What is happening - inside the Trade Unions

writes:

THE LABOUR MOVEMENT faces a grim 1967. There is now a distinct possibility that before Ig6o comes to an end the number of registered unemployed will have exceeded the three-quarters of a million mark.

The limited savings of those who were first in the unemployment queue will be nearing exhaustion at a time when prices are steadily increasing. The purchasing power of wages that are frozen is on the decline each week.

As the statement of the Political Committee of the Socialist Labour League has stressed (Newsletter, November 19) wage freezing has been transformed into wage cutting.

After the shakeout Within the large motor car plants, now that the first phase of the unemployment shakeout is over, reorganisation of the various departments is under way.

The first stage is, generally speaking, an attempt by the employers to create a pool of labour not attached to any department. This pool can then be allocated to either existing or new departments as the reorganisation gets under way.

In the meantime there are no bonus earning or piecework agreements covering the pool—it is ordinary time rates, take it or leave it.

There are examples where militant shop stewards are transferred to the pool, thereby being immediately separated from the section of workers whom they previously represented.

In a matter of weeks the division which is being created inside the plants will become the medium for driving down wage rates by attempts to foist new agreements on the workers under the guise of reorganisation. At the same time the threat of an army of unemployed signing on at the Labour Exchanges each week will be used to back up the authority of the employers and their foremen.

Towards Marxism Strange as it might seem, however, lt is not the growth of unemployment, the freezing of wages and the attempts at wage cutting which are by themselves responsible for the growing political disquiet within the factories and the trade unions.

To understand the present developments we must look a little closer at the past history of the British working class.

There has been in England a powerful attachment between the working class and their traditional organisations, the trade unions and the Labour Party. In spite of a whole series of betrayals since the beginning of the century, they have remained loyal to these movements.

In their minds, the hope remained that one day a solution pressure could push Papandreou's government in a reformist direction, democracy at home and neutralism abroad.

It was the strike struggles of 1963-64 which really marked the turn from the 'black decade' of the 1950s.

The great crisis and events of 1965 certainly brought on to the streets first the masses of the petty bourgeoisie and then after few weeks the unorganised working-class youth.

But it is vital to recognise that this awakening took place on the basis of the previous two and-a-half-years revival of working-class struggle.

In these years just before 1965 the Greek workers had begun to come into open conflict with their Stalinist leaders, even though this was not expressed in the form of new political formations and trade union leaderships.

It is this resurgence of the working class, and the fact that radicalisation working-class youth takes place against its background, Which must be the starting point for the strategy and tactics of Greek Trotskyists.

This radicalisation of youth, fed by the intensifying international crisis of imperialism and the linked crisis of the Stalinist bureaucracy, ofters opportunities everywhere for winning cadres for the construction of the Trotskyist revolutionary parties.

These were the perspectives of the 1966 Conference of the International Committee of the Fourth International, at which Greek Trotskyists were represented. to their problems could be found through the struggles of these organisations.

During the post-war period of the inflationary boom the most organised sections of the working class were able to improve their wages despite resistance from the employers.

Insofar as they thought of the future it was in terms of the return of a Labour government, which they believed would provide them with a more lasting solution to their problems through the Parliamentary struggle to apply socialist policies.

This was essentially the atmosphere in which the Labour government of October 1964 was elected.

Although the Labour leaders from the start began to prepare plans to attack wages, the full reality of what was happening did not become clear until the early Autumn of this year.

Now, all these illusions are being shattered. The period of the long compromise is drawing to an abrupt end.

Those very same Labour and trade union leaders in whom they placed their hopes are in the vanguard organising their age-old enemy, the lory employers, to fight the working class.

Wilson and his Cabinet are now seen as the people responsible for all the things such as unemployment and wage freezing which were previously associated with the Tories.

It is the full realisation that the very leaders in whom they had placed their trust have betrayed, and not what is happening itself, which lies behind the developments in the trade unions.

These have not yet been reflected inside the Labour Party because it is presently the most opportunist of the two major organisations. However, in the course of time they must be, under circumstances which will necessitate special attention from the Socialist Labour League.

