'REPRESENTING THE UNION' Programme designed to sell productivity bargaining

'REPRESENTING UNION' No. 2 Televised on BBC Sunday, October at 12.30 p.m.

THE SECOND programme of 'Representing the Union', ', the BBC series designed to sell productivity bargaining to shop stewards, concentrated on 'communications'.

Three senior shop stewards from an Alcan factory in the Midlands were shown, negotiating with management over a productivity agreement.

'We are offering a 4.2 and per cent increase and one extra holiday in 1969 and you've got to work the productivity arrangements" the management.

'No deal. We want 5 per cent and two days extra, say the stewards.

The implication being that it is simply a question of 'how much' and not of the strings involved.

Common ground

How did the shop stewards get this position?

The Transport and General Workers' Union steward remarks:

"They sold it to us on the understanding that they were going to look at everybody, management and unions. It was then we started getting together because we had some common ground to discuss.' And later in the programme -'What really sold this to us was that works' management was to be looked at and reorganized.' If, indeed, this was the basis of their acceptance, then it was made on a false assumption. Certainly, the consultants examine the operation of managment as well as workers and this may even result in some managers being moved out, but this examination is on an entirely different basis from that of To management consultants, an inefficient manager is one who does not keep the workers fully occupied all the time, who does not ensure that materials and work are always available.

Another vital difference is that while productivity deals always result in fewer workers on the job, they often add, to the numbers of management, usually with the setting up of a permanent work-study department.

Row faster

To get comfort out of this situation might be regarded as equivalent to slaves in a galley ship, who, when ordered to row faster, find consolation in the fact that at least the inefficient overseer has been removed and replaced with • one that whips twice as hard and twice as often.

In this particular programme little reference was made to the productivity changes involved. It was mentioned that fitters' mates were to be redeployed and that tea breaks were to be cut. The T&GWU steward remarked:

'When the original productivity deal came in they voted me out, because of the fear of this thing. People were going to have to change their jobs and all the rest of it.' In a three-way discussion in the second half of the programme, between a member of the management, a TUC representative, and the three stewards concerned, emphasis was placed on the senior shop stewards' preference for informal discussions among themselves rather than the setting up of a formal joint shop stewards' committee. This is how the managements prefer it.

On the one hand they harp on about 'good communications, meaning that the senior Ibert Davies (left) one of the three senior Alcan shop stewards who took part in the BBC programme rganized with the aid of the TUC stewards should have every facility to sell the scheme to the rank and file; on the other hand, they can always think up reasons why contact between all members of all sections, or even between all stewards is not necessary.

Union matters

Also in the programme, certain remarks were passed between the stewards and the TUC representative on aspects of inner union matters.

This sort of discussion was apparently entirely in order with the TUC representative.

As these people see no conflict between themselves and the employers, but on the contrary are setting out to discipline workers on the employers' behalf, they naturally see no objection to discussing what at one time would have been regarded as private union matters in front of an employer, not to mention the viewers.

The TUC representative's summing-up of the situation was:

"The problem-solving and the conflict situation are just methods of reconciling different interests that arise out of a particular set of proposals by management which has decided its objectives and the means and methods of achieving them' 'Communications' ductivity deals. Its first aim is technique of talking-in to involve a section of shop stewards in the way shown in this programme. They in turn sell the scheme to their members on the factory floor.

Why do some shop stewards fall for these schemes?

Work-study

In the programme the steward from the Amalgamated Union of Engineering and Foundry workers:

'When we went to negotiate our agreement 1 sent all my information and a copy of the productivity deal to the executive and they said "It's up to your members"!

The union leaderships (part two)

tirely support productivity measures and either leave the decision to the members, knowing : that without proper information on the long-term effects the members usually accept, or alternatively they openly encourage acceptance of the deal and send the stewards and management on their own work-study appreciation courses.

In the short term some advances in wages may occur from the implementing of a productivity deal. As often as not, these take place because the strength of the workers involved has forced up the price ot introduction and forced the standard times for jobs down.

Where workers declare themselves satisfied', it is usually because they have distorted the scheme in this way.

One short remark by the AEF steward in the programme shows the determination to improve wages whatever scheme is brought in.

He commented to the TUC man: I've always been brought up to believe that the firm who can get the best deal, helps all the other people around them. It's a question of leap-frogging. You're not to suggest that we shouldn't go ahead and get the best deal possible.' At this point the subject was hastily changed. These schemes are entirely a reflection of the crisis of British capitalism, whatever the short-term results.

The long-term aims of the government, employers and the TUC is the breaking up of the strength ot the working class and the full implementation of the most merciless methods of exploitation. greater protection to the man who strikes constitutionally, compared with the man who takes wildcat action'.

These proposals mean in effect: laws against the closed shop; making pay and procedure agreements legally binding; making strikers liable to civil action for damages.

This would give the employers all that they want.

But the policies have to be given a window-dressing.

The Tories propose elected works' councils which will be given the information usually given to shareholders along with advance notice of employment changes (i.e. sackings).

Similar These proposals are very similar to de Gaulle's attempts to buy over the French workYOUR WAGES IN DANGER rs intend to replace Measured-Day Work.

PRICE 3d. include the restoration of capital punishment for murder' by a vote of 1,117 to 958.

It is this mood that brings Powell his support in the Tory What Powell is really proforces is a return to the 1930s.

He wants the working class crushed by unemployment and divided by racialism. Leadership The fight for leadership in the working class is the decisive question.

Reformism and class collaboration can offer no alternative to the Tories.

The working class under revolutionary leadership is the only force which can put an end to Toryism for ever. by All Trades Unions Allial Strawberry Path, Oxford.