A Charter of Workers’ Demands

[p027] A Charter of Workers’ Demands This is the text of the Charter as amended and adopted by the National Indusiria! Rank-and-file Conference cailed by the Editorial Board of The Newsletier in the Holborn Haii, London, on Sunday, November 16, 1958. Wwe, the delegates to the national industrial rank- and-file conference called by the Editorial Board of The Newsletter on November 16, 1958, submit the following Charter of workers’ demands for the con- sideration of the members and leaders of the British working-class movement. In our opinion, only a policy such as is here out- lined can solve the problems that are now arising in industry in a way which will be in the true interests of working men and women, and which will help forward the fight for a socialist reconstruction of society. 4 K WE have considered the problem of wnentployment. What sterner condemnation could there be of the capitalist system than its inability to provide work for all who need it? Half a million are idle in this country at this moment. And many of the machines that should be enriching the lives of all of us are idle too. 452 December 1958 at Geneva in 1866. wrote: If the trade unions .. . are absolutely indispensable for the daily or guerilla warfare between Labour and Capitai, they are .. . all the more important as organized bodies for the abolition of wage-labour and of the capitalist domination. History has vindicated the Marx of 1866, not the Marx of 1852. It was not until 1899 that the Trades Union Congress decided to found a Labour Party and so give political embodiment to ideas canvassed and destroyed in 1852; and it was not until 1918 that that Labour Party adopted a socialist constitution, Sectarianism is produced by the abandonment of the scientific method. It is what happens when well-mean- ing leaders stop looking and listening, when they prefer to consult their preconceptions rather than the facts, when they cease to have their senses attuned to the needs, feelings and aspirations of the people. when, rather than recognize the slow unfolding of necessity, they are content with illusions of correctness. Sectarian- ism is the enemy within ourselves. The wav to deal with it is to understand it in theory and practice. There are a million families whose bread-winner is either out of a job or on short time. Millions more are seriously worried about the danger that soon they also will be out of work. The unemployment figure is rising by 30,00G a month —and share values are rising, too. In our opinion the time to fight unemployment is now, While the greater part of our class is still in the factories. We must fight unemployment before it grows any more—above all, by refusing to the employer the right to hire and fire at will. WE DEMAND: 1) The sharing of all available work without loss of pay. 2) Solidarity action with all sections resisting sack- ings. 3) A national protest campaign led by the Trades Union Congress and Labour Party, including a one-day national stoppage against unemployment. 4) No discrimination against coloured workers. 5) Solidarity between unemployed workers and those in work to prevent the use of unemployed men as black- legs. . 6) Protection of shop stewards: all strikes against victimization to receive the full backing of the union concerned. 7) A campaign for a real determined fight for the 40-hour week and less hours, without loss of pay, to reduce the growing unemployment. * BELIEVING that even with a militant fight against unemployment this problem cannot be solved within the framework of capitalist society, we have considered the problem of nationalization. The root cause of unemployment lies in the private

