Every winter 90,000 general lack of care

'Can you Imagine an old ag wouldn't let it happen. But i •The capitalists are the real criminals and a revolutionary party is needed to put an end to their system' Ian Flynn, a young south London pipefitter, is a new reader to Workers Press:

I started buying the paper about eight weeks ago. What it says is tailored to what I've been thinking and feeling for a long time. It's fantastic. I'm convinced there is no other leadership It's impossible to do anything through the Labour Party. You only have to look at its history. They're not only reformists, they're conformists.

Every time the system gets sick they give it the kiss of life. They resuscitate it because they don't know what to do without it. They are part of the system itself.

But these Labour and trade union 'lefts' are very active at present. They are out to confuse people about the reality of the situation.

I'd like to see some of them working on a factory floor on ordinary wages. Of course, sioner dying under a workers' state apitalism they starve to death they wouldn't do that.

I believe there is a big crisis mushrooming up, there'll be an explosion. At present you have the extreme right wing coming onto the scene. You can see it with these witch-hunts on building workers. They got so much money and they are preparing big attacks on workers and their rights.

You could see the first signs of this attack in the police move against the coloured kids in Brixton few weeks ago. These kids can't get jobs and they are forced to live in ghettos. This is how the extreme right wing wants it: they want to provoke internal strife so that the police and other reactionaries can move in.

The time is right for us to build a revolutionary party to take power. It's inevitable that this must take place. It's been inevitable for a long time but now is the time to act. The ruling class can't kill it.

The same rebels who built the Labour Party are here today to build this party. It is this strength and fighting determination in the working class which makes Workers Press possible.

As I see it, we were born into a theoretical system called 'democracy' and then our minds are suffocated at birth. We go into their institutions — schools, etc. - and our vocabulary and teaching

and others describe these I think the Communist Party's Jim McShane, married with five children, is a shop steward at RollsRoyce, Coventry.

Do you think it is possible to get rid the state pay laws without getting rid of the Tory government? Oh no. Definitely not. We'l have to get rid of the Tory government first.

Do you think the present trade union and Labour leadership want to force the Tories to resign? No, the union men and the leaders of the Labour Party don't seem to want to put up much of a struggle against the Tories.

Are you in favour of building a new leadership which will make the Tory government resign? Yes. We will need to have it. I would like to_ ask why the Socialist Labour League doesn't train people in local government. If we could get men in, then we'd increase our support. What experience have you had which makes you believe that getting House Whart. To bring out laws agains in a blow-up.' Right: Jim McShane. rid of the Tory government is an urgent task?

The pay laws for a start.

You've got wages held down while prices go up. I think prices have gone up 25 per cent in the last two years.

That's scandalous. I've got five kids, and by the time you've paid your rent—£5.85-it is not a lot of fun. As far as money goes, I haven't got much left by the time 1 pay out for my family.

What do you think of the TUC's collaboration with the Tories over the pay laws and Phase Three?

That's scandalous. They are selling all these men down the river. Even men like Scanlon are working more in line with the government than against them.

What do you think of the role of leaders like Jack Jones and Scanlol in this collaboration?

They should be turned out.

They are the wrong men for the job. These men don't be- The Communist Party lieve in the drastic measures we need today. They are not prepared to argue with the men as 'lefts' and refuse Tories—only to go through the to expose their forms to please the men under them. collaboration. What Friday GE a set policy. The only party which has is the Socialist Labour League. That's why I joined it.

There's a lot of young people coming into the League, as we saw at the Empire Pool.

Wembley was only a start.

It's the young people who can really change things. A lot of other people don't believe in a workers' government. They hold things back.

The basic democratic rights of the working class are under attack.

What can be done to unify people in defence of these rights?

I believe in picketing and to bring out laws against it can only end in a blow-up anyway.

And to bring out laws against a man for picketing is all wrong. That's why I think the Tory government will have to be put out.

Are you in favour of mass rally of trade unionists to build this leadership?

Yes I am. I think a lot of people who come to League you think of this? meetings want to see action.

