No Compromise on the 40 Hour Week (Trade Union Unity in Action Can Win Victory)

THE 40-hour week battle, the key demand for 1960, now switches to engineering and shipbuilding.

On Tuesday, bosses and union leaders meet to discuss the claim of 3 million workers for more pay and shorter hours. An offer of a 42½-hour week has already been tossed out by the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions. The engineering employers are now expected to come forward with a new offer of a 42-hour week.

The ready acceptance by the union leaders of the electricity authorities' offer of a 42-hour week indicates that the engineering employers will not have a rough passage in avoiding the full claim.

The Trades Union Congress issued a statement on Monday approving the demand for reductions in working hours. It would be wrong, however, to assume that the knights of Great Russell Street are going to lay aside their coronets and dash into battle with the employers.

The 'statesmen of labour' see the gaining of the shorter working week as a process of persuasion. Their statement says: 'The only question is how long will it take to convince the employers that this development is both inevitable and desirable.' The Financial Times of December 28 described the statement as 'cheering from the touchlines.'

Production continues to increase. In the last 12 years there has been an overall rise in productivity of 20 per cent. Profits and dividends break new records. In 1958 shares increased their value by an average of 40 per cent. This week shares of the Vickers engineering combine jumped 3s. to 38s. 1½d. Shipbuilders Harland and Wolff rose another 1s. 9d. to 30s. 1½d. Just before Christmas, shares in the John Brown shipbuilding concern bounded by 4s. 7½d. to a new 'high' of 52s. 6d.

Last year people who draw their incomes from rent, interest and dividends grossed between them a total of £1,488 millions, an increase of £326 millions on the previous year.

There is certainly plenty of money in the kitty. The 3,000 'top-people' in Britain who each have a yearly income of £20,000—in 1957, before tax, they received £86 millions—can well afford to meet the cost of higher wages and shorter hours.

Employers' strategy

The strategy of the employers is to avoid a showdown with the working class. They hope to avoid a fight by granting a 42-hour week and also give the union leaders a get-out, enabling them to go back to the rank and file saying, 'well at least we got you something.'

In our opinion it would be quite wrong for the C.S.E.U. to tamely accept the 42-hour week, although everything indicates that they will do so. It stands to reason if the employers will grant a 42-hour week without a struggle, then by using the full force and strength of the membership the C.S.E.U. can force the employers to concede the full claim.

The five million workers from various industries who have lodged claims for a 40-hour week are entitled to expect something more than wordy statements of approval from the T.U.C. Memories will be stirred of the side-line attitude adopted by the T.U.C. to the fight of the printworkers. But without that struggle it is doubtful whether the employers would today be even granting the 42-hour week.

What is required from the T.U.C. is an unambiguous statement that they will back to the hilt the fight of all unions to achieve a 40-hour week. That in order to assist the unions to defeat the employers they will organize the maximum financial and practical support that is necessary.