Letter: Taking the Oath (1979)

Letter to the Editors from the November 1979 issue of the Socialist Standard

Taking the Oath

From what I understand, after reading the August issue of the Socialist Standard, the SPGB views Capitalism with implacable hostility, and that no compromise with such a dreadful system is possible. It appears that abolition of Capitalism and the implementation of Socialism is the sole object of the SPGB. Further you mean to achieve this desirable state of affairs democratically by means of the Ballot Box.

A condition for an elected MP to take his seat in the House is the swearing of the Oath of Allegiance to the Sovereign and his or her heirs. The dilemma of the first elected Socialist MP will be whether to refuse to take the Oath, in which case he will not be allowed to represent his Constituency, or to swallow his principles and swear allegiance to the popular face of Capitalism.

Why do you advocate membership of Trade Unions, albeit on a voluntary basis? I refer to the August issue of the Standard page 143 last paragraph. Surely it must be clear to everyone that Trade Unions are as much a part of Capitalism as the Board of ICI.

Firstly the TUC is not interested in doing away with the present system as the elevation of several Union leaders, over the years, to the Peerage is proof enough. After several years of covering the ruling class with buckets of manure they rush to don the robes and insignia of a clique they profess to despise.

Secondly most strikes and industrial disputes arise over pay claims. Now if, as you say, we are wage slaves then why ask the workers to support an organisation that merely thickens the chains? Your position on this issue seems to be that if the worker cannot have the whole loaf then a thicker slice will do. This is reform pure and simple towards which you are bitterly opposed. Your reasoning escapes me.

Lastly the closed shop gives the Unions the same power as the factory owner, namely depriving the worker of his livelihood. If the worker doesn’t like the deals cooked up between the boss and the Union reps then the threat of dismissal from the Union is more than enough to bring the disgruntled into line. I have seen this threat applied several times and it is most effective. If the bosses and the Trade Unions ever see the logic of their respective positions and combine then it will be a sad day for the working class. Both sides have the same aim—the efficient running of the Capitalist system. To think otherwise is merely to bring 1984 to reality. It is well on the way.

P Steed

(Tyne and Wear)

Reply:

You correctly state that we are uncompromising in our opposition to attempts to reform capitalism, and that we view socialism as an immediate objective. Our case on trade unionism is not inconsistent with this.

The Socialist Party of Great Britain and the trade unions have a common origin in the class struggle. The former is the organised expression on the political field of the conscious recognition of the that struggle by workers. So long as capitalism remains it is necessary that workers combine democratically to offer the utmost resistance to worsening pay and conditions. Such action can achieve benefits or preserve living standards from being depressed, but it must be pointed out that this pressure on workers is inevitable. Industrial action in support of a wage claim is not an example of reformism but part of the class struggle, which exists independently of the will of particular groups in society.

It is true that the TUC is steeped in capitalist ideology and that the effectiveness of trade union action has been blunted by support for the Labour Party. It does not follow from this, however, that workers should cease to combine in unions against the employing class and accept wage cuts. (This is not a new phenomenon, incidentally — at the time of the General Strike we praised the solidarity of the workers and condemned the conniving treachery of TUC leaders.) The class struggle involves all workers, whether they are conscious of it or not; our task is to point out that they are only half participating and must organise politically for their emancipation.

The Socialist Party attitude to the closed shop was stated in the Socialist Standard you refer to: “whatever may seem to be the advantages of compulsory trade union membership imposed by the union or the employer, the interests of the working class are best served by seeking to expand union membership on a voluntary basis only”. The existence of the closed shop does not weaken our support for the principle of trade unionism.

If we are to refuse to take Oaths, then there is no chance for controlling parliament. Socialists are not simply waging war against detailed grievances in the system. They are fighting against the system as a whole. As political action is necessary to establish socialism we cannot stop at taking Oaths imposed upon us by the ruling class. The taking of Oaths has never prevented them being ignored when interests dictated it; if it did, the ruling class could keep on imposing conditions which they think socialists will refuse.

Editors.

The Industrial Relations Bill: Tories attack workers (1970)

From the December 1970 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Tories proposed Industrial Relations Bill is rightly seen by many trade unionists as an attempt to weaken the bargaining position of workers as compared with that of their employers.