Nature of the crisis It would be a mistake to imagine that this is an episodic crisis. Middle-of-the-road politicians and their fake-left hangers-on hope that in a few months Wilson will reinflate the economy and we will automatically return to full employment.

They forget that a basic source worseninresent crisis lies in the of the States capitalism in addition to the outmoded, uncompetitive nature of British economy.

Whether or not reinflation will again be introduced will be decided not in the City of London, but in Wall Street, and the position there grows steadily worse.

We must, therefore, prepare to understand more about the vast political changes which are now beginning to take place inside the working class.

The Prices and Incomes Act has tied the trade unions to the GREECE ( state, which has now become the chief and open protector of the employers in their opposition to wage increases. The Labour government and the state are capitalist institutions, therefore all struggles which are waged against their decisions will be political struggles.

A political struggle is essentially one which poses the problem of power.

What is the use of fighting the government if those concerned are not prepared to fight for power?

But that is precisely what the trade unions are unable to do. They are defensive organisations organised to operate within the framework of capitalism.

The problem of power can only be approached through the building of the revolutionary party, the Socialist Labour League.

Some problems It is at this point that a number of serious difficulties face the militant trade unionist.

He or she has been accustomed to working and fighting in a period of boom, and now the situation has completely changed. It is understandable, therefore, that they should engage in the same forms of industrial struggle as they have been used to over previous years. Herein lies the real danger.

In order to fight Wilson's rightwing Labour government, it is necessary to understand happening politically.

If we simply engage in purely industrial struggles we will be incapable of realising the significance of the problems ahead.

There is, today, very little room left for the non-political trade unionist.

If we engage in purely left trade unionism as against the conception of building the alternative revolutionary leadership we will be making just as serious a mistake.

Left trade unionism is just as inadequate as non-political trade unionism.

It consists at best of a policy of bluffing the employers, and at the same time trying to frighten the right-wing trade union leaders by left noises.

Not only does such a policy create illusions in the minds of workers, but it deliberately misleads them at a time when more than ever they need revolutionary political leadership.

The Socialist Labour League is in complete opposition to such a policy. We insist that more than ever it is necessary to politically prepare and train a revolutionary leadership within the trade unions for the purpose of taking power.

Next week:

The ENV strike The Stalinists' December Congress The policy of the SLL age At the same time as farm prices were raised Papandreou announced a 'wage freeze' in order to strengthen industry.

The workers were solidly 'left', Stalinists, their traditional ns 55 they remained loyal to the 1964 the EDA pal elences in.

the EDA vote increased. Strikes often turned into political demonstrations.

In July 1965, Papandreou resigned after a clash with the rightwing faction of the king and the court. In the giant demonstrations which followed, more and more workers clashed physically with the Stalinists who wanted to confine the struggle to support for the Liberals.

Among the masses the slogans went beyond this: •Plebiscite! Out with the King! Soldiers join the people!' Meanwhile the EDA and the Liberals insisted: 'Papandreou! Free elections!', and attempted to keep the demonstrators peaceful.

The governments appointed to succeed Papandreou fell after only a few days, and chaos threatened. A general strike called by the Stalinist and Centre Unions brought a 70,000 response, but was confined to a one-day protest.

By October the obvious failure of the Stalinists to give any political lead enabled the government to be stabilised at last and forced the mass of the workers off the streets. In fact they then carried through a number of extremely militant strike actions, particularly the public servants.

The government tried to ride the storm, giving some economic concessions but hitting hard at every political strike.

In December the government reimposed complete police trol in the unions, scared even by the rapid growth of the Stalinist unions 1965. The Stalinists have of course continued to agitate only for elections.

Of great importance, beginning in summer 1965 accelerating in 1966, was the outbreak of peasant struggles in reaction the political crisis especially to now worsening farm prices. This culminated in the great peasant demonstration and march on Salonika in August 1966.

Government action was swift: armed police and army motorised LETTER