[page 4]
WHAT NEXT TRADE UNIONS?
worker directors or the struggle In' every major capitalist country the growth and consolidation of the trade unions has reached phenomenal proportions. This is particularly the case in In 1946 6,671,000 workers were represented at the Trades Union-Congress. Three decades later, in 1976, that figure had grown to over 11 million. More than 50% of the working population of Britain are today organised The trade unions are the single most powerful force in British society: Again and again in the years that have followed the Second World War-above all the explosive period under the Heath government-events vividly revealed the power The wounds of the past have healed. The scars of the 1920s and 1930s, the struggles and conflicts, the aspirations and hopes, the bitter and demoralising defeats, have been wiped clean. The capitalist class faces a new generation of The balance of class forces has swung away from the capitalists and in favour of the working class. Underlying this process has been developments within Britain.
umbrella of the Trades Union Congress. of the unions.
capitalism itself.
FOR THE for socialism By Brian Ingham under the
[page 5]
The division and redivișion of labour has accelerated as a result of the increased specialisation of pro duction accompanying technological advances. Nowadays, a mere handful of strategically-placed workers can have a devastating impact. They can shake the entire economy; as the miners showed, they can threaten the life of the government itself.
The accumulated power of the British trade unions is analysed and illustrated in some detail in the Bullock Report on Industrial Democracy. We will discuss later the ideas contained in that report, its talk of a "partnership" between labour and capital, its attempt to embroil workers in the running of capitalist firms by placing "worker directors" on the boards, its hope that workers would thereby be willing to make sacrifices on behalf of their firms, and its utopian dream of reconciling the irreconcilable interests of the working class and the bosses. For the moment, however, we limit ourselves to ten pages in the report packed with facts, figures and charts, outlining the recent progress of trade unionism in Britain.
manual unionism 1948-1974
Manual
Il
Union membership
(000s)
1948 1964 1970 ••. ,964 2,684 4 .... 7,534
7,398
3,592
7,587
1974 :,263
1,49
94
Increase
17•
| 1970-74
18:7
White-collar
Manual ...
Union
1948 1964 ••• 30-2 29•6
50-7
52•9
1970
35•2
56-0
IncI 1974 1948-74 39-4 ÷9-2
57•9
se
970-74
+19
Source: Price and Bain.
November 1976 issue of the British Journal of Industrial Relations, Umon Growth Revisited: 1948-1974 In Perspective
Sai!
Total Trade Union membership and density in the United Kingdom
Selected years, 1948-74
Year
Labour
force (000s)
shang Labour
force
1948
20,732
1958
22,290
963
23,558
968
23,667
969
23,603
970
23,446
971 1972
23,231
22,959
1973
23,244
1974
23,339
Source: Price
and Bain.
The figures produced by Bullock (some of which we reproduce here highlight the special significance of the post-war growth of the British trade unions. In this period some areas of the economy which had a
Total
Union
membership
(000s)
Annual % change in
Union nembershij
Density of
Union membership
9,362
45•2
9,639
43-2
0,067
42•7
0,193
43•1
0,472
44.4
1,179
47•7
1,127
47•9
1,349
49•4
1,444
49•2
,755
50•4
long tradition of trade union organisation severely contracted. Mining, the textile industry and the railways, for example, all suffered a considerable decline. Also trade union membership was formerly
concentrated mainly among manual workers and there has been a steady
and consistent • shift away from
manual work to white-collar employment.
"The proportion of the labour force in white-collar employment rose from 31% to 43% between 1951 and 1971, while manual employment declined commensurately from 64% to 55%."
Nevertheless, trade union strength has been maintained and reinforced. The transformation of work patterns has been matched by an expansion of trade unionism in sections where it was previously non-existant or extremely weak and among sections of workers who were once indifferent or hostile to the unions.
Total membership of the unions (both TUC and non-affiliated unions) increased in the post-war period by 2½ millions. Professional workers, insurance workers, workers in banking, finance and distribution, local government manual workers and health workeres all made good the loss in membership elsewhere and added a bonus. As one fresh social layer turned to the trade unions, so another was preparing to follow.
The spectacular growth of both NUPE and COHSE is evidence of this "new unionism". These unions have been two of the main union recruiting agencies in recent years. In 1939 COHSE (then the Mental and Institutional Workers' Union) had 20,000 members. By 1969 it still
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1948 industry*) Density foroe force 60000) (000s) (%) (0006) A Foriture and 27-4 785-9 215•7 4153 37-7 14.9 39-6 12:2 Pishing Coal mining 802:7 675-3 84-1 3140 Orbor mining 81-4 37-0 45-5 50-6 38-1 Food and drink ...
597-4 227-4 783-9 49-1 26-1 53-1 Tobecco ...
Chemicals...
426-8 127-3 29-8 483-6 Mole nod engin 3,676-1 1,837-5 50-0 4,118-0 Corted tod 395.2 276-6 70-0 596.7 Other textiles 533-3 180-4 33-8 79-0 24-7 31-2 44-0 othing...
429-1 145.5 33-9 345-8 Postmen 139-5 928 66-6 87• building 172-2 70-1 40-8 171-9 75-3 31-3 41-5 60-5 Pottery 41-3 74-5 Glass 68-1 28'2 122-0 43-6 289-6 Wood and furnitur 279-8 ting and publishin 264-1 580 596-1 435'3 97-9 48-5 49-6 127-2 Rubber Constructión 1,353-7 613-2 45-3 1428-8 Car, cectricity and 322-9 218-3 67-6 352-3 1948 achestry) Densic Labor (0006) (%) (O00.
694-9 612:1 88.1 2210 Railways ...
Road transport 490-5 295-0(*) 60-1(9) 468-3 Sea transport 120-8 108-0 89.3 90-6 155•7.
123-2 79-1 81-5 321 13-0 40-5 79-8 Air transport Post Office and tele- 353-2 283-4 80-2 509-7 325-3 15-0 2407-9 2,8101 banking 425-5 137:1 32:2 680-5 238-4 95-7 40-1 189-6 Howith 525-9 204•6 38-9 1,175-2 Hotols and catering 708-1 n.a.