The main feature of the Bill is to be the outlawing of certain practices as “unfair industrial actions”. Anyone financially harmed by such an action will be able to take the matter to an Industrial Tribunal or to a new National Industrial Relations Court and obtain damages from those responsible. Even a person threatened with an “unfair” action will be able to go to the Court and get an order outlawing it. Most of the practices that will be regarded as unfair are ones which over the years workers have found effective in protecting their wages and working conditions and organisations from the pressures of their employers, such as

• Strikes to get an employer to sack someone who refuses to join a trade union.
• The blacking of supplies from other firms to a firm whose workers are on strike.
• The "pre-entry closed shop" where a worker must belong to a trade union before he can get a particular job.
• For “organisations and individuals” other, than registered trade unions to get workers to threaten to or to go on strike without notice, i.e. sudden unofficial strikes .
• To organise any industrial action in support of an “unfair” action.

It is true that some of these practices, especially the closed shop, can be and have been abused in the sense that they have been directed against other workers rather than against employers. But this is a matter to be settled by discussion and the growth of understanding within the working class and not by the laws of the capitalist State. The same applies to the other ostensibly democratic safeguards that will be imposed on registered trade unions supposedly to protect their individual members. It is undeniable that unions today are not always under the democratic control of their members but once again this is something for workers to settle themselves without State intervention.

Some of the proposals could benefit some workers but are of a comparatively minor nature. There will be, for instance, an appeal against unfair dismissal (though this should be less effective than the strike commonly employed in some industries as a remedy for this) and an increase in the periods of notice for long service employees; it will be “unfair” for employers to try to dominate registered trade unions.

The provisions of the 1875 Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act which make strikers in gas, electricity and water works liable to prosecution and fines will be repealed, but such strikes along with others the government and the Industrial Relations Court claim “may seriously threaten the national health, safety or economy and/or the livelihood of a substantial portion of the community” will be subject to special provisions. In these cases a cooling-off period of 60 days and a strike ballot can be ordered. This ballot, in another of the ostensibly democratic provisions of the Bill, will be secret.

A secret ballot is not the only way of reaching a democratic decision. It was a radical demand in the last century because in a class-divided society (where one section of the voters are economically dependent on another) those opposed to the government or social system could be penalised for the way they voted. This danger does not apply in ballots within trade unions, though it is true that in some cases solidarity might make some workers afraid to identify themselves as opposed to strike action. This, and not some commitment to democratic principle, is one reason why the Tories want a secret ballot rather than the vote of a delegate conference or a show of hands at a mass meeting. An individual ballot is the most democratic procedure but to organise it properly requires time. Often it is essential to get a quick decision as to whether or not to strike so as not to give the employers some time to prepare against it. A government-imposed strike ballot would be a delaying tactic that will benefit employers; it will also allow the press to whip up a campaign for a vote not to strike. Some unions already provide for secret ballots before strike action and, here again, the most appropriate method of deciding whether or not to strike is a matter for the workers involved not the State.

At present trade unions can be registered and enjoy certain rights as compared with non-registered unions or groups of workers. The Bill proposes to withdraw from what are called “other combinations of workers” certain of the rights they now enjoy along with registered trade unions. For instance, as we saw, unlike registered unions such combinations will no longer be protected against claims for damages for calling or threatening to call sudden strikes. Nor would their funds be protected against damages in the same way as those of registered unions. These “other combinations of workers” will mainly be shop stewards’ and rank-and-file committees such as exist in some industries alongside the official trade unions. Such committees have proved useful supplements to the unions so that the proposed moves against them represent a very real attempt to hinder workers’ industrial organisation and action.

Workers’ industrial organisation, whether in trade unions or other bodies, is necessary as long as capitalism lasts even though it is only defensive since as long as the owning and employing class control political power they are in the end in the stronger position. Workers are right to oppose the Tory Bill just as they were to oppose last year’s Labour Bill. The ways of how to combat it, including even perhaps Heath's suggestion of a general strike, will have to be fully discussed and democratically agreed. It should not be forgotten, however, that the Tories have the political power to push through this Bill because a large number of workers, including a substantial proportion of the 10 million union members, voted for them at the general election earlier this year. Many of these could well be on the government’s side in the event of a showdown.

But one thing is certain. The class struggle cannot be suppressed by laws and, if the Bill does become law, will still go on. Whether the Bill’s provisions will prove workable in the face of mass refusals to pay damages or to vote in a government-imposed strike ballot remains to be seen. Workers will no doubt take advantage of the few favourable provisions and try to find ways around the others. The necessity will remain for such defensive, industrial actions to be supplemented by conscious political action aimed at converting the means of production from the class property of a privileged few into the common property of the whole community so ending the whole wages system.

