professional anyway, the players’ main income deriving from other jobs when they are lucky enough to have one. There is no suggestion however of the NFL clubs going to the wall, even though a long strike is considered possible.

To dispel any lingering doubts about whether the issues in the footballers’ strike are indeed the same as in an “ordinary” industrial dispute, we give two quotations from the International Herald Tribune of 2 and 3 October 1982. Gene Upshaw , Union President, said:

It is a tragic situation to be dealing with these people. They don’t care about you. We’re replaceable parts. We asked them what gives them the right to give 1500 players a physical examination. Then we said "what if 1500 players refuse to take them?” They said they would get 1500 other players.

Jack Donlan, director of the League’s Management Council, presented the management view:

Their proposals, we perceive, are designed to control the game. They’re always talking about their wage scales, their medical program. They’re trying to take away everything that has made this game and this League great.

There you have it; we have been wrong all the time. The crowds don't turn up to see the players play. They don’t even go to see the managers manage, which can be a spectaclc in itself in the United States. They go to see the owners own. 

E C Edge 

The dispute was settled shortly after this piece was written. None of the players’ demands was met and they returned to work.

Letter: Industrial action (1977)

Letter to the Editors from the September 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

Industrial action

In your article “Obstacles to Socialist Understanding” in the January 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard you state: “Class consciousness means the recognition of the existence of class society and arising from this the knowledge that political action by the majority based on the clear understanding of Socialism will replace capitalism by a Socialist society".

The first part of this statement is correct but inadequate. The concluding remarks are additionally inadequate and does not pay full service to the introductory part of the statement. It is the knowing of the function of capital and how it does not function in the interests of the working class that is most important. And in knowing this the worker uses constantly his economic knowledge (Socialist understanding of economics) to get as much as he can by all necessary means.

This is political-economic action which is superior to just political action. It brings a showdown and breakdown of capitalism on the industrial-economic field of capitalism. It is at that stage the political action takes over by the introduction of Socialism (common ownership, production only for use, etc.).

While writing, why does the SPGB in a puritanical and snipey way condemn your anarchist correspondent when replying to a letter published in the Jan. issue when he stated of having a society “where there is nothing else but a person’s social habits". The SPGB claims this is being utopian. Yet social habits means needs. And surely under Socialism people will be able to retain or assert their own social habits as it is their needs? Under Socialism, people take according to their needs, which are part of their social habits.

W. J. Street 

London, W9.

Reply:

You give no indication of how industrial action can bring a “showdown and breakdown of capitalism”.

It is quite mistaken to suppose that workers who understand economics can get more out of the capitalist class (some of us wish it were so!). What can be obtained by trade-union action depends on several factors, including the concentration of workers in a particular industry. The biggest factor over-all is the state of production and trade. Wage increases and improvements in conditions are gained with less difficulty in boom periods, when the employers’ order-books are full and they do not want production and distribution held up by disputes. When trade and manufacture are depressed, the employers are more ready to make a fight against demands by workers’ organizations. How would the knowledge that “capital does not function in the interests of the working class” alter this situation?

As you link “political-economic action” with “the worker getting all he can by all necessary means”, presumably you mean the trade unions seeking to bring pressure to bear on governments. Trade-union organization is valuable to the workers in its own field; attempted political action has only a damaging effect on it. Since they are not a political party, the unions which attempt such action must support the policies as a whole of a party which promises legislation favourable to them. If, on the other hand, you have in mind the syndicalist idea of a confrontation between unions and the state, your worker with Socialist understanding will be aware (a) that the majority of workers are not members of trade unions, and (b) that the state has at its disposal the legal machinery, police and armed force. Those circumstances hardly make for breaking down capitalism by that means.

You have misread the reply about anarchism. It criticized a statement by Kropotkin predicting a society where ‘the liberty of the individual will be limited by no laws, no bonds”, and pointed out that this vision of unrestricted individual liberty is incompatible with democratic social organization.

Editors.