824.2 Other pol casional 276-8 4702 n.a.
792-2 61-9 2,752:4|2,3560 72A-1 480-6 66-4 623-7 National Governhad only 67,000 members. But in •1974 alone COHSE, membership grew by 22,000 and COHSE now has 200,000 members.
over membership figures have progressed at an even more remarkable pace. In September 1976, they reached 631,970; 112,980 of those members had joined in the period January 1975 to June staggering 22% increase in eighteen months!
But it is still the workers in the larger manufacturing establishments who lead the way, both by their militant example and by the degree 6 1974 (%) 22] 92:3 7-4 60-5 companies which employ over 2,000 302-1 96-2 36 • position of these workers and their 4011 31% high degree of social cohesion have 51-2 had their corollary in a high level of 2A7+4 . 2,862-7 trade union reasonable to assume a union density 745- 40-9 of around 70% for larger establish- 20-5 46-6 ments (those in manufacturing 60-0 207-7 employing over 2,000).... This gives a 79-0 66°8 density for smaller enterprises of the 69-4 40-4 order of 20%."
93-8 36-8 58-5 78-5 102-0 35-2 workers in these larger establishment 426-6 71-6 of manufacturing industry who have 71-1 55-9 demonstrated to the rest of the 388-1 27-2 working class the industrial (and 3240 92-0 already, at time, the political) benefits of trade union organisation. Clerical workers and service workers have often borne the brunt of the recent economic and political att- 1) acks. They have also faced growth of factory-like conditions and member Denalt concentration of labour. In increas- (%) ing numbers, therefore, they have 217-0 969 followed the industrial lead given by 443-4(*) 95-1(*) their manual worker brothers and 99-6 90-3 77-2 94-7 74-7 93-6 fresh groups of workers, often in the 879) 448-1 smaller work places, have fought to 321-8 11-4 establish the most elementary form 305-1 44-8 of working class organisation, the 123-0 649 trade union. The ignorance and fear 715-8 52 which kept many of the weakest and 42-5 3-7 most oppressed workers away from 17-6 the trade unions in the past is being 85-6 pushed aside. In many cases, these 564-5 90-5 workers have had to struggle in the face of vicious intimidation. The combativity shown by the strikers at the Grunwick Film Processing Laboratories is symptomatic of the ransformation taking place in the • It is to the non-unionised workers that the capitalists turn when they attempt to mobilise forces against: NUPE's the organised recent growth of the trade unions has therefore carried in its tail a double sting for the capitalists: the trade unions have become an increasingly from formidable force, while the potential 1976—a reserves of reaction whittled away.
But not only are a majority of workers now orgartised in unions. They are also being progressively compressed into fewer and fewer unions. As a result, the power of the of organisation on which that is_ based. These key battalions of the working class are compressed into relatively few places of work. In the private sector alone, a third of all workers are to be found working for one of the 738 organisation.
Above all it has been the manual Epic battles have taken place as workforce."
of whole new layers working class.
have been main unions has been enormously Because of the peculiar development over a long period of the British trade unions on trade and craft lines, the working class in Britain is still faced with a wide range of competing organisations. It is not unusual for up to twenty different unions to exist in any one factory, with some of them covering the same grades and occupations. Nevertheless, these complications have to some extent overcome by the parallel processes of union amalgamations, on the one hand, and the growth of shop steward's committees across union perimeters, on the other. At the beginning of this century there were 1,323 different trade unions. By 1960 this had shrunk to 664. By 1974 it had strunk still further to 448. And within this overall process was the parallel rise of a few dominating giant unions. "In 1960", the report points out, "the 17 unions with 100,000 members accounted for 67% of total unionisation; by 1974 there were 25 unions with a greatly increased membership which accounted for 77.5% of all union members. At the other end of the size spectrum....362 unions (existed) in 1960, accounting for only 0.9% of the total unionised workforce; by 1974 there were only 258 of these small unions accounting of the total Moreover, the majority of the organised forces of the British working class are now gathered under one central body, the TUC "Data for 1975 indicates that TUC membership now accounts for over 93% of the total union membership." Since that time both the IPCS and NUBE (National Union of Bank Employees) have joined the TUC. The British trade union leaders stand at the head of such an army as has never before been assembled throughout the entire preceding centuries of British history. TRADE UNION POWER IN EUROPE A similar story, moreover, can be told of the rise of the trade unions in most of the countries of Western Europe. This or that feature would be different. In this article we are mainly concerned with the trade unions in Northern Europe; but the essential message is the same even in those Southern European countries —including France-which have a strong tradition of spontaneity and weak'
volatility, and a relatively
[page 7]
TABLE 9 Numbers and size of Trade Unions in the United Kingdom and affiliation to TUC Number of trade unions 1960 1965 Analysis by number of members Under 1,000 members 362 333 1,000-10,000 209 193 ", 55 59 10,000- 50,000 ••° 50,000-100,000 21 20 ••• 100,000-250,000 10 8 ", Over 250,000 7 10 Total all trade unions.
664 623 Total organisations affiliated to TUC 183 170 Membership (thousands) Analysis by size of unions 86 Under 1,000 members 91 ...
1,000- 10,000 646 602 1,102 1,306 10,000- 50,000 "
...
...
50,000-100,000 1,405 1,394 100,000-250,000 1,742 1,189 ", ...
•..
Over 250,000 4,848 5,746 "
...
