VICTOR FEATHER'S INTERVIEW with workers press

plight of the lower-paid workers, arise from the worries of the capitalist class their friends that the working class is threatening to escape from their Next Saturday, October 3, large numbers of workers from all over Britain will gather • in Liverpool in support of the sacked Pilkington's workers to organize the fight against the Tory government and to draw up the balance-sheet of over three months of Tory rule.

How does Feather see the situation? He 'regrets very much' that the Pilkington's men are out of a job. He is 'sorry' that the General and Municipal Workers' Union did not turn up at the meeting with the rank-and-file committee which he had arranged to chair . . • and he is sorry that the men involved did not take his advice, but he "can't take responsibility'.

Here we have a very decisive issue for the whole working class. Pilkington's, like GKN, is not some smalltown backwater business. Both are part of great monopolies, occupying decisive VUUMLVALLAY MUNILIVIN economic nositions and-promi- nent in the counsels of the ruling class.

The trade union movement cannot escape responsibility for the outcome of disputes in even What was Heath saying? He the smallest firm, let alone in was saying that the trade union these great monopolies. leaders are retreating all along Heath, for example, was very the line, and that because of this clear: the workers can now be intimiThe dock strike resulted in dated into accepting minimal one of the lowest settlements of offers by the employers. recent months. This lesson, he Meanwhile unemployment and added, had got home and . the the coming anti-union laws will GKN dispute ended with the provide the basis for an even acceptance of an offer which bigger offensive against the workcountry has to learn this lesson", Feather has led this retreat. he said.' ('The Times', Septem- He has no answer to his interber 25, 1970.) viewer on Pilkington's.

JUST OUT STALINISM IN BRITAIN TROTSKYIST ANALYSIS Fill in the form below and send to NATIONAL SECRETARY, SOCIALIST LABOUR LEAGUE, 186A CLAPHAM HIGH ST, LONDON, SW4. Name Address His policy of bringing the two sides together (union and men!) having failed, he washes his hands of the affair. But can the working class be content with this, while the employers conclude that it gives the green light for further attacks?

Feather's intentions are really beside the point on this quesThe results of his actions are that the Tories feel able to press ahead with their attacks, and sections of workers leading bitter and determined struggles get isolated.

They • have to unite with the rest of the labour movement against Victor Feather and his policies.

All of Feather's policies, stated in this interview, reveal the same basic class line: while the capitalist class and Tory government, inexorably driven forward by the crisis of the system, must strive to establish all the lines of a corporate state similar to fascist Italy and Spain, the union leaders persist in reformist phrases which serve only to disarm the working class in face of these Tory plans!

This is really the greatest value of the interview with Feather. It holds up to the working class a more or less perfect expression of everything the trade union movement must urgently throw aside.

Feather tells us, for example, that he will not say what his strategy against Tory attacks will be. On the contrary: 'My aproach is to deal with a situation as it arises'.

Muddle

This approach is the old English "muddling through' 'crossing your bridges when you come to them', , and so on. Some militants accept this with the excuse that it is better not to tell the enemy what you are preparing.

The fact is that Feather is preparing no resistance. He will undoubtedly become involved in all sorts of parliamentary pressure and anti-government policy statements, but he is preparing no resistance.

Working-class leadership demands the broadest possible campaign on an alternative policy: it is necessary to unite the working class with the resolute will to defeat the enemy, not to lull them to sleep with the message that Feather and the TUC General Council have the matter under consideration.

Feather is against the mobilization of the working class to fight the Tory government. This is the reason why he puts forward no alternative:

•.. I don't believe in industrial action for political ends. I think that the democratic processes and the lawful means that exist for increasing pres sures on governments are the ones we should use.' Let us examine this argument from another side.

Cliff

Slaughter When an employer sacks workers, is he using industrial action for political purposes! Will not these sackings, it not fought by every means, weaken the organized working class industrially and politically?

Does not the employer use the fact that a Tory government is in power in order to proceed with greater determination against the workers?

Can the unions fight the employers on industrial questions, if they do not fight the political measures of the Tory government against the unions?

Myth

These, and many other similar duestion belon industrial and political ends, between industrial action and political action. 1o persher dots, idito do tod was of the Tory government.

All the talk about an ' .. accumulation of reforms to bring about a peaceful social revolution' is old-fashioned Fabian claptrap to cover up. an adaptation to the counterrevolutionary plans of the enemy BY CLIFF BY CLIFF SLAUGHT in an era when reforms are no longer within the capacity of capitalism.

Despite his talk of 'social revolution', ; Feather is perfectly adapted to the capitalists' plans. He cannot in any way warn or lead the 10 million members of the TUC against the Tory enemy on this critical situation. Instead, he says:

'What we think is that twice two equals four whether it's Labour arithmetic, Conservative arithmetic or Communist arithmetic . • • Governments come and governments go?