Editorial: Joy Unspeakable. (1906)

Editorial from the December 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

And so the Trade Disputes Bill has passed the faithful Commons and has every prospect of getting through the Lords unimpaired. And there is merry-making in the camp of Progress. The independent existence of the “Labour” Group is justified—the bill could never have passed had the Government not been whipped from the outside. The existence of the Liberal Labour Group is justified—the bill would have never had a chance if they had not been with in the councils of the Government to inspire them. The Liberal Government is justified—the bill would never have been introduced at all if it had not been for the well known sympathies of Liberalism with the aspirations—the genuine aspirations of Labourism. The Tory Party is justified—with astonishing magnanimity they withdrew their opposition at the last moment and their leader endorsed the bill with a blessing. Everybody satisfied. Everybody happy. And the lion is at rest beside the lamb.

Suspicious Unanimity.

Which, when one comes to think of it, is rather suspicious. Why this unanimity ? Why is it that Capital is giving Labour what Labour is asking for and that almost without a murmur ? The question permits of two answers. (1) Capital’s hands have been forced and it is therefore making what virtue it can of a necessity. (2) The bill isn’t material and doesn’t affect capitalist interests. The “Labour” Party, of course, accept the first view and they have some ground for their belief. But while not concerned to deny that for their own purposes the capitalist Liberal Party have preferred to accept with good grace rather than oppose the measure forced upon them (and in so doing have attached to themselves some sympathy and votes which would probably have been diverted from them had they refused to deal with the matter), this at any rate is beyond question—the bill does not hit their interests hard; it is not material. Had it been otherwise; had there been any vital matter at stake, not all the “Labour” Party horses nor all the “Labour” Party men—what there is of them.—could have compelled them to capitulate as they have done in the case under notice without a struggle and probably a bloody struggle at that.

A Great Victory—Investigated

What, after all, does the great victory amount to? It amounts in effect to practically no more than a reversion to the condition that Labour Unionism thought it was in up to the Farwell decision. It is a case of as you were—no more than that. Indeed, it is a famous victory. The working class can now, if they like, strike. They can peacefully persuade others to join with them. And the funds of the Union are not liable for unauthorised acts of Union members. But the strike is a feeble weapon and in the hands of class-unconscious workers, as most of those who use it are, absolutely useless except on very rare occasions. In a strike the capitalist class, because they own the means of living and control the wealth, can sit tight and smile. The striking workman consumes almost immediately what few resources he has and, with starvation glaring at him, submits or—goes under. Well. The bill permits him to keep on doing that; it permits the capitalist class to keep on starving the worker out. It simply doesn’t touch the economic interest of the exploiter and only in the remotest and infinitesimal way benefits the exploited. But it is a famous victory. Hooray !

Letter: A Critic of the Busmen (1949)

Letter to the Editors from the May 1949 issue of the Socialist Standard

East Ham, E.6.

Dear Sir,

I am not a member of your party, or any other party, so perhaps it is not quite in order that I as a very ordinary individual, should write you.

Somehow or other your Socialist Standard booklet has found itself inside my letter box, and I commenced to read the Busmen’s Case.

The Busmen’s behaviour on that Saturday afternoon was the meanest rotten trick they could play on the long suffering public and it certainly earned them the public’s disgust, not its sympathy. Many people had to walk home in the drizzling rain and the ordinary worker was debarred his Saturday sport.

These strikes don't affect people with cars, it only causes them amusement; and after all, these men know all the facts having to work on Saturday and accept them as a condition of employment. They don’t work any longer hours than the average man and have a rest day thrown in.

Supposing the surgeon of a hospital was doing a vital operation and it was past one o'clock midday, would he down tools unless he was paid time and a half The ambulance man, the nurses, postmen. Everybody who is a public servant.

Yours seems to be a one-sided policy, take all, give nothing. If men want to strike let them strike for their suffering wives, who for nearly ten years have had to put up with a ration book and pay the prices what's asked, because it means going without, if you don't

Be men and strike to bring down prices and better food.

They certainly would earn the women’s praise and uphold them in their convictions.

Yours truly,

Margery Anderson.

Reply.

Our correspondent states that she commenced to read the article on the London Busmens’ half-day strike in our February issue. It is a pity that she did not complete the reading. Had she done so she would have found the answer to most of the points that she mentions.