••• Total membership of all trade unions 9,834 10,323 Total membership of organisations 8,299 affiliated to TUC 8,868 ource: Department of Employment Gazette, November 1976 and TUC. Year 1960 No of No of unions members (000s) Unions with 100,000 members 6,590 17 or more Unions with 50,000 members 7,995 38 or more Unions with 10,000 members 9,097 or more 93 Unions with less than 10,000 737 members 571 Unions with less than 1,000 91 362 members Source: Department of Employment Gazette, November 1976. 1970 1973 291 253 152 157 69 47 17 14 14 13 9 11 552 495 142 109 76 517 507 1,037 1,088 1,202 997 2,188 1,810 7,035 6,155 11,507 11,175 10,022 10,002 Proportion of United Kingdom Trade Union membership in larger and smaller unions % of No of total unions membership 67-0 23 81-3 40 92-5 109 7.5 443 1. 0.9 291 1974 258 142 48 15 14 11 488 111 74 452 1,120 1,045 1,995 7,264 11,950 10,364 1970 No of members (000s) 8,343 9,545 10,582 593 76 tradition of mass trade union organisation. In not one of the West European countries is there a body with greater might than the trade union movement.
Altogether, in the different countries of Western Europe, more than 37 million workers swell the ranks of the trade unions.
But how has this power been turned to account by those who lead. the movement? Proudly, many of these individuals would point to the host of weird and wonderful systems of workers' participation in capitalist management, which have spread throughout Europe. These systems, they would claim, are the finest possible tribute to the power of the unions. But what are these systems in reality? They are attempts by the capitalists to shackle the trade unions and undermine their power. The trade unions are the first consious line of defence for the working class acting as a class. It Y always to the trade unions that the working class turn when they first move into activity against the system. This was borne out in Portugal in 1974 when the working class shook off the cloak of fascist oppression and immediately began a spontarfeous drive to create trade unions. From nothing, the Portuguese trade unions have mushroomed to cover over 50% of the working population. But the trade unions are much more than a defensive wall against unbridled exploitation. In creating trade unions the working class moves to establish some control over the arbitary rule of capital. From weapons of defence, trade unions 1974 No of % of No of % of total unions members total (000s) membermembership ship 747 77-5 9,259 25 85.4 40 10,304 86-2 94.7 88 11,424 .95.6 5.3 400 44 526 74 0-6 0:7 258
[page 8]
have become, especially over the the war, weapons of years since attack. They have eaten into the formerly sacred territory of the capitalist, managements' decision making. Examples of shop stewards moving to exercise a controlling check on the activities of management are widespread throughout British industry.
Again this process was telescoped in Portugal in the earth shattering days after 25th April, 1974. The working class in a multutude of factories threw up committees which in their turn stripped the old managers of practically all their rights to unilateral decision making. Apart from episodic incidents in the midst of battle, the process elsewhere has yet. to reach such a pitch. Nevertheless, such a process is revealed in other countries.
Britain, because of the strength of the unions in the factories, mines and mills etc., it has proceded at a relatively fast pace. Again, these developments are drawn out in the Bullock Report on Industrial Demo cracy.
COUNTRY Belgium Denmark France W. Germany Ireland Luxembourg Italy Netherlands Austria Norway Sweden Switzerland Finland Europe"; both Gower P.
There are now over 300,000 shop stewards in British industry. manufacturing industry alone shop stewards doubled in number in the course of the last ten years. The shop steward system with its powerful stewards'
shop committees combine committees is a form of industrial unionism cutting across, as it does, formal union boundaries. It is also the main weapon by which workers attempt to exercise their control over capitalist management. But the instinctive desire of the working class is to secure far more than a power of veto. Arising from • neir conditions of life under capital- Share [%]x 16* 22* 24 Sources:
Approximate figures companies are excluded.
[Cambridge University Press,] In and the take the resources of society period that we are TRADE UNION MEMBERSHIP OF SELECTED EUROPEAN COUNTRIES IN 1973 MEMBERSHIP 1,800,000 70%* 900,000 75% 3,720,000 22% 8,000,000 39% 550,000 49% 500,000 52% 7,000,000 55% 595,000 42% 1,543,000 66% 595,000 70% 1,800,000 70% 670,000 33% 650,000 Sources: Margaret Stewart; "Trade Unions in Europe" and "Employment conditions in embodies the rule books of most of 'In the major trade unions, representing a conscious aspiration handed down from the pioneers of the labour movement: In the period of economic convulsions and class conflicts that and is now opening up, the demand for socialist change formally embodied in the rules will once again become generation of workers.
workers' control will prove insufficient. The need workers' management will be clearly posed before the become the focus of struggle. SHARE OF THE HUNDRED LARGEST ENTERPRISES IN MANUFACTURING NET OUTPUT, UK, 1909-70 1909 1924 1935 1949 1953 1958 22 27032 * Includes steel companies; reduced to 36.5% approximately if stell 332222 ism, the working class has a powerful, albeit unconscious, desire to end the rule of capital once and for all into their own hands. This instinctive feeling for social change was undoubtedly muted in the long boom now leaving behind us. But the fundamental aim of a change in the system remained % OF POPULATION 50% mark floor necks, industry.
the present Profound as it is, the movement of movement and 1963 1968 170 37* 40/418 41 LOYALTY TO CAPITALISM CONTRACTED Monopolisation and centralisation of production has shattered practically all of the last remaining parochial ties which held workers in subservient loyalty to their employer. The table above shows the rate at which British industry has fallen under the ownership of a few huge motopolies. From 16% in 1909, the share of the hundred largest enterprises in manufacturing net output had, by 1970, risen to 40-41%. It now stands around the The capitalists have long since ceased to play any useful role in production. Their excursions to the shop floor are today merely brief appearances by visiting dignatories. They are generally removed even from day-to-day management. They limit their "entrepreneurial" activities to keeping a watchful eye on the fortunes of the firms that they own, intervening rarely, usually only at crucial times when their share values are in danger.
Armies of bureaucrats run all the major concerns. A large proportion of these individuals have had no shop experience . whatsoever.
in spite of all the new Business Schools and training courses for inefficiency, management, bottlewasteage and mismanagement are rife. Bureaucracy jams the cog wheels of every major factory and And as this process has deepened, a corresponding qualitative change has taken place in the attitudes of the mass of workers. The whole of production depends on the activity of the working class. This is instinctively understood by the workers.
[page 9]
Therefore, as the productive efforts
of the workers have increasingly been sabotaged by incompetance, respect
for managerial skill and authority
has at the same time receded.
