THE ROAD TO ANTI-COMMUNISM. PART 4

As Jack Tanner continued his move to the right as president of the Amalgamated Engineering Union during World War II, he was backed to the hilt by the Stalinists of the British Communist The Stalinists did this, for instance, when he told the National Committee of the Amalgamated Engineering Union in 1943: 'In the past, trade unionists have mainly been protective and defensive organizations and, in regard to many matters, quite negative. We must become more positive and constructive in our outlook and approach to the issues now confronting us.' This was the line put in "The Story of the Engineers', an official history commissioned by the union's executive and written by James B. Jefferys. Jefferys, who was a Communist Party member, wrote of the war period:

*Many of the old signposts of policy in the workshop and in the political and industrial life of the country had disappeared almost overnight . . • Instruction and training of women, discussions with employers on the quickest and most efficient way of doing a job, and support for a Conservative Prime Minister, were only three of the unchartered and unexplored paths to which the new signposts pointed.' (page 249.)

Meanwhile, Tanner again to the AEU National Committee: We need to think deeply and clearly, free from narrowness and prejudice ..: our minds have to be adjusted and adapted to the situation.' But the Communist Party, after supporting Tanner and shielding him from all criticism, were to discover that he had developed a momentum of his own and no longer needed them.

After the war, Tanner continued on his own path-for a time still with Communist Party support. In the early years after the war, the Party still opposed strikes and called for increased productivity. This was in line with the continued co-operation of Britain, Russia and America in the immediate period after the war.

At the 1947 Trades Union Congress, Tanner moved a resolution calling for statutory joint production committees. This, he claimed, 'was the test of the movement's determination to face the future'.

Even though profiteers were living off their backs, the working class still had to increase productivity, according to Tanner.

"The fact that people are living without doing any useful work is having a bad psychological effect on the workers generally. . .. but it is the organized workers who have to share this burden.' By 1950 Tanner was the TUČ's official spokesman on productivity. At the 1950 Congress he declared that it was 'the responsibility of the unions to concern themselves with efficiency and increased productivity. The only way ot obtaining a better life' he said, 'is to obtain the utmost efficiency 1n production methods.' (Emphasis added.)

It was Tanner more than any other trade union leader who pledged support for the British Institute of Management (he said it was 'independent'!) and called on shop stewards to attend trade union and BIM courses on productivity and management techniques.

A far cry this from the independent shop stewards' committees which, Tanner had told Zinoviev, would take the place of the Bolshevik Party and the Soviets in Britain!

At the 1951 TUC, Tanner told delegates that 'without increased productivity the country is likely to be in a very serious position.' 'Our living standards depend on our productivity, ', he said, 'and the more there is produced, the more there is to be shared.

'How it is to be shared', he continued, 'is another matter and we are not discussing that at the present moment' The TUC, Tanner said, was aware of the danger of a drop in workers' living standards, but 'all demands have got to be met from current producHe called for training courses for shop stewards in order to familiarize them with new production techniques, time-and-motion studies and new processes.

In 1952 he told Congress: 'We are not sticking on the formalities that may be necessary to get joint consultation Above: A delegation of trade union officials and businessmen, members of the Anglo-American Council on Productivity view techniques in steel production. Tanner (below left) was the TUC's spokesman on productivity in 1950.

on this important question of production.

'We should be prepared to do everything possible tọ bring about consultation for this particular purpose, because without it, new methods, new systems, new processes, cannot be introduced in industry without very considerable disturbances and delay.' At the following year's TUC he said: Productivity largely synonymous with jobs' and called specifically for increased productivity by the miners. 'In the interests of the whole population of this country, plant and equipment must be used in the most efficient and economical manner.?

By this time Tanner was pillar of the right not only in the unions but in the Labour Party. In 1952 he became a TUC representative on the Economic Planning Board, which bore a considerable responsibility for the rearmament programme which had split the Labour Party when Hugh Gaitskell was Chancellor of the Exchequer and had axed the Health Service to pay for it.

CONTINUED

May