From this it follows, for Feather, that it is simply a question of the TUC influencing whatever government is in power, whatever its political colour.

Where does this kind of policy lead? A few days after Feather's interview, a few more sparse details emerged about Heath's proposed anti-union laws.

The Industrial Court, which is to rule the unions, will be served, first and foremost, by the Commission on Industrial Relations (CIR).

This will be the major instrument of Tory policy. Its chief is Feather's predecessor on the TUC, George Woodcock, who made exactly similar statements about the necessity of union cooperation with any government of any political party.

Feather is obscuring the very important change which took place when the Tories were elected.

Since Wilson's anti-union laws had been defeated, the wages offensive of the working class had made the position more and more impossible for the employers. The growing world crisis made necessary the transference of office to the Tories, to try and deal with the working class and inflation in a different way.

Feather plays the employers' game by ignoring this difference. The consequences of allowing Feather to win out in the labour movement would be disastrous.

Bitter

They are more afraid of the real strength and mobilization of the working class than of the employed workers must be thrown against the employers and the government. This is the basis of a fight for a new, political, anti-capitalist leadership in the unions, and a Labour government which will nationalize the monopolies without compensation and under workers' control.

Demand

Instead of this, Feather wants productivity deals plus pressure on the government to create Heath more demand. We know, of course, that the government will not change its mind about attacking the working class. They have this policy for the very basic reason that they must preserve and improve their profit rate.

Feather's proposals do not amount to a policy at all. They simply keep the working class out of action while the Tories and employers press on with their attacks.

How, for example, could the employers 'create more demand' as well as carry out their main aim in productivity bargaining and unemployment?

The whole purpose of the Tories is to get more unemployment, to put the capitalists in a stronger bargaining position against the employed. This and 'demand' would so would keep wages down down!

And so, if a number of productivity deals are negotiated in a particular capital invested on new machinese a number of jobs will disappear.

The employer will certainly not pay a bigger total of wages to the smaller number of employees, or the whole point of the exercise, SO far as he is concerned, is lost!

His aim was to increase profit, accumulate capital, and have more to invest in order to compete with rivals doing the same! about Now, democratic" pressure on says Feather, what the government to 'reflate' and increase 'demand?

But this can only be' done putting purchasing power in the hands either of the people the government departments. And this money would have to come out of the surplus value appropriated by Reduction No! The fact is plain. Capitalism can survive only by reducing the share of the working class in the national income and in the income of every All the employers' and the government's plans are in this direction. For Feather to echo the Jack Jones idea that the The is the viest treachery and government is la fact of is an acquiescence in their plans.

When an employer says 'productive' he means 'productive of extent only five days later, of saying he would risk a general strike to get his anti-union laws through.

All the 'plain talking', 'common sense of Feather will not prevail against these implacable class realities. Heath's strong words have nothing to do with Heath as an individual leader. The other retreats and successive betrayals of Feather and the union leaders have given the Tories a calculated confidence that now is the time to show their hand.

No doubt Feather, on the basis of what he says in this interview, Will continue to treat this government 'like any other government', 'pushing, shoving' to persuade them to listen to reason. This is what the Tories want him to do.

The working class faces very grave historical decisions.

Victor Feather and the trade union bureaucracy want to cut down these decisions to the sional role of "bargainer•, Profes- stature of their own ing the capitalist system going.

But every "bargain' struck today on wages, because it involves productivity, holds within it the immediate prospect of unemployment.

Feather's role is to collaborate with the class enemy and try to prevent the working class's strength being used in action against unemployment.

That is another side to this interview, and it is of the greatest importance. On every question, Feather persists his "English', 'matter of fact' attitude, as if to say 'it has always worked, and it will work in the future'.

Admission

We know that in a situation of rapid change, when preparation for power is the question before the working class, this persistance is fatal.

That is why Feather defends his approach, while at the same time admitting that it is actually leading to unemployment, shipyard closures, victimization, economic slump and so on.

The capitalist class is forced by the capitalist crisis, and by the workers' wages offensive, to prepare its attacks, and it will bring together all its political and economic resources to do so, first and foremost being the trade union bureaucracy.

But it is an historically bankrupt class, with an outlook reflecting its bankruptcy, an outlook which cannot provide the answers for this revolutionary epoch. It can and will be challenged and overthrown.

The All Trades Unions Alliance and the Socialist Labour League, through the Workers Press, will raise in the working class a fighting force based on Marxist theory which will enthusiastically take on the responsibility of building a new leadership, able to workers' power and socialism.

Thursday, October 1, OUR ANSWER to the quesThe Arecibo PAGE THREE