We have not sufficient space to repeat the article in detail, but we will briefly touch on a few points. Before giving vent to her "disgust” at strikers, we suggest that our correspondent considers the fact that a strike is the expression of a struggle between opposing interests and the responsibility for any inconvenience caused is as much, if not more, with the employer as with the workers. But despite her disgust she urges men to strike for their "long suffering wives" and to “strike to bring down prices.” Would a strike to bring prices down to the limits of the wage packet cause less inconvenience than a strike to bring wages up to the level of prices?

The statement that “these strikes don’t affect people with cars” is meaningless. Neither do they affect people with pedal cycles. If our correspondent means that the capitalist is not affected, we already said that in the article.

She says that the busmen know the facts of Saturday work and accept them as conditions of employment. Sure they do. They also know the rates of pay that the job carries. But we venture to suggest, that if busmen, or any other workers, accepted rates of pay that were agreed upon at the times when they took their jobs years ago, their "long suffering wives” would be more disgusted than is our correspondent. Conditions change and workers must continuously struggle to adjust their wages and conditions of employment to the changed conditions in their industries and the world around them. The busmen did not protest at Saturday work. They asked for more pay for more work done.

The supposition about a surgeon proves nothing. Surgeons, like other workers, strive to get the best price for the energies that they sell. If they are not prepared to accept the price currently obtainable, they do not do the job. Like anyone else they must live, and that factor may force them to accept lower rates than they would wish, but they have their union and their means of struggle. The following extract from The Star 29/3/49) proves that. Referring to a meeting of the "Doctors’ Parliament” in London to discuss amongst other things, insufficient pay, The Star says: “Buckinghamshire delegates agreed to urge the meeting to call for mass resignations from the Health Service unless adequate fees were granted.” Where a section of the workers are poorly organised or do not wage a determined struggle, their working conditions are also poorer. That is one reason why the nursing profession that our correspondent uses as an illustration, has been notorious for its low pay and bad conditions of employment.

Is our policy one-sided? There was no reference to our policy in the article under discussion. Our Declaration of Principles will be found on the back page of each issue of this journal.

"If men want to strike” begins a sentence. They don’t want to do anything of the sort. If wives are to pay the prices that our correspondent complains about, then men are forced to strike to get the necessary wage or, as she correctly puts it, "it means going without if you don't.”

W. Waters.

The Role of the Church in Strikes (1946)

From the May 1946 issue of the Socialist Standard

During strikes, as during wars, many significant details are obscured by more dramatic happenings. When considering the situation at a later date certain features are thrown into sharp relief, or a passing reference to some action may awaken interest and reconsideration of that fiction.

A radio programme of Thursday, February 7th, had this effect Speaking in a weekly programme, “What are the Churches Doing," the clergyman speaker related, with evident pride, the intervention of two Liverpool clergymen in the recent dock strike. Whether his claims for them were true or exaggerated, his attitude certainly showed a new aspect of the church's activities.

In the Times of November 2nd, 1945, the following account of the affair was given:—

“The Dock strike may be suspended tomorrow to give negotiating parties a period in which to make satisfactory progress. Mass meetings at affected ports will be asked for their decision tomorrow morning.

At a meeting here today the Rector of Liverpool, Canon R. Ambrose Reeves, who, with Father John Fitszsimons, has been mediating, told the dockers that last week he received a letter from Mr. Ernest Bevin which encouraged him, in spite of many rebuffs in other quarters, to persevere and try to help in the impasse. Since then, with Father Fitzsimons, he had met the Merseyside Strike Committee, the National Strike Committee, and Labour Members of Parliament for the Liverpool divisions. He had put before them as a basis for discussion a document in which he summarised the position as he saw it."

Then followed a summary of what the strike revealed, and an appeal to the workers to suspend the strike for 30 days in order that negotiations might take place. The interesting points to note are that the clergyman did not for one moment imagine that the masters should give way to the dockers’ grievances. To one inured in the tradition "the rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate," the exploitation of the worker and the real nature of wages are a closed book. Instead of the usual efforts of the church to "reconcile man to God," the efforts are now to reconcile man to his employer’s interests. Another point worthy of notice is the joining forces of the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church, normally at daggers drawn, but willing in this dirty work to sink their differences. Lastly the approbation of Mr. Ernest Bevin was sweet to Canon Reeves and an encouragement to persist with the new form of blunting the edge of the workers’ strike weapon.

