Cliff Slaughter analyses the real nature of deals

the Young Socialists their according to the employers and their agents, including those in the Labour Party and trade unions, is what every Important sections of workers have been able to insist on large increases without productivity strings: as in Plessey's, Swindon.

Another example: employers do not, in a period of unemPessment, rush to bring the job. (despite the existence of great need) because the market conditions do not allow them to sell at a profit.

When the capitalist presses for a productivity deal he is aiming at intensifying the workers labour, and that means intensifying exploitation, in order to increase profits.

In 'exchange' for an initial increase in wages, the employer gets the right to impose these conditions of more intensive exploitation; they are called mobility of labour, interchange: ability, job evaluation and Measured-Day Work.

They all mean one thing: workers abandon all control over the working of the job and their bodies and brains become just pieces of new material to be divided up and used . at the will of management; and they abandon all control over the level of payment for jobs (through shop steward representation on timing and re-timing of piecework jobs) because productivity deals aim at the abolition of payment by results (PSR).

The myth behind this reorganization of work and payment is that it represents scientific method of establishing work norms and wages.

'Up-to-date' shop stewards and union officials will explain what they are told at managementsponsored schools: these methLiLL The new methods are scientific ways of intensifying labour and increasing profit. • But they are a complete fraud when it comes to the measurement of wages; and they are a danger to the life and health of the worker because they subórdinate him to the ruthless drive for profit.

Wages are not the worker's reward or the worker's 'share' of the product of the factory. That is the oldest lie in the capitalist book.

According to the employers, the capitalist takes a share because of the money he put in, and a worker takes a share according to the work he puts in. It follows that scientific measurement of work will" assure the 'correct' wages. But does it?

Wages are the price of a worker's labour power or capacity for work (i.e. his physical strength, nervous energy and mental concentration used up in the working day). The value of this commodity-labour-power(price is based on this value) is determined by the amount of socially necessary. labour-time involved in producing it. This is not as complicated as it sounds.

It means that the level of wages depends on the amount of money required to buy all the goods (food, clothes, housing, etc.) necessary for the worker (and his successors, his children) to keep on coming back to work with his muscle, his nerves, and his mental concentration restored. 7.10 7.20 8.10 9.00 10.25 8.10 MAN ALIVE. 'If at first... try, try and try agaln'. Report CHANNEL: 11.00-3.00. London. 4.00 Life in France. 4.10 London. iz mido in the willows. London. 6.00 night Epilogue. News, weather. Crossroadst 7.00 Treasure hint 9:35 WESTWARD. As Channel HELE productivity deals, with wages 'scientifically' controlled by the Those in the trade union movement who support productivity deals are collaborating with the capitalist class in attempting to increase the rate of exploitation and destroy the ability of the working class to influencę its earnings.

Productivity bargaining is the everyday form of class-collaboration and betrayal of the trade union membership by the officials, repeated hundreds of times every day.

The fight against productivity deals, refusal to discuss productivity alongside wages, is a prinSTAR TREK.

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Only a small minority, in the beginning, could understand the implications of productivity bargaining.

Its advocates got away with clever phrases: «Well, we're already doing most of the things the employers are writing into the deal'; 'Well, we've promised productivity, but we've got the money, let them come and get the... productivity - as maest. they can'.

The wage increases are tempting, and if the number of redundancies is only small, to begin with, it seems to be taken TV •m. Nai zindagi-naya jeevan. 1.00. 1.45-1.53 News and weather. 2.05iting the union. 'Productivity BarJackanory. 4.55 'The Snow Queen'. 5.15 Tom Tom. 5.44 Magic round'Never Hit A Lady'.

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Union

collaboration But the situation cannot and does not remain the same. Many deals aré being introduced with the unions' collaboration, but already important sections of workers have been able to insist on large increases without productivity strings (BritishLeyland at Oxford, Plesseys at Swindon) and the same type of demand is coming up every day in the factories.

Especially since June 1969, when the anti-union laws of Barbara Castle and Harold Wilson were defeated by trade unionists, the wages offensive of the working class has continued to gain strength. and has actually laid the basis of a new situation.

more than ever before, the productivity and wages issue becomes directly political. involves the question of political power.

The Tories promised tax cuts and prosperity middle-class voters. But they also promised to 'deal with' the working class. Until they do this they cannot carry out any of their promises to the middle class ('No tax cuts till we cure inflation', Employment Minister Robert Carr.)

alternative?

Principled socialist leadership can unite the forces of the working class, not just behind a wages offensive, but behind a policy nationalization without compensation and under workers' control.

Only such a basic and resolute policy to resolve the economic crisis will win the best elements in the middle class to the side of the workers.

The wages offensive brings this question | to a head, but cannot, by itself, resolve it.

political preparation necessary proceed to the struggle is toroed by the crisis is forced (above all the demands of the working class) to consider how to put an end to the state affairs where militant trade unionism can win its demands. • The mouthpieces of the ruling class express highly moral sympathy for the plight of the lowaid, the pensioners, and those on fixed incomes, because of the 'unreasonable' demands of the highly-organized workers who want increases well above their 'productivity' increases.

But this is only the preparation for trying to convince the middle class and any backward workers who may be deluded, that a national, firm hand against the working class is necessary.

This is the seed of Bonapartist dictatorship.

It can be effectively answered, and in time, by the building of a Marxist leadership in the unions and the youth, through the development of the Socialist Labour League. 3.58 News. 4.00 Gus Honeybun. 12:00 Diary. 12.05 Faith for life. And gladly teach. 4.55 6.01 Report West. 6.18.0 Repokers 6.35 Crossroads. .00 wild. 7.30 London. 8.00 Bold ones. 9.00 London.

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