Little buying by Land Commission

up for them elsewhere order to wear their members down.

On the job ace of DATA at Rolls-Rovi Meanwhile, the Fleet utter media is on the job Everyone loves tame th unions Ted,' scream the bankers' choir boys. 'Form 1g the newspape never again hold the nation o ransom.

But it is no joke.

serious blows feated.

he trade union movement i its reformist leadership.

No preparation in Brighton making the slightest prepara disarming government can do nothing to, solve the mounting problems in front of the •Arab rulers and their supporters.

Lacking Nasser's popular support, Sadat will find it extremely difficult to mainhis is certainly the exper tain the Bonapartist regime which existed under Nasser.

Above all, he faces the pressing question of relations with Israel - a quesArafat: Forced to the orens dass can hat accuse Hussein.

uprise th tion which cannot be deliver some pushed under the carpet, despite all the attempts to ari de ven back ford de. reach an unprincipled settleNo settlement 'he greatest weakness c The revolution in Jordan workers and peasants about the nationalist leaders' real role and their relationship to imperialism.

This is the sa med Kind th The lessons of Amman will be learned in Cairo and Damascus and can create very favourable conditions for the development of They have just finished a independent proletarian revolutionary leadership of the Arab workers peasants.

A new stage has been reached in the Arab RevoluNasser's death removed the foremost bourgeois-nationalist leader-a man THE LAND COMMISSION, set up by the Labour government to secure land for new development and to put some curbs on speculation, collected a meagre £21 million under the betterment levy in 1969-1970.

These figures are contained in the Commission's annual report published yesterday—its last as the Tories are expected to abolish the Commission by Christmas.

During the year 1969-1970 it acquired 1,26l acres and sold 312.

£41,610,000, but no commitment been March this year.

Observatory in space THE Soviet Union launched an astrophysical observatory into space on Saturday and parachuted it back to earth after it completed its mission, 'Tass' reported yesterday.

It was boosted on a vertical trajectory up to 310 miles above the earth's surface in a special container in the head part of a high-altitude rocket.

Inside were instruments for registering ultra-violet and X-ray emissions from different parts of the Sun.

Last NY prison rebels surrender THE LAST 42 rebel shook four New York jails prisoners at Queen's County in protest against overJail, New York, surrendered crowding and bad conyesterday morning = but ditions. only after officials had taken The 42 refused to leave a Steps to protect them from fifth-floor stronghold withbeing beaten i up by police out guarantees that they and warders. would immediately • be The 42 - including nine moved to another prison. members the Black They left down a fire Panther Party—were among escape from a window in leaders of the riots which full view of a large crowd.

Chile copper workers want 51p.c. rise BY A WORKERS PRESS CORRESPONDENT CHILEAN Minister of Labour Eduardo Leon has told the 8,000 strikers at the Chuquicamata copper mine that the company could not offer more than a 45 per cent rise in pay and fringe benefits.

The workers want a 51 per cent increase and have already rejected 45 per cent.

They struck on October 1 when negotiations on a new 15-month contract broke down.

On Monday the company announced it could not meet deliveries to six foreign countries because strike.

lifficult to PRODUCTIVITY DEALS:

CRISIS IN THELA political question FACTORIES BERNI class nature International Socialism' Available from New Park Publications, '1864 Clapham High St.. London, SW4 PAGE IN CONSIDERING the recently published book "The Employers' Offensive-Productivity Deals and How to Fight Them' by T. Cliff of the International Socialists we should also refer to the book published by Cliff and Colin Barker in 1966 Legislation and Shop The two books are indivis. able when considering the political method of the International Socialism group, and the dangers they represent in the struggles of the working class against productivity deals.

It might be thought that this mainly student group is not worth considering in relation to the struggles of the workers' movement.

Certainly it is largely a student movement. Of its members, 57 per cent are students lecturers, 28.5 per cent white-collar workers, and 14.5 per cent manual workers.

DANGEROUS IDEAS While this represents a weakness in the tendercy itself it does not make the ideas less important or dangerous as the case may be and in dealing with these books at some length we make no apologies to those who support this argument.

Nor do we make any concessions to those who say that this amounts to a factional, irrelevant debate because the numbers involved are small in relation to the working class itself.

Questions of policy and principle are often thrashed out in this way by tendencies in the working-class movement which in terms of numbers seem secondary to those who view things in a fixed quantitative way.

In fact ideas fought out between tendencies in this way become decisive in the struggles of the class. It is with this in mind that we take issue with the ideas of the Clift group.