W. S.

Letter: The Use of Trade Unions and Strikes (1933)

Letter to the Editors from the April 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

A correspondent raises the question of the usefulness of strike action. As the letter is rather long and deals with other matters not directly concerned with the main point, we have omitted certain passages condemning the Communist advocacy of armed revolt, and the notion held in certain quarters that capitalist wars should be supported because, so it is argued, they hasten economic development and encourage the growth of the Socialist movement. The letter then continues:—

But precisely the same or similar arguments go to show that the strike is a weapon only advocated by anti-socialist elements of society. The argument usually put forward is that since wages are determined by the socially necessary time required to reproduce labour-power at the moral and historical standards of a particular epoch, there is a minimum level to which this tends under the pressure of the exploiting class. But wages are not the value of labour-power, hut the price of labour-power, that price being regulated by conditions of supply and demand. Thus, say the strikers, by temporarily withholding supply, we are able to resist the encroachments of our masters.

This reasoning is false. The practical results of strikes prove it to he utterly untrue.

The price of labour-power, like all other prices, is not determined until the buyers face the sellers on the market. Moreover, the price even then is not fixed until the actual transaction takes place. Does the strike give the workers greater bargaining power than they would have had without it ? The answer is “No.”

Until the workers strike they face the masters as an organised number of unions. They can hold their organisation intact by their economic power (the sum total of their subscriptions, and the discipline wielded within the union upon the members). Faced with the competition of the vast unemployed army, they have certain advantages in the form of sick benefit, pension, and other schemes which give them a certain extra bargaining power as long as they do not strike. As soon as a strike takes place, they lose those advantages. Their funds are depleted, the masters having far greater resources. A cunning compromise is usually the result of the strike, that compromise generally working in the favour of the masters because of the ineptitude of the average trade union leader. The unions go back to work, half- starved and without any financial backing. Then comes the real struggle. Now that they are thoroughly whipped by the strain of the strike, the masters insidiously undermine all the silly little concessions which .they thought they had gained, and within a few months the unions are back in their original position, except for the fact that they are now thoroughly demoralised and consequently less capable of thinking clearly on the real issues of the class struggle. Apart from all that, sectional frictions and the dead weight of the unemployed beat them every time. It is useless to argue that it hastens development, this strike business. Of course, it does, but that is no reason for a socialist to advise the workers to cut their own throats in the interests of historical development. That were merely suicidal insanity. I think that the socialist must look for some other weapon on the economic field. That weapon is Socialism. The only strike that could be successful would be a strike on the part of the majority of the workers, class-conscious and determined, but such a majority would have long since relegated the economic struggle to the background in their mighty fight for political control of armed force.

I am not arguing against ca-canny as a weapon. That is in a different category. But I think that there is some reason in the idea that to advocate strikes as an economic weapon is anti-socialist.

It seems apparent that the most important factor in the struggle for wages is not the bargaining power of an unconscious, unco-ordinated, uneducated. class such as ours is, but the necessities of capitalist production. When the wages of our class fall below the historical and moral standard of comfort, output falls with it, and capitalism has to rectify it. I don’t think we ever will get wages far above or far below that level. Certainly the strike will not help us.

Yours truly,

“ BARI.”

Reply.

In order to remove any possible misunderstanding let us first make dear why the S.P.G.B. supports trade union organisation and strike action. It is not because these are the road to Socialism: they are not and cannot be that. The only road is the conquest of political power by a politically organised Socialist majority. The case for organising in trade unions is that the conditions of working-class life and labour could and would be worsened if no organised resistance were offered to the downward pressure of the employers. Failure to make this organised resistance would, in addition, make Socialist propaganda and organisation even more difficult than it is now, for these are not helped, but hindered, by a lowered standard of living and a condition of disorganisation among the workers.