Adam Buick

Letter: Trade Unions and Socialism (1961)

Letter to the Editors from the September 1961 issue of the Socialist Standard

What is the true position of the SPGB in regard to trade unions as they arc presently constituted in this country? Do you believe in the closed shop, and that members of your party should belong to a trade union and support it even though it may be anti-socialistic in character? Your writers often claim in the Socialist Standard that trade unions tend to help capitalism to run more smoothly; if this were so why not state in your journal that trade unionism is anti-socialistic and that no real socialist should belong to any trade union at all? This would be the only logical position that your party could take, hut as it is now you seem to be running with the hares and hunting with the hounds. Trade Unions may he necessary under a certain phase of capitalism just as the National Assistance Board is at present, but nevertheless it does not necessarily follow that socialists should support them.

R. Smith,

Dundee

                                                                                                                                          

 

Reply:

Capitalism is a social system in which most people have to go to work for wages in order to live. This means that they are forced to sell their mental and physical energies to an employer. The interests of the seller of any article are in getting the highest possible price for what he is selling. Thus the workers are forced to struggle for the best conditions for the sale of their labour power. This means that they must struggle for shorter hours, less intense working pace, higher wages and so on.

It is obvious that the workers will be able to assert their interests more strongly if they do so together: this is the basic reason for the existence of trade unions. They are the only weapon which workers can use under capitalism to defend and to improve their working conditions. Because of this, all workers should join their trade union. Any trade union action which is in line with working class interests is worthy of wholehearted support from all workers —and receives the support of the Socialist Party of Great Britain.

It is true, however, that trade unions do many things which are quite opposed to working class interests; some of them, as our correspondent points out, tend to help capitalism run more smoothly. Such actions are contrary to trade unionism and the Socialist Party opposes them. Thus we opposed trade union participation in the war effort and later their support of government productivity drives.

The closed shop is an arrangement which is operated sometimes with the aid and approval of the employers and sometimes by the workers themselves. While we hold that, on balance, compulsory trade union membership is not in the best interests of the Trade Union movement and the working class, we also recognise that trade union action, and strikes in particular, cannot operate without trying to compel would be blacklegs to conform to the decision of the majority.

It is hardly surprising that trade unions have their faults. They are, after all, a feature of capitalist society and they must recruit workers of all sorts of political and religious opinions, who are united only in the struggle against their masters. When Socialism is established, trade unions will exist no more—the need for them will have disappeared. Until that day, life under capitalism is a battle, and the workers must fight it with the best weapon available.

Editorial Committee

Grunwick or an exercise in opportunism (1977)

From the August 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jim D'Arcy

The Tories and the closed shop (1979)

From the August 1979 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Government's proposals for amending the law on the closed shop and other trade union matters will not be presented to Parliament until later in the year. In the meantime a ‘consultative’ document has been issued for discussion with the CBI and the TUC. Its suggestions on the closed shop closely follow the lines taken by the Secretary of State for Employment, James Prior, in an interview given to the Sunday Telegraph before the election — a secret ballot before the closed shop is introduced; a worker to have the right to refuse to join a union on grounds of deeply held personal conviction; dismissal for refusal to join a union to be ‘unfair dismissal’ against which he or she can appeal; and right of appeal to the High Court for damages against a union which unfairly refuses a union card.

What is interesting about this is its indication of how the Tories have changed their attitude on the closed shop (and on other trade union issues) away from their earlier sweeping condemnation.
This had already become evident in the closed shop clauses of the Tory Industrial Relations Act 1971 and in their attitude at the October 1974 general election, after the Labour government had repealed most of the Act’s provisions and enacted the Trade Union and Labour Relations Act 1974 in its place. The October 1974 Tory election programme announced that if they won the election they would not re-introduce their 1971 Act but would “accept the Trade Union and Labour Relations Act introduced by the present government and sensibly amended by Parliament as the basis for the law on trade union organisation”.

Change of Attitude
Prior in his interview stressed this change of attitude. While saying that new Tory legislation would “protect workers from dismissal because they refuse to join a union operating a closed shop”, he went on to reject demands from some of his own party for the complete banning of the closed shop.

  I am absolutely convinced that that would be the wrong way to proceed. It would be flying in the face of the evidence of the past few years of how industry works. Most firms want it because they are dealing with one group representing the whole work force. We are right to say that the closed shop is here to stay but we can modify it by law. (Sunday Telegraph 18 February 1979)

Mr. Prior’s line is the one taken in the Report of the Royal Commission on Trade Unions 1968. They rejected the idea of making the closed shop illegal on the grounds, among others, that such a law could not be made effective. This was shown while the 1971 Tory Act was in operation; many illegal closed shop arrangements continued to operate on the basis of an ‘understanding’ between employers and unions.

But the 1971 Act itself, while it laid down the principle that every worker should have the legal right to join a union or not to join a union, nevertheless provided for the establishment of certain forms of the closed shop including ‘agency shop’ agreements between unions and employers which (after a ballot) make union membership part of the terms and conditions of employment.

