How to Fight the Pay Pause

GERRY HEALY answers read ILY answers readers' queries QUESTION:

There seems to be no end to this fight for more wages. The Newsletter was correct in its leading article last week when it pointed out that those who obtain the 3 per cent increase will in all probability have it taken away from them by the April Budget. Can you suggest any way in which the working class can win wage increases which will enable it to maintain its standard of living under capitalism?

A.S., Glasgow ANSWER:

The struggle for more wages is the class struggle in practice. The Tory government is now endeavouring to reduce production costs so that the British employers may compete with their West European rivals more successfully when they enter the Common Market.

Lower production costs, so far as the Tories are concerned, mean essentially a drive to reduce wages by high taxation, increases in the cost of living and speed-ups on the job.

Just now, when a number of large capitalist firms are having to content themselves with a reduction in profiis, the ruling class as a whole has decided that if profits are to rise again then it must be at the expense of wages.

So far as the working class are concerned, the wages they receive under capitalism are only a part of the value of the goods they produce.

The fact that the capitalists own and control the means of production enables them as a class to extract surplus value in the form of profit. The working class must, therefore, fight to win a decent standard of living at the expense of profits.

The question that arises is what sort of wage increases are necessary to enable the working class to achieve a decent standard of living. How can the living be ascertained?

The Tory government publishes a fraudulent monthly index. It does not take into account all the items which a working-class family needs in order io maintain a reasonable standard There is only one sure way to ascertain increases in the cost of living and that is for the trade union movement to examine the family budgets of a cross-section of its membership in order, first of all, to find out what wages are necessary to establish a decent minimum.

Such an investigation would take into account all the expenditure of a working-class household not catered for by the government cost of living index.

Once a minimum has been established in this way, then the trade unions should nego.iate for a rising scale of wages based upon the real increase in the cost of living to be regularly ascertained by the unions.

Then it would be possible to fight for wage increases that would have some direct relation to the real cost of living.

As it is, the trade unions have no real wages policy. They simply fight section by section in accordance with decisions from their conferences. Sometimes these decisions are taken on the spur of the moment, without any real examination of the position of members.

Of course, the rising scale of wages is only a transitional demand in the struggle for socialism. As long as capitalism continues, the workers will be in effect wage slaves. The problem of wages can only be resolved through the struggle for socialism.

This means the fight for the nationalization of the basic industries and the establishmen of 'a planned economy througl system of workers' control.

= Algerian Tragedy Efffffffffffffff|ffffff March, 10, 1962 /THE Algerian national movement derives its - strength from the struggle of the people for land and the right to the full dignities of human beings. The achievement of either is impossible under colonial rule.

For over seven years the Arab and Berber people of the once so-called three French departments of Algeria' have suffered great sacrifices and privations for their cause.

Scarcely a family has not had a member killed, tortured or imprisoned. Bitter combats have been fought and killings still go on.

The announcement of a cease-fire will be greeted with relief and enthusiasm; but it is nonetheless tragic that the settlement with the French cannot justify the sacrifices which have been made.

This settlement is the most cynical deal which a nationalist leadership has ever made with a colonial power.

While questioning the privileges of a large part of the 'poor white' population-from whom the gangsters of the OAS are largely drawn—it preserves the essential positions of French capital and of the big landowners.

It provides for the merging of the partisan fighters with French - financed mercenaries who were their worst enemies. It will set up an "independent' Algerian state —if the OAS permits - under men pledged to work with French administrators and conserve ties with France.

The leadership which has negotiated this settlement has won certain concessions from the French; it has ensured, for the time being, its control over the national movement and the new state.

It gets most of what it has always asked for. But as it has never asked for much, accept: re can hardly be seen as a betrayal.

The real dupes are those on the left who tried to draw a distinction between the pled on' FLN and other bourgeois politicians.

In fact, the weakness of the ready to make concessions.

The leadership of the FLN was largely drawn from the moderate faction in the former MTLD (Movement for the Triumph of Democratic Liberties) led by Messali Hadj.

After the rebellion began in November 1954 a series of political manoeuvres took place which brought various tendencies together in the FLN in opposition to Messali Hadj's MNA (Algerian National Movement).

Not only did Messali have a long record of uncompromising struggle which had earned him almost unremitting imprisonment by a series of French governments, he also had an important proletarian following, especially among the emigrant Algerian workers in France.

The adoption of a revolutionary social programme gave it a distinctly socialist and proletarian character. For this reason it deserved support from Marxists outside Algeria.

Unfortunately events followed the character of The general provided by the official leaders working class, want a common imperialsm. At une same ume a series of which changed the MNA. background IS attitude of the of the French who did not struggle against 11. its leading representatives abroad and in the ambiguous nature of some of its policy declarations.

No doubt those who had supported the MNA should have realised sooner than they did that they were no longer dealing with the same movement and that its continued degeneration was inevitable.

When Messali greeted Gaulle's return power June 195: with fulsome praise there wa no room left for doub In the meantime the FLN had both strengthened its control over the liberation forces and attracted to its banner all manner of politicians, or placeseekers, who had formerly been in favour of compromise.

The FLN thus became a 'broad' national movement, under a petty bourgeois leadership, but incorporating diverse trends. No doubt there were ' lefts', but there were also advocates of a Muslim theocratic state and of compromise with the French.

At any rate, no one ought to have been deceived into accepting the leadership of the pressionist, he needed character.

But the ideological practical moves left the FLN и The Evi FLN as 'plebian' or as any more revolutionary than many other national movements.

Indeed, by accepting and supporting the actual leaders, Ferhat Abbas, later Ben Khedda, and the others, the possibility of developing a genuine proletarian current inside the movement was blocked.

If an understandable mistake was made by those who supported, for too long, the MNA, those who made themselves the indefatigable propagandists of the FLN placed themselves in a position where they became the mouthpiece of the most opportunist leadership in the history of bourgeois national movements.

Of course, part of the FLN was carrying • On an armed struggle — not to speak of terrariem - which CITATIM- TAT H1I- for the imwas all the evidence of its 'revolutionary' tests of social basis, background and and programmatic no doubt as to where as heading. an negotiations, what leaked out about the subsequent secret conversations with the French, prepared the way for the compromise to which the FLN has now committed itself.

Many 'lefts' in France, whose own impotence led them to centre their activities around the slogan of 'Peace in Algeria', are happy at the settlement.

They congratulate Ben Khedda and his colleagues on their moderation and responsibility.

Since their own conception of a solution to the Algerian question was precisely one in which French capital conserved its essential positions, they now congratulate themselves on their foresight.

As shamefaced supporters-at least in every crisis — of the de Gaulle regime, they hope that they will now be able to return to their cafes and studios to discuss 'neo-capitalism' or the 'anti-novel' without having their consciences troubled by tortures in Algeria.

History has been unkind to such people in the 20th century. In the troubled atmosphere of doubt, uncertainty and violence in France today it looks like being equally cruel in the future.