The argument of our correspondent is faulty in several respects. In the first place the value of trade union organisation does not consist solely in the number of strikes that can be brought about. The very existence of the trade union (with the weapon of the strike, or ca'canny, to be used in the last resort) is itself a factor which influences negotiations about the level of wages, just in the same way that the existence of armed forces is a factor in the negotiations between governments, even although in most cases war is not resorted to, but only threatened. When the employers in an industry contemplate an attack on wages or conditions of employment, they take into consideration the possibility of a strike and the expense they will suffer by it. If the expense appears too great for the gain anticipated they will not push the claim to the extremity. One of the “expenses" they consider is making their employees disgruntled. They know quite well that disgruntled workers do not make for high output. For this reason, even when workers have been beaten in a strike, the employers sometimes prefer not to reap all the fruits of victory. Hence, the strike emphatically does give the workers greater bargaining power than they would have without it. The process is by no means the mechanical thing our correspondent appears to think it is. Even if the workers were beaten in every strike (and they are not) it would still be true that the strike is not futile as an economic defensive weapon.

Unless the condition of the market at any given time is such that the employers would welcome a stoppage of work, there is usually some margin about which they are prepared to bargain. If there is in existence an organised body of workers, able to bring about a strike, the employers will make some concession (an increase in wages or the abatement of part of a decrease) in order to avoid the strike. One factor in negotiation is, of course, the ability of the respective sides to weigh up the strength of the other side. If either side underestimates the strength of the other there will be a strike or a lock-out. On the workers' side there is a fairly narrow limit to such a war of starvation, but even then it often does not pay the employer to have his works held up for so long. So that in fact strikes do in many cases result in some gain for the workers, and lock-outs do sometimes end in the employers withdrawing all or part of their demands.

A second error in our correspondent's argument is the implication that there is a fixed "historical and moral standard of comfort" of the working class and that if they are forced below this standard their output falls and the employers then have to raise wages again for their own benefit and without any effort by the workers.

It is true that output would fall if the workers were forced below a bare physical minimum of subsistence, but in the main workers who are in work are above that standard. They could therefore have their standard of comfort reduced without being forced below the bare minimum of subsistence.

It may also be true that a lowering of the historical standard of living would, for a while, result in less capable work, but it has yet to be proved that the workers in a given industry would not get used to the lower standard and ultimately provide work of the same class as formerly, assuming they were not actuated by the spirit of resistance. The English employers during the 19th century were considerably helped by the emigration of large numbers of active and dissatisfied workers.

Expressed in terms of purchasing power, the English workers' standard of living is considerably higher than that of workers in certain other countries and considerably higher than it was in England, say, eighty years ago. Part of the rise in the English workers' standard of living between 1850 and 1900 may be explained by changes in the technique and methods of industry, but another part can only be explained by the organised efforts of the workers to improve their conditions.

It is quite true that the employer who pays a higher wage will be induced to maintain his profits by reducing his total wages bill in other ways—for example, by introducing more labour-saving machinery. Consequently the effort to raise wages, shorten hours, and improve working conditions are themselves factors which influence the development of industry. However, this does not mean that the efforts are not fruitful from the working class standpoint. It is unquestionably better to be exploited at a higher wage in a modern factory than it was to be exploited at a lower wage in a less efficient factory fifty or one hundred years ago. But for the standards won and maintained by organisation and strikes the workers would be exploited under worse conditions and at a lower wage than actually exist.

One reason for under-estimating the value of trade union organisation since the war is that the heavy fall in prices has been overlooked. When prices are rising a strike for, say, 5s. will appear to be a victory for the workers if they get 2s. 6d., even although this may be insufficient to compensate for the increased cost of living.

When prices are falling, as they have been since 1920, the opposite error is often made. If employers demand a 5s. decrease in wages, and the workers can get this reduced to 2s. 6d., it may in fact be a victory, for the workers if the fall in wages is less than the fall in prices.

Actually the whole tendency since 1926 has been for the purchasing power of full-time rates of wages to rise, owing to the fact that prices have been falling faster than wages. Although the so-called General Strike of 1926 was a failure in its immediate purpose, it probably had a very considerable effect in warning off the employers in the big industries from lightly entering on lockouts to enforce reductions.

It is beyond dispute that had there been no trade union organisation the employers would have taken far greater advantage of the crisis to depress wages than in fact they have been able to do.