Moreover, the contradictions of
capitalism have become sharper in the eyes of the workers. All the latest inventions, scientific possibilities and up-to-date techniques are proudly displayed by the mass media.
Television itself is a monument to the advance of human possibilities.
But these possibilities are fettered and curtailed by capitalist ownership and the market economy. To the worker this is manifested in dole queues alongside empty factories; in unemployment among builders while there is homelessness; and in boundless productive potential alongside want, uncertainty and fear about the future.
Neither at factory nor at national level is the working class willing any longer is the working class willing any longer to be the uncomplaining passive victim of capitalist property relations.
These new aspirations are not the pious wishes of scattered individuals, they are articulated and embodied in the trade unions. "The trade unions have harnessed the desire of employees both to be protected and to have strengthened the position of. employees by expressing their hopes and fears collectively."
Bullock had this to say stewards system:
"In general the growth of shop stewards and equivalent trade union organisation has proceeded much further in the United Kingdom than in Europe. The number of shop stewards and the incidence of workplace bargaining in the United Kingdom have increased dramatically over the past 20 years and have resulted in a decline of consultative committees....even where the form of the old consultative system remains, for the great majority of large companies the employee representatives are always shop stewards.
"(Shop stewards) keep in close touch with those they represent; indeed the extent to which members are involved in the election of shop stewards and equivalent representatives and in the activities of those representatives on behalf of their constituents is probably greater than in most other bodies which are organised on democratic lines."
From this powerful democratic platform, the "traditional mangagement perogatives have come under attack."
The hesitancy and modesty of the
working class in the face of their
so-called superiors has evaporated:
since the end of the Second World
War " ....we have seen the end of the
deferential society, in which working
people rarely aspired to positions of
power or authority in local or
national life." As Bullock points out:
"employees are now in a position
through the strength of trade union
organisation and power to resist the
implementation of changes that
threaten their livelihood and
security." With possibly unconscious
irony it added: "Such resistance may
appear shortsighted, but it is
understandable that individual
workers or groups may interpret the
universally accepted goal of full
employment as meaning job security
for themselves."
Particularly at times of crisis,
therefore, the power of the working
class and its determination to exercise that power confronts the capitalists as a dangerous obstacle. The reorganisation of industries and individual firms is hampered, the shake out of labour or the driving down of living standards to boost profits margins is undermined. And always, hovering in the midst of trade unionism, the capitalists correctly see the spectre of social revolution. They have been forced for the moment, to reconcile themselves to the trade unions. But they are perpetually engaged in manoeuvres to contain trade union activity within relatively safe limits. In doing this they have attempted to recruit the trade union leaders to their service. They try to enmesh the union leadership in the workings of the capitalist state in the hope that the leaders will themselves police the workers on behalf of capitalism. And insofar as the trade union leaders have failed to understand the desperate position of world and British capitalism, and failed to face up to the need posed by this for the working class to transform society, then they have fallen under the sway of the capitalists.
In the last 30 years the working class of Britain has extracted much more generous concessions-in absolute terms-from the capitalists than ever before. This was as a result of the unprecedented upswing of production which allowed greater possibilities for concessions and which simultaneously produced strengthened and more confidently articulate working class organisations. Militancy at shop floor level has been a particularly important factor in the post-war economic
gains of the working class. For the
trade union leaders, however, new
benefits for the workers and record increases in wages built up illusions in both their personal skills as
negotiators and also to the limitless possibilities of capitalist production.
The reformism of the trade union leaders was thus strengthened.
The outlook of the trade unior leadership is conditioned by the style
of their life: they are cushioned not
only from the pressures of the shop
floor, but also, because of their inflated salaries and "fringe bene-
fits", from the terrible economic worries which face the majority of workers. In many cases, they are wined and dined by the bosses, who work assiduously to flatter individual trade union leaders and make them feel "part of the establishment" Honours, such as MBEs, OBEs, knighthoods and peerages are g-9erously distributed among upion leaders for this purpose.
Bound by their own interests as a leadership, the trade union tops fear independent struggle initiated and organised by the workers from below. They feel that their guiding hand is decisive, they consider it essential to keep the control of events in their own hands. Their approach is based on extracting reforms from the system, either by negotiation or pressure, because reforms depend on the ability of the bosses to make concessions, the trade union leaders are committed by this approach to attempting to maintain the stability and expansion of the capitalist economy.
It was not the big business representatives who put forward the elaborate proposals of the Bullock Report on Industrial Democracy. It was precisely the representatives of the trade union leadership and academics who identify with their position who imagine that lasting peace between the classes is possible, if only the necessary institutional reforms are carried through.
As a matter of fact, the controversy surrounding the publication of the Bullock Report itself gave the lie to those notions. The Bullock Committee itself split on class lines, with the industrialists who were members finally bringing out their own minority report as an emergency reserve-which they shelved almost at once.
The prognosis of Marxists in relation to the trade unions has been strikingly confirmed: at those times when capitalism is gripped by crisis, the room for balancing between the classes is limited. The trade union
[page 10]
22
leaders are faced with a straight choice: either they harness the power of the unions and use that power of lever for the socialist transformation of society; Or they will be forced into working for the preservation of a diseased capitalism.
CROXLENE
HE STAND HI
Maso Jamonration in support of Granwick
Some right wing union leaders openly advocate the continuation of the rule of capital. They are agents of the capitalists within the ranks of the workers' movement. Apart from this, however, in recent years, some of the most anti-working class policies have been sold to the workers for a time not so much by righi wing leaders as by left wing leaders who have more authority in the movement as a whole. These left wing leaders no doubt genuinely believe in a socialist society and sincerely stand for the betterment of workers' conditions. They adopt the
position they do because they fail see that the struggle for reforms ultimately linked to the need transform society, especially in period of capitalist crisis.
to
THE PROTRACTED BOOM HAS ENDED
The days of the 1960s, when economic gains could be made with the minimum of struggle and largely without major clashes with big business, are gone. Not only is big business not. long perpared to concede reforms, it is demanding back the concessions it granted in the past. Many of the trade union leaders, becausè they are unable, or not prepared, to see the alternative, believe that the present economic crisis is only temporary, a passing phase that can be overcome with the help of restraint and sacrifice by the workers. It is this completely
10
mistaken thinking that underlies. many of their arguments in favour of an incomes policy and some form of "social contract"
But the idea that a new period of capitalist bpom is just round the corner is a complete delusion. The
strikers, July 1977 representatives of big business, for their part, are quite clear that his will not be the case. They are fully aware, as articles and editorials-in the serious capitalist press daily testify, that we, have entered a new period. The spcial and political climte has profoundly changed.