The clause about a worker’s right to refuse to join a union on ‘conscientious’ grounds was taken over by the Tories from the Labour government’s 1969 policy statement In Place Of Strife. This proposed that such workers be allowed to pay contributions to a charity instead of to the union, and if dismissed for not joining the union were to be entitled to compensation along with other workers ‘unfairly’ dismissed.

New Problem
Since the last legislation on the closed shop, a new problem has arisen. A railway worker sacked by British Rail for refusing to join a union took his case to the European Commission of Human Rights, claiming that “the closed shop laws violate fundamental freedoms”. The Tory Solicitor-General has attended the court but it has not been disclosed what submissions he made. If the outcome of the case is that the Commissioner rules in favour of the sacked worker being entitled to compensation and not to reinstatement, it would present no particular difficulty to Prior in his new legislation.

An early form of the closed shop was in the skilled craft occupations, in which workers had to serve apprenticeship before being regarded as qualified. A frequent dispute between the unions and employers was about the number of apprentices, the employers seeking to increase the number and the unions to restrict it.

Later the closed shop took other forms and became more widespread as the number of trade unions multiplied, including the more common form in which non-members can be employed but then have to join a union. The Royal Commission’s report estimated that two-fifths of trade union members were covered by closed shop agreements or ‘understandings’. The number has increased since 1968.

As far as the law is concerned, the issue came up half a century ago through the action of local councils under Labour Party control agreeing with the unions to employ only trade union members. This was prohibited by the Tory Trade Disputes Act 1927, which the Labour Party repealed in 1946.

One of the consequences of compulsory union membership is that workers who refuse to belong to a union, or who come into conflict with their union, may lose their jobs. In May 1978 machine minders who refused to return to work at The Observer were threatened by the National Graphical Association with disciplinary proceedings.

  Not only would other members of their union be summoned to do their work but they would also lose all casual employment in Fleet Street, which in some cases could mean entire loss of livelihood . . . (The Times 20 May 1978)

In a similar situation at British Leyland, members of the AEU on unofficial strike were threatened with expulsion and ordered to give assurances to return to work.

   If these assurances arc not received, the men will lose their jobs under Leyland’s closed shop agreement. (Daily Mail 4 September 1978)

In his interview in February last, Prior made a point of defending the action of the National Graphical Association in taking disciplinary action against its members on unofficial strike.

It only needs to be added that whatever may seem to be the advantages of compulsory trade union membership imposed by the union or the employer, the interests of the working class are best served by seeking to expand union membership on a voluntary basis only.

Edgar Hardcastle

The Guardian of our Free Press (1975)

From the February 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is as well to start by resolving the deliberate ambivalence of the title of this article. The Guardian might have been in italics as we will be dealing largely with the role of its editor, Mr. Hetherington, as the leader of the Editors’ Union (or words to that effect) in the war between them and the combined might of the National Union of Journalists and the government (in the person of Michael Foot) over the proposed law to enforce the closed shop in Fleet Street — including editors. And in this context, Hetherington has adopted the role of the guardian of the freedom of the press. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who will guard The Guardian, as Max Beloff punned in a recent issue of Encounter magazine? And if one word might have been in italics, the last phrase could equally have been in inverted commas. For the freedom of the press is to a large extent an optical illusion, whether Hetherington realizes it or not, even before the government puts its Foot in it. (The Guardian having decided to afflict us all with a plague of puns of sickening puerility, no apology is required either from a Tory Professor or a Socialist propagandist.)

First, let us be clear that freedom of the press is regarded by Socialists as very much a good thing. Democracy is the reverse side of the Socialist coin, and freedom of the press is an integral part of democracy. Socialist society will not be one where all you can read is state-controlled propaganda masquerading as news compiled by the trained monkeys on typewriters of Pravda and Izvestia. We can at once concede that the kind of capitalist democracy we have here which gives us a choice of rags ranging from The Guardian to The Sun, is preferable to dictatorship.

And there is something more important which we readily concede — because it is obvious, some people affect not to see it. The very fact that you are reading this journal; and are doing so without the slightest fear that a copper will nab you; and that unheroic specimens like the present writer can churn this stuff out with never so much as a tremor — all this shows that we have at least a modicum of freedom of the press. Socialist propaganda can hardly begin to breathe in the “communist” dictatorships until that amount of freedom is won. They have, of course, in their samizdat, the underground press, the embryo of a free press (though by no means necessarily a Socialist one). But by its very nature, this can only hope to reach the tiniest minority of the working class.