Editorial Committee.

Life and Times: Still on strike (2023)

The Life and Times column from the November 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard

In May of last year this column dealt with the industrial action that was taking place by staff in universities against their employers. It talked about how lecturers, researchers and administrators in the union I’m a member of (University and College Union) were going on strike on certain stipulated days, not doing any ‘extra’ work outside the strike periods (action short of a strike) and standing on picket lines, holding banners and giving out leaflets. It also said that the strikes were mainly about changes to pensions and real term losses in pay. I can report now that, some 18 months later and somewhat away from the public gaze, the dispute is still going on. And I can also report that, as is often the case with protracted industrial action, it has not been – and is unlikely to be – successful.

What a mess

How can we sum up? Firstly, despite the strike action, the cuts of up to 35 percent in pensions were formalised last year causing enormous anger and frustration. But then ‘market forces’ came to the rescue, when there was a sharp rise in the valuation of the pension fund meaning that the previously proclaimed deficit in the fund became a surplus, leaving no reason for the cuts not to be effectively reversed. This was a relief to most of us, even if union members were still out of pocket from the withholding of pay by employers for strike days. Secondly, despite more or less restored pensions, industrial action has continued on pay, since the union’s demand has remained unmet. This has meant further strikes and a new tactic, a marking and assessment boycott (MAB), which the union initially described as ‘nuclear’, since it threatened to put degree graduation in jeopardy and to lay universities open to legal action by students.

But the MAB tactic has not worked well. Relatively few staff have participated in it and the universities have found ways round, for example by awarding degrees based on exams and assessments previously marked. So the employers have remained firm, refusing to negotiate, which has effectively brought the union to its knees, with a member consultation now showing a clear majority against further MAB action. Then, when the union gave branches the option to call off a further strike period set for the first week of the academic year, the vast majority did just that. And this despite the fact that the lecturers who had participated in the MAB were not only having at least half their salary deducted but were now also at the mercy of their employers’ demand to them to carry out in their own time the missed marking and assessment. A double-whammy if ever there was one. What a mess.

Manoeuvres and delusions

How has this debacle come about in a well-subscribed union with highly intelligent and educated members who one might imagine would be more able than most to assess the likely consequences – positive or negative – of action they decided to take? As pointed out in the previous article, the purpose of industrial action is to force the employer into concessions. Once you think you have done that as much as is feasible then you ask the members to decide if it’s enough and they then decide whether to continue or not. But what has happened here is something quite different. When it became clear, as it did at a relatively early stage, that the employers felt no need to offer concessions and so held the upper hand, the members should have been balloted in properly democratic fashion with a clear ‘yes’ or ‘no’ question about carrying on.

But this did not happen. What happened instead was that politically motivated activists from the Trotskyists who have manoeuvred themselves into positions on the union’s national executive were able to manipulate the union’s decision-making processes and achieve results bearing little relation to the views or position of the majority of the membership. Their main concern was arguably not so much to achieve any immediate benefit for the union’s members but to create a situation in which the dispute would continue as long as possible regardless of the outcome. This in line with their deluded view that industrial action serves as some kind of consciousness-raising operation for workers, a rehearsal for bigger struggles to come when the vanguard these groups see themselves as will lead the workers to victory on the political stage.

Alternatives

In last year’s article, I wrote that, despite the manipulations which were already taking place then, I had sufficient hope that this particular action was happening for the right reasons, had the backing of the majority of members and would not end up being damaging to members’ interests. Unfortunately, as we have seen, things have not worked out like that and the union will now have to try and put the damage behind it and go back to fulfilling their correct role within the system of wage and salary work and buying and selling (capitalism) in which we’re all stuck at the moment. That role is to defend their members’ interests against the interest of their employers, something that will carry on as the majority class in society (workers) continue to see no alternative but to spend their lives selling their energies to the minority class (capitalists or their agents) for a wage or salary. This despite the fact that there is sufficient potential abundance for the money and wages system to be abolished on a global scale so that the whole of humanity can live fulfilling lives at all levels in a world of cooperative endeavour, voluntary work and free access for all to all goods and services.

Howard Moss