The world slump of. 1974/5 marked decisivęly the end of the long post-war boom. Even before world production and trade has completely recovered from the downturn, the capitalist "experts" are predicting a new slump.
The world capitalist. market is
nervously fending off a trade war. And to one degree or another each capitalist nation has been affected by unprecedented inflation. The British capitalists face a particularly dire situation following the relative underinvestment for a period of 20 years or more. They are fully aware that an assault on workers' living
standardś and the "welfare state" is vital if they are to effect a recovery.
At the moment they are playing for time. respective of the fact that the power of the unions is weighed down. by the union bureaucracy, the capitalists still dread that power. They have not the confidence at this stage to mount a sudden, once and for all, attack on the working class to bring about the necessary shift in the allocation of social wealth. They fear the response that such an attack would provoke. Stealth is the method that they have therefore adopted for now. But they are already preparing
for the time when these tactics may
be exhausted. Yet the leaders of the
trade unions in Britain are blind to
the fact that the class struggle will
ultimately be fought out in earnest.
In Germany, worker-director
schemes existed for over 25 years and
German capitalism has been one of
the strongest in the world. Some of
the British trade union leaders
therefore imagine that if similar
schemes are now introduced in
Britain they will lay the basis for the
development of a comparable period
of prosperity and industrial harmony
in Britain..
"It is now 25 years since
Mitbestimmung (co-determination)
was introduced in the Federal
Republic of Germany. This year has seen steps to increase the proportion
of employee representatives on the supervisory boards of companies employing more than 2,000 people. In Sweden, 1976 has also seen the confirmation of the three-year experiment in putting employee representatives on company boards. The fact that the West German and Swedish economies, despite differences between the social philosophies of the two countries, have been among the most successful in the world-not least in avoiding industrial conflict which has cost Britain so dear—has not escaped notice."
Thus did they longingly remark in the Bullock Report. But the authors have completely failed to appreciate that there is now a fundamentally different situation in Britain from that which existed in Germany and Sweden when the schemes they refer to were introduced. The capitalists' room for manoeuvre has shrunk. That is why the Bullock Report, which based itself on these schemes, was-met by a barrage of hostile criticism from the spokesmen of British capital.
They are afraid of the enormous power of the trade unions, emphasised once again in the factual sections of Bullock. In a distorted way, the ideas for worker-directors which the report outlines, also confirm trade union power. The working class is groping towards full ownership and control of society. All the elements of workers control that have been acumulated at factory level are évidence of this. The. scheme elaborated by the Bullock Committee is designed to put workers onto capitalist boards with the express intention of diffusing the aspirations of the masses.
The trade - union leaders are caught as if in a vice. One the one side they are pressed by the impass of'
[page 11]
British capitalist society and, on the other, by the power of the trade unions. The trade union leaders have thus called for worker-directors.
This, they believe, will allow the opposing forces of labour and capital to co-exist harmoniously. They have drawn their inspiration from the schemes that are operating in Western Europe. But like song writers mesmerised by drug-taking, they have produced a pattern of nonsense and imagine it to be What are the features of these European schemes, then, which the British trade union leaders set so much store by:
: Germany is the classical country of worker-directors. There, these socilogical experiments were pioneered. In the disarry of German society after the Second World War the trade union movement was reformed into 16 industrial unions. Inside those 16 IG Metall, with over 2 million members, and the Union of Public Employees, with almost one million members, tower above the rest.
But all the German unions were turned immediately towards a system of deals with the capitalists.
This applied especially to IG Metall. That union was more heavily involved than any other following the legal inauguration of worker-directors in the German coal and steel industries back in 1951.
fearful of German rearmament and aware of the future potential of the German working class, believed that they had found a compromise. The workers would be sewn into the decision-making processes of their firms where they could also keep an eye on their masters. The energies of the masses as their confidence was restored would be channeled from revolutionary strife and British and have a watchdog over the German capitalists.
These were the considerations tht led to the workers having "equal" representation with the capitalists. Together all directors were to select an "independent" Chairman. But to ensure that capitalist management would be allowed to operate efficiently as a coordinated team, workers would only sit on a "top" supervisory board. That board would then appoint a "subservient" managerial board. The workers had the consolation that the Labour Directors could not be appointed or dismissed without their approval. In that way the Labour Director, operating on behalf of the company, mixing with the other directors and living the lifestyle of the other directors, would nevertheless tend to response from the shop floor worker than would be usual for a labour, or personnel director.
Also, to underwrite the efforts to achieve industrial tranquility, trade unions were excluded from factory negotiations. They could negotiate only at regional or national level. In the factory, works councils alone were to operate on behalf of the workers. But these works councils were not based strictly on the unions, and furthermore, they were denied the right to strike. Disputes had to be settled by arbitration boards or labour courts.
And on the "supervisory" boards, where workers were supposed to have influence, a complicated system of check and balances was introduced to insulate the elected representatives from each other and from the Two representatives were to be nominated by the works councils, one a wage earner and one a salaried employee. Two other work representatives were to come from the trade unions, one from the major union in the firm and the other from the national union centre. The fifth worker director to sit along side the five shareholder directors was to be an "independent" non-union mem- By the time the 1952 Act was passed, extending worker directors to the rest of German industry, the "generosity" of the capitalists had The system remained essentially the same, but this time the workers were allowed only one-third of the supervisory boards. Since then, cosmetic changes have occurred with schemes, but they essentially as they began. • What has been the result? In no substantial way has the German capitalist class suffered as a result of co-determination. On the contrary, its way has been smoothed. The stripes of the tiger may have been disguised; but it remains the jungle animal it always was. The leaders of the German labour movement who imagined that they were taming the capitalist tiger were merely temselves being tamed.