Although Cliff sets out to make xamination torontoin agreements, he leaves out, or barely mentions some of their the most dangerous ecue di the Equal Pay Bill, which could lead to legalized job evaluation; work-studied incentive bonus schemes, ana, most important of all from a working-class standpoint, the fight against the Bedaux System of the 1930s which proved conclusively that the IN working class could and would fight these systems.

In fact, Cliff's book is in ook is in many ways most difficult to take up. It is a morass of morass of muddled thinking, misinforma- lisinformation and lack of knowledge of ›wledge of the subject, which sets the sets the stage for the most dangerous ideas which can lead sections of the working class to defeat.

To take up every point in the book would require a book for this purpose alone.

The most important aspect of both books is the political method, which is characterized by the most abject pandering to backwardness in sections of the working class.

In the introduction Cliff makes provision for those who are not prepared to make a proper study of the subject, and who take things up in a dangerous sectional way which is the mainspring of backwardness. He says:

'Not many people will want to read the book right through at one go, so it may be useful to have a short summary of it.' He then goes on to say that he has provided an index so that they can pick out their particular bit. This pandering goes right to the end of the book where the final item 'politics' is tacked, apologetically, on to the last page and half of the book.

We say that the fight against productivity deals and related systems is a principled, question, not just a question of tactics.

The IS group sells this principle, covering their betrayal with all sorts of left noisesmilitancy, workers' control, mutuality etc.

They have a whole history 'pure. of idealization of the of this, which has taken the non political) worker, and the worship of shop stewards irrespective of their politics or principles.

ANTI-POLITICS, SYNDICALISM The shop stewards' movement was built on the wages struggle, and many of its leaders become the highest point of its features - antipolitics, syndicalism and sectionalism.

Because of this development, predominatly during the boom period, the shop stewards' movement often becomes a fetter on working-class development.

When a struggle is taken up by Marxists to break workers from these backward conceptions, groups of boom-time shop stewards, conditioned by the money spinning days of the 1950s and early 1960s before the state entered the wages arena, become a bulwark of the old reactionary ideas and fight against political conceptions of struggle, even at time when workers face struggles which are undeniably political.

This is not in any way • to detract from the decisive role JUSTIONIT NEW PARK POBLICATIONS played by many shop stewards in important struggles but we must see the weaknesses as well as the strengths of the movement.

Since the great working-class weakness is that it has turned away from politics during the boom period, and since the main task is to oppose this weakness by taking politics and principles into the trade unions and the working class, such an adaptation to those sections of the working class hostile to politics is the most dangerous method ot all.

It is the complete opposite to the policies of the Socialist Labour League and the All Trades Unions Alliance which set out precisely to change this backwardness by a struggle for politics and consciousness and to build a new leadership in Cliff takes no account in either book of the weaknesses of the shop stewards' movement and the way forward is seen in terms of a syndicalist link up of shop stewards' committees into a national shop stewards' organization.

The second aspect of Cliff's method is that he sets out in the book to hide his politics.

Nowhere does he say that he starts politically from the position that the soviet Union is a state capitalist country, that capitalism rules the world over and the working class has made no gains historically in terms of taking power, and therefore socialism is a very long way off.

'EMPLOYERS'S RA Cifffs book :

A morass of muddled thinking, misinformation and lack knowledge of the subject Also. 'Another factor making it vital for the employers to increase the predictability of their costs is the increasing tendency for profit margins to decline' These causes are given the same in each book, just as if five years had not elapsed between them. Nothing has been learned at all from one of the most important five-year periods in the history of capitalism. The latest book, excepting a few technical details, CLIFF Britain. The confrontations between the government and the labour movement which many expected have not materialized.' And he goes on to explain:

"The underlying situation for British capitalism is slowly improving though it still faces huge obstacles. In particular the poverty of technological education is likely to lead to acute shortages of certain types of skilled labour' ALARMIST TALK In the previous month, the same paper, on December 14, 1968, had remarked about 'The Times' call for a coalition government that would get to grips with industrial anarchy and student revolt:

"Socialists can be excused if they feel surprised at these outbursts. In almost every area of British capitalism, the alarmist talk seems to have no relevance to reality.' The article went on to show 'Both profitability and in productivity it is now better equipped to compete with its main competitors abroad.' The fundamental conclusion is then reached by Cliff that this process, and help talism over its problem.

