Stalinist calls for profit sharing

He says he didn't sign the agreement made at Congress House on May 22 after the Stalinist calls for A CALL for the negotiation of profit-sharing with the employers has been made twice recently in Communist Party publications.

August's 'Marxism Today' contained an article by Alan Spence which explained that resistance to productivity deals only modified and did not provide a receipt or solution to the main problem-which was automation.

Held back

He saw the present struggle being held back because wages are now tied to production.

"The only way is to negotiate the division of profits' he comments. In this situation Measured-Day Work becomes a bargaining counter, i.e. 'equally central to the workindurlace crucale must he the Fill in the form below and SECRETARY, SOCIALIST 186A CLAPHAM HIGH ST, Name Address TRUIC GEEINEERIALL STEIC RIETTA RIY ending of the seven-week strike-and that, even if he did, it was only a matter of countersigning an agreement to which he was not a party.

It was made clear in a telegram we received from Congress House-the one we read profit sharing rejection of Measured-Day Work until alternative means are enforced for the maintenance and improvement of the wages of the production workers' (Spence's own emphasis.)

'Until this practice is established as a right,' he adds, 'a policy of one man, one machine must be operated.' Presumably, it is all right to be sweated labour once profit-sharing is in.

Again, in last week's issue of Comment' the Stalinist weekly, Spence demands a division of profits along with 'trade union ovservers at management and board meetings'.

In fact, Spence calls for nothing that the employers have themselves not advanced.

Many managements have attempted to trap their employees in a mass of class-collaborationist, profit-sharing double talk in an attempt to get them to become enthusiastic about making profits-even to the extent of planning to speed themselves up.

Schemes

In many cases these schemes have been exposed by the workers themselves as being another way of retaining part of the workers' wages to swell the firm's own interest at the bank and to re-invest in the company.

All this was exposed during the 1930s when John Lewis •Partnerships' were launched. It was a measure taken to prevent the trade unions from getting a footing in the firm.

When it came to the pay-off, the workers who had accepted it found that they were only to get a tiny percentage of the profits against the large handouts for the shareholders.

It was difficult for them to break from the scheme because withdrawal meant the loss of their jobs. The 'Daily

It was agreed at that first Congress House meeting that there would be no victimizaWorker' of that time exposed the scheme in detail.

At present some industrial relations consultants are talking in terms of profit-sharing systems to complement the introduction of modern equipThey know that automation will mean a chance to bring about huge reductions in the labour forces (a fact nowhere mentioned by Spence), and they are looking for any way to buy workers' agreement to its introduction.

Of course, in this situation the 'profits' from which the remaining workers are paid bonuses are really the savings in wages made by sacking hundreds of workers.

Certainly, industries with rapidly-falling profits will not mind 'opening the books' to prove there's nothing to 'share' anyway.

And many of these are the most up-to-date, highly-automated industries of all.

(A recent 'Sunday Times' report listed industries in need of government aid as aircraft, computers, atomic energy, micro-electronics and lasers.)

Spence also proposes a new job for shop stewards.

He says their traditional tion. Bu victimize others committı to the fi It I was immediately за - - along with many of the rank-and-file ee-when I got back actory.

When I got back I was sent to training school as if I was a role vanishes with the introduction of automated techniques, and explains:

•.. the traditional meeting ground for the determining of wages has moved from the shop floor to the finance departments and, therefore, the shop stewards must move with it.' So, the shop steward ends up in the manager's offices along with the work-study consultants and job-planners!

At a time when the government and employers are preparing an all-out war on jobs wages and trade union rights, proposals by the employers to introduce workers' representatives' into board meetings, to incorporate shop stewards into management and to set up "separate' productivity committees constitute an extreme danger to the working class.

First steps towards the concepts enforced by the fascists of destroying all workers own organizations and totally subordinating all employees to the production process and management control.

Demands like those of Spence-and those of the so-called Institute for Workers' Control—lead, in this situation to the corporate state, and not reforms, which the capitalists can no longer afford.

Socialists call for the elimination of production for profit entirely, not for the improvement of profits.

The answer to automation that is introduced and to the crisis and stagnation of the forces of production is nationalization under workers' control to take the machines out of the hands of parasites and sharks. new starter and told by mangement that I couldn't take up my old job. I lost about £" , week as a result of this—. and the settlement was only This happened to a lot of us in the rank-and-file movement.