They were integrated closely with the running of capitalism. Herr Heinz Vetter, President of the DGB (the German TUC) became deputy Chairman of August Thyssen Huette, the country's leading steel group; Herr Eugen Loderer, Presi- -dent of the metal workers, fulfills the same role on the board of the major steel and engineering concern, Mannesmann; and virtually all the other Presidents and/or General Secretaries of the German unions sit on the boards of leading companies or organisations.
The bureaucracy of the labour movement thus sits in the inner sanctuaries of the capitalists, where they advise the capitalists on how best to exploit their own union member of IG Metall, Heinz Kaiser, came to the EETPU Bienniel Delegate Conference. He explained his adm- "the realism of British leaders and their down-to-earth attitude to politics". It was a tradition that he hoped would be continued by the British workers emulating German ço-determination. And "realism", he explained As even more vital after co-determinaiion. Worker directors could not simply adopt negative attitudes: "Co-determination, of course means joint responsibility, nobody's advantage if those 50% of labour representatives on the boards always say no". 'In Germany this "realistic attitude of taking responsibility for the problems of capitalist industry has meant collaboration in the massive run down of manpower and the stepping up of new capitalintensive equipment in industry in the late 1950's. It meant that in the coal mining industry again labour was pruned with union Adolf Schmidt, President of the mining and energy workers' union is also deputy chairman of Ruhrkohle, the group which accounts for three-quarters of German 'coal production.
In the manufacturing sector, a memorable recent example of collaboration being of benefit to the capitalists was at Vølkswagon. Several leading trade unionists from different VW plants serve on the VW board alongside Eugen Loderer, of IG Metall. In 1975 they agreed to massive lay-offs at the time of a severe financial crisis for VW 'and last April they voted in favour of the management plans for building cars in the USA where among other advantages lower labour costs have attracted the German capitalists. But in recent years events have shown that all the elaborate web of ill not in the last constraints analysis sufrice to contain the German working class. Thé unoffi- - 11
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cial strike wave in 1971 in Germany was a harbinger of developments to come. In 1972, under pressure from unions were given below, trade limited rights to enter and assist their members in the factories. And vain moves were also set afoot by the labour leaders to forstall expansion of militancy by an co-determination. The labour leaders "demanded" that the pattern in industry be the coal and steel generalised throughout industry. their direct The capitalists and representatives in the coalition government, the Free Democrats, refused. They saw the menace of working class power beginning to They felt that they must stir.
maintain the present relationship more or less intact..
GERMAN WORKERS AWAKENING Board room decisions do not take place in a vacuum. The capitalists fear pressure building from outside the boardroom on worker-directors that will counteract the pressure of capitalist economics and loyalty operating inside. Mass movements of workers to influence critical decisions might sway all the worker directors. And the capitalists evisage also the possibilty that the man in "independent"
chairman might be swayed. However unlikely this may be, the German are alive to the changed situation. They refuse to toy with the might of an awakening working the demands of the labour leaders in a disguised form. The maximum number of worker-directors on company boards will be 10. Three out of ten are to be nominated by the Six are to be trade unions.
nominated by at least 100 workers in the company and the tenth is to be the cuckoo in the nest-a senior executive of the company! All are to be elected by the entire workshop. Co-determination as a weapon to stabilise capitalism will turn into its Vertrauensleute (union representatives) already show signs of developing into a fully blooded shop stewards system as it Britain. In some companies works councils have fallen into disrepair but in others they have become been controlled and they have transformed by the vertrauensleute who often put up for works councils elections une list of union nominees thus turning councils into negotiating bodies for the unions, and at the 12 same time stripping down their corporate union character. Mounting discontent will inevitably force its attention on some of these workers in the boardrooms. Again and again they will be forced to distance themselves from their capitalist counterparts.
German society, like the rest of the capitalist world, will be drained of all stability in the years that lie ahead. precisely because such exacting pattern has been embroidered around the working class, the possibilities for the anger frustrations of the German workers to find relatively safe legal outlets are diminshed. This has been concealed by the boom. But it will mean that future economic struggles will flare up as if from nowhere and proceed to shake German society to the core. But Germany has not been alone in these schemes. In each of eight different European countries the leaders of the labour movement have called for and received some form of "partnership" with the owners of industry. In every case the "partnership" is even more apologetic than that operating in Germany. In Holland this will be limited (following new legislation) to workS being legally bound to attend consultative meetings with the In Sweden, since 1973; workers have had two seats on the boards of where they sit capitalist, tirms opposite approximately 4 to 6 other directors. Two reserve worker-directors can be present but not with ¿chosen by, 2/3 majority: areholders has, second vote to break deadlock 10 MEMBERS elected at AGM es the grand plan votingerights. In Sweden the worker representatives sit on a single tier board. The relationship is epitomised by the fact. that they are supposed to leave the room when industrial action or wage bargaining is being discussed! And at the end of the meeting all the directors decide which items of their business will be kept secret. Those decisions then carry the force of law.
A new feature that has recently been introduced in Sweden is the economic committee where management teams explain the balance sheets to the workers in the hope of further involving them in the financial problems of the company to restraint in future wage induce claims.
In the Bullock Report the Swedish experience was referred to approvingly: "(Swedish) industrialists admitted that although they had initial doubts they would not now want to go back to a system where there were no employee representatives on the board. Employee representation had •led to a better understanding of the board's activities and to more commitment from the trade unions policies adopted by the The trade union leaders of Sweden believe that in winning this system they have scored a magnificent victory. Yet all they have done is to help build a snare for their members. In Norway, having built a similar snare and witnessed it trap shop floor representatives into dedication to their capitalist employers, the WORKERS' CO-DETERMINATION (MITBESTIMMUNG"') IN COMPANIES WITH OVER 2000 EMPLOYEES CHAIRMAN Employees 1 SENIOR EXECUTIVE nominated by the executives, approved by entire worktorçe 6 EMPLOYEES elected by Composition of the workforce Supervisory Beare #3 TRADE U NELS
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"Now's your chance to participate. Do you want the red one or the yellow one?"