[p028] DOCUMENT ownership for private profit of the means of production. fo remove an industry from the incompetent and greedy hands of profiteers is the way to ensure jobs and decent living standards for the men who work in it. One of the biggest lessons of the South Bank dispute is that there is no need for McAlpine. Equally, one of the biggest lessons of the BOAC dispute is that there is no need for d’Erlanger and men of his class. The nationalization we envisage is nationalization under workers’ control, WE DEMAND: 1) The nationalization by the next Labour govern- ment of the engineering, shipbuilding, building and textile industries and of the land of the big landowners. 2) No compensation to the former owners of these industries. 3) No representatives of big business to have a say in the running of these industries. 4) Control of these industries to be in the hands of democratically elected workers’ councils. * A NOTHER problem we have considered is that of the Labour Party. We state without hesitation that the main thing wrong with the Labour Party is that it lacks a militant socialist policy, and that this is largely because it is controlled by a junta of middle-class Fabians and full-time trade union officials. The rank and file in the trade unions and local Labour Parties no longer have a say in determining the policy of the party. We recall that the basic aim of the Labour Party, as laid down in its 1918 constitution, is to work for the social ownership of the means of production. The Right-wing leaders have abandoned this aim. Only the rank and file can bring the party back to its original purpose and restore the socialist vision and energy of the pioneers of our movement. The Tory Government can be defeated, and a Labour government pledged to socialist policies elected, only if the industrial workers in particular bring back a fighting spirit to the Labour Party, and turn local parties into organs of working-class struggle. WE APPEAL TO INDUSTRIAL WORKERS: 1) To ensure that their trade union branches are fully represented on local and Constituency Labour Parties. 2) To fight for the adoption of militant socialist policies and for the restoration of democracy within the party. 3) To make the local parties campaign centres in the industrial struggle, that will give the utmost moral and material help to all workers in dispute in their particu- Tar locality. 4) To strive for united action on agreed policies with- out discrimination while freely and openly thrashing out differences where these exist. 5) To recognize that the Labour Party was created by the trade unions and is founded upon them, and that major political questions should be regularly discussed in trade union branches. AST but not least, we have considered the problem of the trade unions. For many years the control of the unions has been passing into the hands of the full- time paid officials. In many unions these officials have in practice re- placed the elected officials, and are taking decisions that are in violation of the constitutions and policies of their unions. There is a growing division between the mass of trade union members and the leaders. We are firmly opposed to the creation of new trade unions or of any sort of ‘breakaway’ organizations whatever. We believe, on the contrary, that the rank and file have the power, and the responsibility, to restore trade union democracy, so that the unions can be better equipped to defend their members. We believe that the employers’ offensive makes more and more urgent the development of solidarity action among trade unionists, regardless of whether a struggle is labelled ‘official’ or ‘unofficial’. Disputes must be judged, not by the label some full- time official attaches to them, but by the demands of the workers engaged in struggle. We believe that the creation of links between workers, in the same and in different industries, in the form of solidarity action committees and similar rank-and-file bodies, can powerfully assist the restoration of trade union democracy. WE DEMAND: 1) No appointment of trade union officials, but their periodical election, with the right of recall. 2) Salaries, expenses and delegation fees of union officials to be determined by the average wages of the members of that union. 3) An end to the practice of squandering union funds on large motor-cars without indication on them of who owns them. Union officials to travel in cheap, economi- cal vans, carrying loudspeaker equipment for factory- gate and other meetings, and with the name of the union prominently displayed. 4) Annual policy-making conferences of the rank and file in all unions. 5) Direct rank-and-file representation at the Trades Union Congress and Labour Party annual conference. National full-time officials not to form part of the dele- gations at these gatherings. 6) Fullest consultation with the membership in for- mulating, presenting and fighting for demands, and in the acceptance of settlements. 7) Complete opposition by the trade union movement to courts of inquiry, which are simply designed to prevent the winning of wage demands, and are now being used more and more to draw the teeth of the shop stewards’ movement. 8) Prosecution of wage demands with the utmost energy, proper preparation of the membership and the broadest possible unity in action of the trade union forces against the employers. 9) A vigorous campaign for 100 per cent. trade unionism to sea] up all gaps in organization. 153

[p029] LABOUR REVIEW WE recognize that working-class socialist ideas and purposes are meaningless unless based on real internationalism. World capitalism can only be defeated and peace ensured by the effective fraternal co-operation of the workers of the world. This is the real answer to the H-bomb, to the military alliances of power politics, and to the threats of slump and unemployment. We believe that we should build international working-class relations and understanding at rank- and-file level. * O UR demands, we are well aware, do not cover every one of the problems with which the British workers are faced today. But if the demands that we have December 19358 advanced in this Charter were won, the Labour move- ment would be in far better shape to meet and beat back the offensive of the employing class. Our demands are in line with the original constitu- tions and aims of the trade unions and of the Labour Party. The pioneers who built our movement did so without the help of Consul cars, knighthoods or fat salaries. They built our movement despite imprisonment and exile to Botany Bay. They made big sacrifices. Today we need to recapture something of the spirit of the old days. The job of the Labour movement is to fight the em- ployers. This job cannot be done if the movement gets too ‘respectable’, but only if it regains its origina! purpose and militancy. Communication