Trade Unions at the Crossroads

[p004] TRADE UNIONS AT THE CROSSROADS HE Minister for Economic Affairs, Mr. George Brown, is now engaged in final consultation with the Trades Union Congress over the proposed legislation against the trade unions on wages. The press an- nounces that there is general agreement over the draft of the Bill which it is anticipated will be presented to Parliament early in February. Under its provisions the state will have power compulsorily to veto all wage claims and force trade unions to comply with its pro- cedure and conditions under pain of heavy fines which may even lead to imprisonment. The state in Britain which includes Parlia- ment. is, of course, a capitalist state whose main purpose is to serve the interests of monopoly capitalism. The actions of the T.U.C. and right-wing Labour leaders is tanta- mount to surrendering the future of the trade unions to their most bitter class enemies. It ties the trade unions to the state under con- ditions where they are no longer able to negotiate directly with the employers on behalf of their members around the vital issue of wages; and if the trade unions cannot do this what is the future for trade unionism? In their usual empirical, blustering way the right-wing leaders have, perhaps, without knowing it, opened the doors to a new kind of struggle in Britain. If the state is now to be the decisive force in determining wages, then all wage struggles must inevitably be fought for against the state. In other words, they pose the question as to who is most powerful, the state or the sections of the working class organised in trade unions de- manding more wages. What is involved is an era of political struggle such as has never before been seen in Britain. This political struggle in turn raises. the problem of power under conditions where the leadership of the revolutionary party and its programme is decisive. Struggles for power pose sharply the acute limitations of ‘industrial militancy’. Tendencies which in one way or another lean towards syndicalism and which preach against revolutionary leadership are reactionary and can only in the last resort help the capitalist class. Legislation against the trade unions poses sharply the construction of the revolutionary party. The main brunt of this activity will have to be borne by the Socialist Labour League and the Young Socialists. The policy for guiding this work was adopted at our Annual Conference early in March 1964. This. resolution, as the following quotation shows, retains all its validity to this day.

[p005] ‘The trade unions cannot be politically neutral. In Britain the bureaucracy is very concerned to exclude ‘‘political questions’”’ from trade union affairs. What they must exclude at all costs is revolutionary politics, our politics. For their part, they take a very definite political direction when they sub- ordinate themselves more and more to the capitalist state. Reformists, they claim that the state is independent of class interests, that it regulates between the opposing interests. When the state takes more interest in industrial affairs, the trade union leaders, therefore, find it necessary to enter into closer relations with the state. Whether Social-Democratic or Stalinist, they do this in every one of the advanced countries; some justify it with the theory that capitalism has changed its character; others, like the Stalinists, justify their actions with theories of peaceful transitions to socialism. ‘Reformism now serves capitalism more openly and directly than ever before, and revolutionaries must conduct a constant struggle against the reformist leadership: The trade unions are, therefore, a political battleground upon which the SLL members fight for the leadership of the working class. For this purpose, to defeat the reformists, and to lead the struggles against the state which arise from strike situations today, our members, must be politically organized, they must begin always from the political programme of the Fourth International. ‘The election of a Labour government will not change these relations between capitalism, the state, the trade union leadership, the working class and the revolutionary party. On the contrary, the Labour government will attempt to speed up the process of complete integration of trade unions into the state, under the banner of ‘modernising Britain’. A sharp- ening of the political preparation of our Young Socialists since early 1960. FOURTH INTERNATIONAL, JANUARY 1966 members in trade unions is essential in the period between now and the election of a Labour government. If this is done, then the increased contradictions under a Labour government can be consciously grasped and a new leadership won in struggle. ... ‘, . . Our strategy cannot, therefore, be to simply build up militant groups or to take over positions within the unions as they are now. On the contrary we build into the trade unions a vital part of the overall revolutionary leadership required by the working class, i.e., we start from the build- ing of the Socialist Labour League.’ The successful campaign for the lobby of Parliament on January 26 is the beginning only of an all-out struggle to implement these policies inside the trade unions. Thousands of rank-and-file trade unionists are now dis- cussing the implications of legislation. More and more they will be drawn into the struggle against the government and the state in the coming months. More and more they will become conscious of the limitations of the old type of trade union ‘leftism’. Such an arena for political action has not been seen in England since the early and middle twenties. It is from this development that the mass revolutionary Communist party of the future will emerge. What is in fact happening within the unions is an extension of the experiences of the These experiences were the forerunner of a powerful movement towards Marxist policies as a result of the growing crisis of imperialism. Today the Young Socialists are in the leadership of the campaign to defend the trade unions. . Their National Conference at Morecambe this year on April 2 and 3 must become the centre for providing the national alternative leader- ship so urgently required by militants every- where.