(From Quelle, paper of the German equivalent of the TUC).
trade union leaders began to worry that the plan had backfired. They saw their base and their authority eroded. Shop stewards managing directors have made joint approaches to Ministries and parliament in search of loans and other forms of assistance. As a result, the Iron and Metal Workers' Union warned its members not to let solidarity with the management develop into oppostion to the labour movement! They meant, of course, opposition to the "leaders" of the labour movement. In all Norwegian firms (with significant exemptions, such as banking and finance) a third the directors are workers. Additionally, in companies with over 200 employees, a corporate assembly is set up which meets twice a year and where workers again make up one-third of the members. This body supposedly elects the main board of directors.
The Financial Times', commenting on the Norwegian scheme, noted that "Norwegian employers, like the British, were worried, before the new force, companies Act came into about the risk of company secrets being leaked by worker-directors to their fellow workers. They now agree that their fears were unfounded and disclosure is no longer a matter of Only in one disputed concern.
instance has there been an alleged serious leakage. It took place during some company take-over negotiations and it is claimed to have led to the closure of a paper mill." So there we have it! The issue of company secrecy will be used to drive a wedge between the worker-director and the workers be is nominally representing. That worker-director has to choose between open and honest dealings with his fellow workers or confientiality. The information workers receive is, in any event, carefully selected. In Sweden, there exists a pattern of sub-committees appointed by the main boards as a device to have frank discussion away from the ear of the workers. Similar tricks are played in the other countries when necessary. But still the issue of confidentiality can always rebound on the workers-even on those who trustingly abide by it. The capitalists can always give a cunning leak and blame it on the workers as a prelude to a concerted attack on those In Norway tension over workerdirectors has so far been minimal. The "marriage" of labour capital in Norway, was started during a period of economic boyuancy and the Norwegian economy is still down of the marriage is therefore not immediately on the order of the day. It will come. But not before these schemes have seriously delayed the regeneration of working class militancy and class consciousness. THE MEIDNER PLAN Events in Sweden indicate the way in which these fine theories of classcollaboration can rebound on the labour movement. All over Europe, union leaders jumped from thoughts of seats on capitalist boards, to thoughts of actually taking the shares of the capitalists. A magnificent two-pronged attack! In Sweden these plans advanced further than anywhere else. They then backfired. A senior officer of the Landsorganisationen (LO), the Swedish trade union centre, divised a plan which bares his name, the Meidner plan. His idea was for 20% of all company profits to pass to the trade unions. This was made the official policy of the LO in 1976. It would have meant the gradual passing of capitalism by degrees into the hands of the trade unions! The leaders of the Swedish trade unions, intoxicated by reformism, made this an issue in the 1976 general election. Olaf Palme tried to play it down. Nevertheless it helped strengthen the determination of the capitalists to bring down the Social Democratic government in Sweden. The scheme would have probably been killed off anyway; but the capitalists thought it better to be safe than sorry. The British trade union leaders and the academics who wrote the Bullock Report studied all the models available throughout Western Europe. Apart from some minor details the system they divised is essentially the same as that operating in the German coal and steel industries. That'should be warnning enough to the British workers. The "independants" in the British scheme (the so-called "Y" directors) are • more numerous than the German model and where stalemates arise in Britain over the choice of these "Y" directors, other "independants" will adjudicate. But independence between the forces of labour and capital is impossible. Time and again, that myth is exposed by so-called "independent" tribunals and courts. The labour leaders would like to believe that they are neutralising capitalism and making capitalism itself independent. The battle that the bosses in Britain have already waged to stop this scheme seeing the light of day should demonstrate the falacious nature of those dream.
In Germany, where the labour movement is beginning to be roused, the capitalists have contained the spread of worker-directors. They no longer see them as a foolproof method of quelling the independant mobilisation of the working class. They fear that the system of worker-directors may lead to the opposite of witat they originally hoped. How much more, therefore, are the British capitalists determined to resist the kind of system for which the German labour leaders were arguing. The British labour leaders have begun their pleas for workerdirectors too late.
Al the beginning of the post-war period, the capitalists may have been more forthcoming. Now the situation has turned against such schemes. They have lasted in Germany only because of the protracted boom. In Sweden and Norway the capitalists hope to extend their relative economic stability through integrating the unions onto the company boards. In Britain the möment has A detail that irks the British capitalists is the idea of a unitary board. This they would have to avoid-as is done abroad in such cases-by complicated trickery to keep the essential discussions of
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company matters closed worker representatives.
But far more weighty objections are raised by the capitalists in the form of company secrecy. This may have been more or less kept in tact abroad. And, as we have explained, it is a weapon they could use against the labour movement. They would also try and select safe information. Nevertheless, they fear an aroused movement placing class conscious stewards on company boards, who not only might receive, by accident information that the capitalists would like hidden, but who might also work to strip away the last thin veneer of esteem which some workers still have for capitalist management. If worker-directors work to expose the parasitic nature of the actual owners of capital and the cynical nature of the discussions on profitability then, particularly when they are under attack, workers would move and be determined firstly to defend their own positions and secondly to generalise their struggles to action against the privaté ownership throughout society as a whole.
In Britain, the capitalists cannot have even the benefit of building a counter-balance to the trade union structure into company management as a device to turn them against shop floor workers. The Bullock Report spelt out that the British working class would never tolerate such action.
It would be no good, they realised, attempting to build the British structure outside the shop stewards system. The stewards were 100 powerful: "...any attempt to bypass this structure would be seen as an attack on the trade unions and collective bargaining and would be fiercely resisted."
To the horror of the capitalists, therefore, they suggested building a structure around the shop stewards. Stewards would be brought together at compnay level to form an electorial college (a joint representation committee) which would choose the worker representatives.