They don't just want to go to meeting after meeting and to backing for Jones and Scanlon be told what's right and what reflects very badly on them. wrong. It's no grad talkg They seem to be bumbling about it all the time. There's about. They don't seem to have got to be something positiyc.

: PRODUCTIVITY WITH A TOUCH OF RELIGION FAR EAST REPORT At many of Japan's leading factories you notice a recurring emblem. It appears on tee-shirts, on overalls, on lapel badges, on ashtrays, on car window stickers and on great crimson flags fluttering on the company flag post.

The emblem is two initials ZD. It stands for Zero Defects. The aim of the ZD movement is to remove error in all stages of the production, marketing and management process. As can be imagined, this is a task of considerable proportions. But Japanese big businessmen are hurling themselves into the fight with their ZD motif.

Backed by a well-heeled propaganda the leaders of industry, Tory Ministers and even some right-wing trade union leaders extol the virtues if ZD. There are ZD periodi"?:. ZI songs recorded and BY ALEX MITCHELL distributed among workers, ZD towels and soap, badges, sweaters-in fact anything that can help promote the ZD concept.

The aim of this mindthumping barrage is to establish ZD as the new industrial religion.

Management wants to slash production costs because of economic necessity (two revaluations oi the yen in the past 18 months makes Japanese exports about 38 per cent dearer). One crucial way to hold down costs is to eliminate shoddy work, incompetent marketing and inefficient handling of goods. The organization in charge of promoting ZD is the Japan Management Association, which has launched a special Zero Defects Programme. Mr Shigeru Maeda, the brainstorm behind the programme, said recently: "To put it simply, LD aims at doing the job right from the first to the last. : ZD, he says, signifies perfection. It is around this word 'perfection' that big business is trying to erect the new religion. The ZD propaganda says that perfection, for the Japanese, is a way of life.

According to one sceptic of the scheme it conjures up 'old Confucius notions'. He goes on: It is meant to arouse deeply-ingrained thoughts and moves about striving for perfection in one's work.' So when I suggested to an official of the Japan Management Association that ZD was nothing more than a productivity drive, he almost fainted in horror. 'No, no,' he said. 'ZD is an integral part of the philosophy of the Japanese people. It is tied up with their belief in the creation of perfectly-made things. ZD is really part of our civilization.' This final statement will come as a surprise to the personnel and productivity counsellors at the Howard Hughes Aircraft Company in California.

In the early 1960s they were heavily engaged in government contracts for the manufacture of war materials.

The Pentagon began pushing for a shorter production period of the Pershing groundto-ground missile. There was a considerable drive made by the contractors to discover ways of attaining error-free work which shortens the manufacturing time, which in turn means lower costs. Out of this frantic search for cost-saving measures, the great ZD was born.

In 1964 Dr Koji Kobayashi, president of the giant Nippon Electric Company, visited the Howard Hughes Company to investigate any manufacturing techniques which he might borrow. He saw ZD, he liked it and he took it back with him to Tokyo.

It is interesting to note, however, that Kobayashi did not immediately introduce these productivity concepts. First of all, there was a generous amount of discussion within his own company. Then he got the Japan Management Association interested. In 1965 Mr Maeda, then dais public relations officer, took a team of quality controllers to the US to study the concept in greater detail. A further year elapsed before ZD was released on the unfortunate working population.

By this time it had a considerable number of other attributes. For instance, ZD had acquired very definite religious overtones. It wasn't simply a question of improving production and management methods, it was all about the Japanese deep commitment to manufacturing things perfectly. It was all to do with working harder and more exactingly for the greater glory of the company and therefore the nation.

As one of the advocates of ZD explained to me: 'For the average Japanese, work is a striving. for ikigai, or selfrealization. And ZD reinforces that drive not only by giving it qualitative purposes, enhancing the values attached to perfect performance, but at the same time identifies that performance with the good of the work group:

the company and the nation.