Censors Possible

The row between the editors (and with them the managements) and the NUJ is based upon the fact that if, or rather when, the closed-shop law comes into effect, all journalists, including editors, are to be compelled to belong to the NUJ. This, unsurprisingly, is something the editors regard with horror. Up to now, the editor has either been the actual boss of the paper (as in the case of Hetherington’s predecessor C. P. Scott); or he has been the boss’s representative, rather like the Pope being the Vicar of Christ (except that the Pope is reasonably secure from interference from his boss, while the editor is not always so comfortable. But more of this anon). And of course it becomes pretty difficult for the boss when he has to join the same union as his underlings.

The idea of having to attend a meeting of the NUJ chapel (union branch) is anathema to editors. They fear (not without cause, it must be said) that this will make the editor subservient to the majority vote in the chapel meeting. And, say the Hetheringtons, this will mean that the usual vocal minority of agitators and “Marxists” (but the editors don’t use inverted commas; a Hetherington wouldn’t recognise a true Marxist if he tripped over Karl’s beard) would use their power to control the paper. And bang goes the freedom of the press.

There is something in what they say. How much freedom of the press we enjoy, we will deal with shortly. But, though the Socialist Party has always supported the cause of unionism as an essential protection for the working class (while making it clear that the real job of a Socialist is to agitate and educate for the ending of class society) there can be no doubt that, in many cases, a closed shop could lead to a clique using its power to dictate what goes in the paper — and what doesn’t. The implicit and explicit power of censorship which now resides with the editor and his proprietor could pass to a group of IS types or Communists.

— and Actual

One inkling of the sort of anti-free speech attitude that could lead to was shown a few years ago over the visit of a white South African cricket team to these shores. During the winter in which the Hain campaign was being built up there was a cricket Test series going on in Apartheidland between the Springboks and the Aussies — fully reported of course in Hetherington’s Guardian which was at the same time running the Hainites for all it was worth. But The Observer didn’t print anything, not even the scores. Why not? Had the paper decided it was improper to report racialist sport — and after all the Aussies were in some ways as bad as the Boers for their racialism?

No. The Observer chapel had decided to indulge in some censorship off its own bat — if you’ll excuse the phrase. Observer readers were not permitted to decide whether or not they wanted to read the stuff. Some ignorant little commissars had decided for them. Little Big Brothers are watching you; and that is no good at all for the freedom of the press. Censorship is an evil no matter who wields the blue pencil — even fully paid-up members of the NUJ. Who should have been thoroughly ashamed of themselves. Censorship is traditionally the weapon of the rulers against workers; it is dangerous and deplorable when the latter use it themselves. This foretaste serves to justify the fears of the Hetheringtons of how a clique could take advantage of closed-shop conditions.

But having said all that, it remains true that the freedom of the press which the rulers of Fleet Street have boasted about has been severely circumscribed. If these editors and managements really cared about freedom, they would have opened their columns to their opponents and thus showed that they believed in it. In practice, they have almost totally denied freedom to Socialists to print even a letter putting their views. Like the BBC, the press has done its best to keep a blanket over Socialist views. So whose freedom are you worried about, Mr. Hetherington? Are you really afraid of censorship in principle? Are you not the censor yourself? (To be scrupulously fair, The Guardian did print a quite decent notice of the SPGB’S 70th birthday: the only paper that did. One tiny swallow. And summer nowhere in sight.)

Independence?

It is worth referring before concluding to a contribution in the Lords’ debate on the matter from Lord Devlin, former Chairman of the Press Council (that sham tribunal if ever there was one). He said: “The man who had the power to let in or keep out must be free and independent and professionally pledged to make his choice primarily in the public interest  . . . That is the editor  . . . The freedom of the press depends on the . . . tradition that he is independent. He can be dismissed but he cannot be told what to do.” Only a top judge with an IQ of a million can possibly pack so much twaddle in so small a space. Only a Devlin could emit such crass poppycock as to say that an editor cannot be told what to do by a Beaverbrook and in the same breath admit he can be told: Put your hat and coat on and eff off out of your fine job with its fat salary. In other words, the press is just another part of the business of capitalism and exists primarily not “in the public interest”, but in the interest of the owners. Who are, indeed must be, concerned with circulation and profits. So that “independent” editors can be hired and fired by those who own the show just like less exalted members of the working class.

Whether the editors will be able to wring concessions in the Foot bill is not clear at the time of writing. What is always clear is that there is no happy solution to the problem of freedom of the press under capitalism, however much the Hetheringtons on the one hand and the NUJ chapels on the other delude themselves.