• Measured-Day .Work, Cliff correctly says that the employers want to get rid of piecework and replace it by MDW because the traditional system has got out of control, and is resulting in 'wage drift'.

He quotes the Coventry Blue Book and shows clearly how piecework is now operating to the advantage of workers.

Piecework, he correctly says, has 'turned on its maker' the employers. He goes on to show how MDW breaks down shopfloor organization and opens the door to increasing In chapter four to show effectively the Coventry Blue Book, how wage differentials lead to continually increasing wages as sections 'leap frog' each other. He says (on page 43 & 44):

•.. there is hardly any doubt that the driving force behind wage drift is the payment be results system.' He then quotes the following from the Blue Book:

•Piecework systems encourage wage drift—in simple terms because of the apparent Non-federate May 1957 6/6d December 1965 .•• ••• Total incr. 1957/1965 ••• 2/97d Due to National incre. ... 2/97d Wage Drift ••• (Comparison of skilled production motor manufacturing firms in C impossibility of objectively fixing a piece rate and management turning a "blind eye" to such loosenesses, particularly in the early stages, in order to get the job off, the ground, which becomes impossible to adjust later on, while methods remain the same. Furthermore, the looseness so imbodied acts as a catalyst to other individuals or groups on older jobs to seek a similar increase in earnings potential, and as the earnings of the pieceworkers in general goes up in the establishment or district there is also pressure from the time workers for their rates to be Wednesday, October 7, 1970 raised to catch up, this pressure will eventually run right through the establishCliff goes on. "To support the contention that PBR is the fly in the ointment the Coventry Blue Book compares the wages of four Coventry Motor Firms operating the piecework system and a Motor Company which does not belong to the Engineering Federation and has a time rate wage structure (probably Ford).

8/47d 7/17d 7/87d 8/8d 13/2d 13/4}d 14/-d 13/77d 4/97d 6/27d 6/37d 4/11 d 1/97d 1/97d 1/97d 1/97d 3/-d 4/5d 4/5}d 3/2d workers earnings 1957-1965 at four iventry and a non-federated firm)

Quite a good case in favour ot piecework constrast this with the attack in chapter 13 against piecework and PBR systems.

Cliff starts by saying 'Although under piecework systems many workers have been able to push up wages very considerably, there is no doubt as a whole PBR systems are a divisive and weakening influence on workers' (My emphasis.)

He then goes on to condemn differentials in earnings for workers doing similar jobs, quoting a liberal economist and and a 'factory worker' in order to discredit PBR.

• Continued next Wednesday IMPORTANT READING PRICE ONE SHILLING

Arab rulers could least afford to lose him.

Unfinished

war The between the tinian guerrillas Bedouin barbarians of Kin Hussein remains unfinishes business find powerful response from th oppressed peoples of Egypt and the rest of the Arab The war's unrestrained barbarity has not broker the guerrillas or crusher their will to fight.

Reports from Jordan indicate that they continue he took of hearthe Jordanian troops have still noem succeed a man driving way Irom nis origina position. His Amman, little sign full-scale guerrilla withdrawal.

addition, nearly Palestinian prisoners held in camps around Amman.

few truckloads of armed guerrillas were seen withdrawing from Amman red to be heading for appeared to North, of Amma old Roman city which is firmly held by the pales tinians, as is all the countryside between Amman and Irbid.

The Palestine Revolution Command yesterday accused lordanian troops of looting and raping, and said comnandos would have to tak CAVArA measures they deemed necessary.

Command spokesman, aunted bu the Ratah guerrilla office said the authority' in Jordan repeatedly violating peace agreement.

'Its forces are looting and window from whic have jumped'.

is death d up raping and detaining and insulting our people in areas controlled by the army. The revolution cannot stand by idly while these shamful and ugly crimes are committed, it said.

A sign of the guerrillas' continuing strength is Al Fatah leader Yassir Arafat's forthright denunciation of Shook hands Only a week agd, Arafat was shaking hands with Hussein in Cairo over a ceasefire agreement aimed implicitly at the revolutionary wing of the Palestinian movement.

Now he is denouncing the King as having placed himself 'in the same position as the S Vietnamese leaders in Saigon'.

Arafat suggested that Hussein's army received supplies from Israel during the fighting.

Trucks had been seen crossing into Jordan from Israel, he said, and his forces had captured grenades with Hebrew Insignia.

'We do not know what was in the trucks,' he told a Yugoslav reporter, 'but we suppose America could not quickly make up the Jordanian Army losses and an order was given to Israel to furnish aid'.