Such a step would actually lead to further strengthening of the shop stewards! Certainly there would be cases of inter-union rivalry. But the tendency, particularly at times of a general attack, would be to facilitate the creation of combine committees and the overall building of unity amongst workers in the main enterprises.
Were the union leaders
government
vigorously
and the to pursue
14
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the Bullock proposals, then, would undoubtedly provoke capitalists into engineering government's downfall.
Such an outcome is unlikely, however. The leading right wing Ministers have been at pains to explain that they are opposed to a shot-gun wedding. They seek the consent of both prospective partners for their legislation!
this.
the the
TRADE UNION INDEPENDENCE
The Bullock Report will in all probability be dropped. It may re-emerge in a severely doctored form. But it would be a foolish mistake for the British labour movement to campaign for its implementation purely on the gro unds that this would be a defeat for big business or that some of its features appear attractive. Poison blended into a tasty bowl of punch remains poison.
The British labour movement should reject the Bullock Report and any other simular ideas for workerdirectors that may be concocted. Instead the labour movement should use and further develop all the power of which capitalists are so afraid. Why should we wait for the kind permission of the capitalists before setting out on the vital work of ensuring that effective joint shop stewards committees operate in every combine!
The important gains of the working class have only ever been achieved by independent organisation and struggle.
But both the wider political struggle for socialism and even the more immediate economic struggles are both severely damaged so long as the independence of the trade unions is compromised. We should build immediately on the elements of control that already exist in industry: For shop stewards' committees to cover all workers in all factories and combines! For hiring and firing to be in the hands of the shop stewards! No business secrets: open all the books to trade union inspection!
The capitalists, while opposing Bullock are nevertheless vigorously pursuing more muted patterns of collaboration which avoid workerdirectors. And they continually attempt to drag the union leaders into the realm of government. This is so throughout the capitalist world. In this they have had more than a fair measure of achievement. They
have secured adherence for considerable periods of numerous incomes policies. In Britain they have enticed the union leaders into regular "planning" discussions alongside leading businessmen and Cabinet Ministers. Amidst some of the most bitter industrial conflicts, including the 1973/74 miners strike, these "civilised". meetings-the National Economic Development Corporation continued.
In Sweden, the unions and employers associations meet every one or two years to work out the boundaries of wage negotiations for the different industries. In Western Germany, the Social Democratic government proudly boasts of its ability to control the unions. The slogan used by the Social Democrats in the last election was "vote for peace". • In Germany the centre of the industrial peace-making activities are the "concerted action" meetings where the union leaders sit down with the government and the representatives of the capitalists three or four times a year for discussions on the progress of German capitalism.
Because the union leaders have no confidence in the socialist alternative they are driven to imposing capitalist measures on their members and lending their authority to the capitalist state. But they are caught in a contradictory situation. Pulled into the net of government at one moment, the next moment they are forced to stand apart. They reconcile themselves to the state one day and the next they have to articulate the renewed anger and frustrations of their members. And each time they are forced to express opposition to the state they fan the flames of militancy below.
The impass of capitalism will find its reflection over and again in change and turmoil that will take place in the unions.
Already indicating a new round of struggle" on a European scale, different union leaders have taken steps to dislodge themselves from their involvement with the state. And in other cases in spite of this involvement pitched battles have begun to open out. In Italy, Holland, Denmark, France and Belgium ferocious struggles have recently occurred. In Western Germany Heinz Vetter has been driven to say that "The honeymoon is over....our ability to compromise is exhausted. It is no longer possible."
These leaders will be driven in all directions in the period of storm and stress that we are entering. Trotsky
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ELEC STOKE ON TRENT remarked in 1921:
"were the machinery of the English trade unions to develop today half the amount of energy in the interests of socialism it has been expending in the interests of capitalism, English proletariat could conquer power with a minimum of sacrifice and could start a systematic of society." Those reconstruction sentiments could justly to the trade union leaders all over the capitalist world. The ability of these leaders to disorientate and demoralise their members is still potent. It will only be overcome ultimately when the union leadership is armed with the programme of Marxism. No matter how militant the industrial leaders • may be, without the compass of the Marxist method they will inevitably drift under the alien sway of the capitalists..
Wishing away the crisis capitalism will not get rid of it, trade union however much the 'leaders may hope that this crisis, and their assistance, is temporary they will be proved disasterously wrong. Without the trade union leadership adopting the method of Marxism, severe and catastrophic setbacks and defeats could beset the NALEO 1 inlon stren alternative.
the be applied securing me should include:
* An end to wage restraint. week for all workers!
ards!
ment!
of industrial wage!
* Work or full pay!
loss in pay!
* No redundancies!
loss of pay!
AND trade union movement. The trade unions must be won for the socialist transformation of society. This is not just a good idea; it is the only positive Il is imperative, therefore, that strong Marxist tendencies are developed in the trade unions around a viable programme which links the day-to-day needs of the working class with the overall historical task of the end of the rule of In Britain today such a program- * For a minimum wage of £60 a * Restore the lost living stand- * An end to mass unemploy- * For a programme of useful public works with payment to those working at the average * For a 35-hour week with no * Share out the work with ne * Nationalisation of all firms threatening redundancies or unable to pay a living wage! * Compensation only on the basis of proven need!
* Workers control and management of nationalised industries!
* Nationalise the 200 major monopolies!
* For a socialist plan of production!
Armed with such a programme and with the necessary energy and audacity to do justice to that programme, the Marxist tendency will become increasingly a pole of attraction to the working class. The working class will not lightly move away from one set of leaders and ideas to another. Marxists must show their consistency fighters and demonstrate the soundness of their ideas, and the strategy and tactics which flow from those Only then will the majority of the workers in the trade unions be convinced of the need to turn lo a Marxist leadershir and to turn with that leadership to the final overthrow of the political and economic order Then, having played their part in capitalism, the trade unions will become the bedrock of the new social order. They will act as the central pillars of the meaningful cconomic planning and organisation which a workers' state will inaugurate at company, industry and, above: all, national 15
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