L. E. Weidberg

Michael Foot: more of the same (1980)

From the December 1980 issue of the Socialist Standard

So Michael Foot is the new leader of the Labour Party. For some this is very good news, a new leader is just what the sheep require. “Foot is my shepherd, 1 shall not want . . .”. For others this signals a move to left-wing domination of the Labour Party which could lead to a party split. However it’s regarded, the fact is that to many workers the battle for the leadership, and its result, are very important issues. But cast aside the glib outpourings of the the “political experts”; cast aside the extensive coverage by the media of the two-ballot lead-up to the result and let’s examine this power scrummage through our own eyes, not those of the people who write Anna Ford’s script. When a uniform political analysis is pumped out of every media outlet in Russia this is correctly condemned as a symptom of totalitarianism. Yet when, for instance, an almost identical analysis of the same dozen news items appears on all three television channels on any given evening in Britain, there are only a small number who reject this brainwashing.

Imagine a fictional person who, not having been exposed to the media coverage of the Labour leadership contest, and unfamiliar with some political institutions, seeks an explanation of the issue from a socialist:

Q. The battle was over the leadership of the Labour Party, but what is this party? 

A. In Britain, as in all industrialised countries including Russia, there are two classes of people. Those who own and control the places where wealth is produced and distributed—the capitalists—they live off of rents, interest and profit, and those who work in those places—the workers—who have to survive on wages or salaries. Those two classes are pitted in a continuous conflict, and the Labour Party claims to be on the side of the workers.

Q. Does the Labour Party successfully promote the interests of the workers?

A. No, the Labour Party only has plans to administer this social set-up. This means first, that it intends the continuation of a class system where the label “worker” will still be applicable to those who are not “investors” or “industrialists”, and second that it has constantly to comply with the economic laws of the system it works within (the profit-system) which is inherently loaded against the workers. This is why Labour governments have had to re-introduce prescription charges (1965), withdraw free school milk, support wage-restraint policies, use troops to break strikes by dock workers and firemen, spend millions of pounds a day on armaments and in 1979 preside helplessly over 1,600,000 unemployed and 53,000 registered homeless as it cut public spending by 6.3 per cent.

Illustration by George Meddemmen.

Q. How was the leadership election run? 

A. The struggle at the top echelons of the Labour Party is characterised by the same back-stabbing and “bargaining” which must exist in any organisation operating on the basis of leadership, hierarchies, smoke-filled rooms and a hotch-potch of political persuasions chasing, apart from ambitions, a wide range of political objectives. Their political manoeuvrings are insulting to the people they ask for trust. Speeches by Foot and Healey in Northern constituencies a couple of days before the final ballot “. . .  used carefully chosen words designed more for the ears of the few Labour MPs who have not cast their vote than for their audiences”. (Guardian 7.1 1.80) After the first ballot “campaign managers” from both camps were desperately trying to capture the support of those who voted for Shore and Silkin in the first ballot. What sort of promises or persuasion can be used by a campaign manager to secure the vote of a waverer is anybody’s guess, but an appeal to principle is probably not a trump card.

The tension mounted, Ladbrokes and Corals declared their best odds and Michael Foot fetched up as Thatcher’s new sparring partner.

Q. What is Foot’s record as a Labour politician? Is there hope for the working class in his rhetoric?

A. In 1945 we find Foot as a Labour MP arguing insistently for nationalisation and the working-class tightening its belt and increasing productivity for BRITAIN to recover after the war. Good news for the Duke of Buccleuch who owned 268,000 acres of it, but not much incentive for the 90 per cent who had nothing but rent-books or mortgages. “If that abundant life is to be assured in the future certain immediate privations will have to be endured in order to re-stock capital industries. No Tory government could make this appeal, for the worker would suspect that the summons to hard work, discipline and abstinence would result only in fortunes for the few and the later wastage of unemployment. The new government is in a different situation. It also must appeal for hard work, discipline, and for a short period, continued abstinence . . . But a Labour government at the same time can give concrete proof of its resolve to use this wealth for the benefit of the whole community.” (Daily Herald 8.7.45) Concrete proof of “resolve” perhaps, but not concrete proof of results. We wonder whether Foot’s Tory-trouncing accusations, “fortunes for the few” and “wastage of unemployment” echoed to him in 1979 when after seventeen years of Labour government since his exhortations, the top 1 per cent of people in Britain owned more accumulated wealth than the bottom 80 per cent (Royal Commission on the Distribution of Wealth and Income) and 1,600,000 were unemployed.

Either you run capitalism, in which case you play the tune of the Stock Exchange, the Treasury and the IMF, bending to the profit priority, or else you organise the production of wealth to benefit the whole community. There is no half-way house, and Foot’s Robin Hood politics are doomed to failure.

