The Price of TU Leadership, by Bryn Roberts

[p023] The Price of T.U.C. Leadership. By Bryn Roberts. Allen & Unwin, 16s. This is a badly written book. Indeed it barely deserves to be called a book. It has no coherent and logical argument; it is repetitive in a rather tedious and amateurish fashion. A lot of words strung to- gether between two hard covers. Nonetheless it is important because it raises problems which should not only be aired but which, in the interests of the Labour movement, should be solved. Bryn Roberts is critical of the structure of the trade union move- ment and of the men who dominate it. He complains of the untidy, illogical structure which results in senseless competition between unions for jobs or for members and in con- flicting industrial policies and he complains of the leadership to which this situation gives rise—arid, con- servative, unimaginative. In particu- lar he lays into the General Council of the TUC. This body, smug and self-indulgent, is mediocrity incarnate. It excludes non-conformists from its ranks if at all possible. Persons such as Frank Cousins are members by accident rather than intention. A consequence of all this, Bryn Roberts maintains, is a low status amongst workers, no mass recruiting cam- paigns, bad publicity, and reactionary industrial policies. The criticisms are valid ones. The solution according to Bryn Roberts is industrial unionism. He would like to see 30 or 40 unions roughly comparable in size serving all of the workers’ interests and he thinks the re-organization could be achieved through the initiative of a group of radical leaders. Throughout the book personalities are emphasized. It is understandable that one who is a leader himself should think that leaders are so important. But it is a mistaken emphasis. The form of the trade union move- ment, its traditions, its conservatism have resulted from the country’s in- dustrial conditions; as those con- ditions change so the movement re- sponds. for change come from the bottom, not the top. It is in the workshop that the forces mould new forms of organization. So we must look at the shop stewards’ organizations for signs of the new format and we must encourage those organizations to develop. Bryn Roberts recognizes that shop stewards are important but as an afterthought. They are men- tioned in a brief last chapter. In any positive criticism of the structure of the trade union movement they must form the core. Anyway, read the book. just, to have the thoughts of a prac- tising trade union leader. V.A. Useful statistics