MOVEMENT TO PROTECT JOBS
By Brian Behan
1957The NewsletterBrian Behan Read the scan at ETOL (PDF) →Read from the scan by machine and not corrected: headlines and words can be misread, and a caption or advert can run into the text. For anything you quote, read the scan.
‘THE Ragged Trousered Philanthropists’, Tressall’s description of building workers, lost all meaning with the post-war building boom. Many building workers thought the old days were gone for ever.
Unfortunately capitalism is rapidly getting back to ‘normality. In January 1957 there were 52,831 building workers on the dole, Not many in an industry employing 1,250,000. But two sinister trends appear in this figure:
First. it was an increase of 20.000 on the previous year.
Secondly, the winter of 1956-57 saw the best weather for building in years.
The first results of the increase of the Bank Rate to six per cent. were coming home to roost. Now it is up to seven per cent., and the Tories are really axing the Welfare State.
It will be impossible for local councils to build at the old rate. At three per cent., under a Labour government, it cost £2,325 to borrow £2,000. Every weck the interest burden in the rent was 14s. Ild. At five and a half per cent. it cost £4.825, with weekly interest amounting to 31s. 2d.
What can Marxists do?
At seven per cent. the cost of borrowing £2.000 will be £6,000, with a corresponding rise in rents.
The Tories have no intention of rehousing the homeless. Indeed in their view the ‘back of the housing problem is broken’.
Their economic reasoning is simple. Almost £2,000 million a year is spent on building of one sort or another. The industry has a large Jabour force.
The Tories aim to cut the amount invested in building and use it to bolster up capitalism. They need capital to