The “closed shop” is of doubtful assistance to the working class in the industrial struggle against capital. Workers compelled to join a union will not make good members and many employers prefer such an arrangement because it strengthens trade union leadership and thereby improves union discipline. Yet Mr. Foot is a firm supporter of the closed shop. When six men were dismissed from Ferrybridge Power Station in 1976 because they violated a one-union agreement by joining a breakaway union, and were refused Unemployment Benefit under the “misconduct rule” in the Social Security Act, Foot as Secretary of State for Employment issued a statement that he found nothing wrong with the procedure. Not satisfied with this, Foot decided to really put the boot in, and he tried to engineer an amendment to the Trade Union and Labour Relations Act (1974) removing all “safeguard provisions” against the closed shop. The principle safeguard was the right of appeal to an Industrial Tribunal which had the power to award compensation for unfair dismissal. Foot’s amendment was designed to leave a worker who had been sacked for not joining a specified union, denied the dole and without recourse to a tribunal.

Q. What does Foot now plan as prominent Labour Party policy?

A. According to his speeches leading up to the leadership election he believes that the Labour Party should seek, if it gets office in time, to stop the arms race through a “unilateral British lead”. Don’t stop the cause of nations producing weapons, don’t put an end to the profit-system, the cause of war, but stop the arms race as there are already 4 tonnes of explosives for each person on earth. Also Mr. Foot, along with Enoch Powell and the National Front, would like to lead British capitalism out of the Common Market.

Q. Is there a glimmer of hope for the working class in either of these policies?

A. No. Whether Foot cares to admit it or not, wars are fought to capture or protect markets, territories rich in natural resources and manpower, trade routes or strategic areas on the trade map. You cannot keep capitalism and request that the owners of capital desist from protecting their markets, by whatever means they choose, and forget economic expansion. Rather than plead with the owning class, or more accurately their representatives in the state machine, to make the right decisions we must remove the privilege of the few that enables them to play havoc with humanity. At Vienna, the governments of the world have been negotiating a reduction of conventional weapons of destruction. After six years they have not agreed on the removal of a single rifle. Canada claims to have disarmed its most devastating armaments, but what good is this if the cause of war is left intact? International ferocities in warfare are no respecters of such political gestures any more than they are respectors of pious prayers (except perhaps when the padres bless the bombs) or signed pieces of paper.

What of the EEC? Begotten as an economic bloc to compete with America and the Eastern bloc, it has produced all of the miseries of capitalism elsewhere poverty, inflation, unemployment ad nauseam—and solved none of them. While 28 human beings die from hunger across the world every minute of every day (1977—The National Academy of Sciences Research Project) the EEC is annually destroying thousands of tonnes of fresh fruit and vegetables which cannot be sold at a profit—not to mention the mountains of butter and beef and the lakes of wine. Foot, forgetting the plight of the international working class and performing his theoretical role as a guardian of the interests of British citizens, believes our condition would stand to be improved if we withdrew from the EEC. Do he and his disciples forget so easily the years [1924], 1945-51, 1964-70 when Britain was not in the EEC (it was only formed in 1957) and Labour, in the seat of power, was just as incapable of solving the problems of the working class as it was from 1974 to 1979 when we were in the EEC?

While Foot and his opponents in the Labour Party bandy words about whether British industry and farming (British industrial investors and land owners) are best served by membership of the Common Market, we are campaigning for our fellow workers to organise democratically to establish Common Ownership of the places where wealth is produced and distributed.

Q. Where do Foot and his supporters go from here?

A. Mr. Foot does not seem to have learnt much after nearly half a century of political experience, even if he learnt nothing from the history he has read. He announced after his triumph that he intends to lead a gigantic Labour demonstration against unemployment, in Liverpool in late November. What was gained by the Jarrow marchers? Why should the owners of Capital invest in production, if goods, if they were to be produced, could not be sold at a profit? Foot was also emphatic that the Labour Party was not in favour of withdrawal from NATO. A peculiar allegiance for a man, and a party, so ardent to “maintain” what is labelled “peace”, (ignore: Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, The Middle East, Northern Ireland) except of course when Labour has to lend a hand with recruiting workers to butcher their fellows abroad, as it had to in the last two world wars.

The disastrous failures of once wild- eyed militants (Attlee, Wilson et al) to make capitalism operate in the interests of the working class may be receding beyond memory. They should not. There are no instant solutions to the profit system. No one-man remedies. The Socialist Party of Great Britain and its companion parties abroad are democratic instruments to be used by a politically conscious, leaderless working class to organise to take control of the means of life. Everyone is of equal standing in this party, young, old, male, female, black and white as we campaign co-operatively and actively for more support. Will you devote your energies to the giddy task of trying to bring order to this system of relentless chaos or will you dissent and act to change the basis of the society in which you live? We are in an agonising crisis and under the threat of another war. There isn’t time to put a foot wrong . . .  