A top executive for Nippon Electric makes a similar point:

I think that what a man is ultimately looking for is to lead his own happy life and in turn contribute to the company's prosperity. So, it's necessary that the daily work of a man in the company should be related to success, without any failure, in order to obtain final purpose in life. ZD makes that success possible' It would be utterly wrong to conclude, however, that the Japanese working class goes along with any of this reactionary rubbish.

They are susceptible to ittrue-but the great majority of them think that ZD is an enormous joke. They wear the tee-shirts and badges in many factories, but it's done for the most cynical of motives.

When we took a photograph of a worker in a ZD shirt, he raised his arms over his head and flexed his muscles and said: 'ZeeDee'. At this point the workers standing around began to roar with laughter and shout 'ZeeDee'. An executive wheeled us away from this unruly scene as he muttered Japanese oaths under his breath. These fraudulent concepts of 'partnership in industry' and the extended family life from the managing director to the manual workers are all breaking down under the impact of the enormous strains on the Japanese economy. At another factory, for example, the manager, Mr Ohira, made a sweeping gesture towards the 200 workers busily painting, baking, sorting and packing china plates and said: 'Our success in exports is due to the work of my family' 'Your family?' I asked quizzically. 'Yes,' he replied. 'I am their father, they are my children, my adopted sons and daughters.' It was a blissful moment. We stood on the overhead walkway gazing at the furious activity down below. An endless conveyor belt moving down the centre of a long table, an endless supply of plates trundling down it. Rows of male and female workers their hands moving like quicksilver to snatch • plates from the belt, draw finely with their paint brushes and return the plate to the queue. Not a second to lose. If you lose a second the work piles up. Plates pile up: One has visions a logjam (platejam?) in which thousands of plates are eventually smashed on the floor. What would Mr Ohira say about his family then? He doesn't look the friendly type at all.

And so we heard from two women workers after the factory closed. Through an interpreter we discovered the Ohira family had been making their plates since the turn of the century. The employees worked six days a week for just over £40 a month.

The factory was freezing in winter and like a furnace in summer. When there were additional orders old women were employed at pittance wages.

Recently orders had been falling, they said. So when they asked Ohira for their annual wage increase he refused it. He said they would have to wait until later in the year when the economic situation became clearer. They felt very angry about this. 'But I thought he was your father-figure and you were his children?' I asked.

They both fell about laughing.

Sohyo, the General Council of Trade Unions of Japan, says in its annual report for 1972: "The rationalization offensive of the capitalists at the moment is featured by enterprise mergers and subordination of minor enterprises by powerful ones. "The capitalist perpetrates organizational and ideological attacks on workers of all industries. In this attack, the management completely ignores the humanity of workers and wants to establish a tight grip on workers. Above. A ZD publicity photo which was captioned 'The worker gets personal satisfaction out of doing his job well.' Top left: Factory girls. Below left: Railway workers not part of the ZD family-after a victorious strike. 'Rationalization is being carried out through the introduction of computer systems, shift-work systems, man cuts, job transfers and time-control by seconds. "While intensifying labour to the degree that workers' lives and health are jeopardized, the capitalists are on the other hand anxious to foster the idea of "all workers as managers", strengthening Workers sense of "belonging" to the enterprise and class collaborationism, so that workers "voluntarily" work for company goals. 'In fighting these rationalization attacks, trade unions must steadfastly defend the rights of workers, fight for improvement in working conditions and defend the rights of workers'

PAGE Friday I rotskyism and Stalinism: According to Monty Johnstone, leading member of the Communist Party with special respon sibility for dealing with the danger of Party mem- thr danana of Doute, manu bers who might be attracted by Trotskyism, it is only certain points of objective fact [about his own behaviour] which are at issue' between him and the Socialist Labour League.

There is no point in speculating whether this extraordinary assertion is just typical liberal muddle-headed hypocrisy or is deliberate Stalinist deception. So far has the Stalinist movement degenerated, with its 'peaceful and parliamentary' adaptation to the middle class in every country, that bureaucratic manipulation becomes, in individual cases, indistinguishable from liberal individualism.

Johnstone hopes that questions of 'conscience', 'apology' and 'venom' will predominate over class questions of the role of Stalinism and the building of revolutionary leadership.