Gary Jay

Mr. Foot and the Closed Shop (1976)

From the January 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

Times change. Not long ago Michael Foot was the uncrowned king of the parliamentary left with the Tribune group gathered round him. In the Labour Party his reputation was all liberty, equality and Up the Workers; to Conservatives he was a demon king aspiring to fearsome r-r-revolution. Nonsensical as all this was, few people could have imagined a day when The Times would have an editorial asking: “is Mr. Foot a fascist?” and finding the more relevant question to be: “does Mr. Foot know he is a fascist?”

The matter arose from the dismissal of six men from Ferrybridge Power Station. As members of a breakaway union, they were dismissed under a closed shop or one-union agreement. They were then refused unemployment benefit under the “misconduct” rule in the Social Security Act. The General Secretary of the Confederation of Employee Organizations wrote on their behalf to Foot, who is Secretary of State for Employment; and Foot’s reply stated that he found nothing wrong with the procedure:

A person who declines to fall in with new conditions of employment which result from a collective agreement may well be considered to have brought about his dismissal. The consequences of his refusal in terms both of loss of his job and of his possible ineligibility for unemployment benefit must be taken into account by the individual when he decides not to accept his revised conditions of employment.

The cries from The Times and Conservative MPS that this is a suppression of liberty are miserable hypocrisy, of course. Under the last Conservative government it was proposed to try to deal with strikes by refusing Social Security benefits to strikers and their families. The “misconduct” rule has been applied in the past to obtain conformity with government policies: during the last war employees who refused, for instance, to fire-watch at night in their employers’ premises were dismissed and refused unemployment pay. There is a further parallel with the war. The Minister of Labour then was Ernest Bevin, chosen because his standing with trade-unionists would make them more amenable to government discipline, and the “libertarian” Foot occupies the same position now when Labour-run capitalism wants extra sacrifices from the workers.

The Labour Party’s promise in 1972 to repeal the 1971 Industrial Relations Act included an undertaking to bring back the closed shop, which had been made illegal by the Act. This was done in the Trade Union and Labour Relations Act, 1974, with “safeguard” provisions on the lines proposed in Labour’s document In Place of Strife (1969):

Nevertheless the Commission recognized that the closed shop was liable from time to time to cause injustice to individuals and it therefore proposed safeguards . . . to protect the trade union member; it is also necessary to consider those who have conscientious grounds for not joining a union and who are dismissed from their employment in consequence.

The principal safeguard was the right of appeal to an industrial tribunal, which would have the power to award compensation for unfair dismissal. Foot is now bringing before Parliament an amendment to the 1974 Act which, if passed, will repeal the safeguard provisions. Thus, under Michael Foot, a worker who declines to join a specified union may now find himself unemployed and not even on the dole.

While The Times expresses its view about democracy, there is something more important to be said: it shows Foot to be — as we have always known — an anti-Socialist. Socialists recognize and uphold the necessity for all workers to organize to protect their wages and conditions. Far from being an instrument in that continuing struggle, the closed shop works against it. Its basic principle is that of the “wages league”, the desire of craft workers to maintain wages superior to other workers’ and hold at bay any threat of undercutting by less skilled sections.

The classic argument for the closed shop is that, when trade unions in a particular industry have obtained gains in pay and conditions, all those who reap the gains should contribute a union subscription. What can be pointed out at once is that there are advantages also for the employers. The legitimacy of the closed shop, established in 1942, was to a considerable extent produced by capitalists’ own litigation; in Trade Unions and the Law (1968) Gerald Abrahams names several cases which contributed to it. During the period 1971-74 when closed shops were illegal, in the industries where they were long-established they continued through special arrangements between unions and employers. As an extension of this, can it be said that it is in the interests of workers to have their leaders promise “wage restraint” in exchange for legislation which makes official what they are doing anyway? Or that unwilling members are of any use to any organization?

Workers should look carefully at what is happening. The Times blames Foot alone. As the former Labour minister Lord George-Brown pointed out in a letter to The Times on 5th December, “it must be assumed of course that Mr. Foot has the passive acquiescence, if not the active encouragement, of all of his Cabinet colleagues”. It has been shown repeatedly that workers in trade unions will accept and rationalize from Labour governments what they would not wear from the other parties.

They may be ready to create fury against the manipulation of unemployment benefits as a means of getting compliance, and then be placated by the thought that if it is for closed shops and ticked by Michael Foot it is probably all right. Let them consider that the closed shop is divisive and privilege seeking; and that Foot, however he has talked in his time, is a government minister whose concern is to help capitalism out of trouble.

Robert Barltrop