What happened at UCS is of course important in itself for the thousands of workers involved. But if similar situations to UCS are to be avoided, then it needs to be understood that what happened at UCS is not an isolated example, but in fact that the situation created in UCS only reflects the national situation created by the last Labour government and the policies of many trade unions. It is the question of unemployment above all others that can be seen as touchstone for the shortsightedness and stupidities of various political and union policies. Future generations will look aghast at an economic system which, in a period when poverty was increasng, when housing was deteriorating and when the hospital system was decaying, could permit hundreds of thousands to be forced out of productive work. But the people who realise how absurd this situation was will also be astounded at the shortsightedness and wrong policies carried out in fighting against the crippling problem of unemployment.
THE LABOUR PARTY Unemployment went up just as fast under Labour as it is doing now. Anthony Wedgwood-Benn, who is now trying to stake his claim to be the Labour Party's next leader by talking in hypocritical terms to the workers of Upper Clyde Shipyards, whose plight ha is largely responsible or, sat in a govemment which in the space of Ive years saw the rate of unemployment increase by 150%. An extra 350,000 workers workers thrown on the dole was Labour's contribution to solving the problem of unemployment.
It would however be wrong simply to believe that it was the mere fact that Wilson & Co. were opponents of the working class which caused the Labour goverment to act in the way it did. This is the belief of Michael Foot, Eric Heffer, Norman Atkinson and the other Labour "lefts" If only Tribune and nothing else had been in control of the Labour Party, all would have been well, the Tribunites believe. In fact the policies of the Labour "left" are no more realis. tie than those of Wilson because they totally ignore the real economic causes of unemployment.
The underlying roat of the problem of unemployment, and of inflation, is lack of investmegt in industry. Over the years 1964-70 there was no real increase at all in investment by private industry. In the first half of 1971 investment actually fell, and in the key area of machine tools the fall of the last year has been over 40%. The way that lack of investment causes the problems of unemplovrent and ITation is very strentorerd In the case of unemployment, if no money is invested in new factories, machinery, etc., then unemployment is increased in two ways. Firstly production in basic industries such as machine tools, steel, etc. Is cut back and therefore men are thrown out of work in these industries. Seor. dly, a situation where there is no increase in investment means that there is no really significant growth in the number of goods produced in the economy. In other words in the economy as a whole the amount of production is not increasing. In a period when machines, new methods of working, time and motion study, etc. are cutting out men's jobs, and all large firms are negotiating productivity deals, this means that the number of jobs available even in those industries which do not produce directly for invustment is falling. In the last few years productivity per head of workers has boen rising by at least 3% If expansion of the economy does not take place at 3% a year and the trade unions do not really fight unemployment, then the number of people unemployed will not only not decrease but it will actually increase.
The Labour Party and the TUC are therefore quite correct in seeing the need to expand the economy as the only way of solving the prob lem of unemployment. They are also right in seeing that the only way this can be done is by greatly increasing investment. Where they are totally unrealistic, however, is when they believe that this will be done by private employers.
Private employers only invest for profit: the case of UCS makes this only too obvious. The Minister of State for Trade and Industry, John Davies, was being honest for once when he said, "The pursuit of profit is the primary stimulus of industry", The reason why industry has refused to increase its investment over the last few years is because it is demanding as the price of doing so that its profits are increased by government attacks on the working class. This was the reason for the Prices and Incomes policy, the July measures, the savage attack on the seamen, and In Place of Strife, introduced by the Labour government, and it is what lies behind the attack on the postal workers, the denationalisation proposals and the anti-union laws of the Tories. It is the employing class who not merely have not increased their investment, but who have been directly responsible for the sackings leading to unemployment. When Arnold Weinstock sacks 15,000 men and then is given a knighthood by a Labour goverment, then two things are revealed. Firstly, It reveals the way in which Wilson & Co. were totally cynical in their attacks on the working class and, unlike previous Labour leaders, did not even try very hard to disguise their intentions. Secondly, it shows that the Labour Party does not have an ounce of realism left in it. The reason why Wilson & Co. try to butter up men like Weinstock is that they believe they can get them to cooperate with Labour. This idea always was stupid, Weinstock and other employers naturally have no objection to Labour cooperating with GEC and other companies, but they are much too hard-headed to over want to cooperate with Labour when it goes against the interests of their own com panies. But the idea that they will cooperate is reduced to the level of stupidity when the Labour Party and the TUC propose a plan for the expansion of the economy which leaves control of investment in the hands of the employers, What the Labour Party and the TUC pursue. now believe is that the problem of unemployment can be solved by cooperation with the same employers whose refusal to invest caused the problem can be solved is to take control of investment out of the hands of the private employers. This means that what the TUC should be preparing now is not an impractical scheme for expanding the economy with the employers taking all the key decisions, but a plan for axpanding the economy after the control of industry has been taken out of the hands of the employers by widespread nationalisations. It is unemployment which clearly reveals the totally unrealistic viow of the Labour Party that it is possible to reform capitalism.
THE TRADE UNION LEADERSHIP During the last few years of the Labour govern ment, it became increasingly obvious that the only section of the working class movement which was really fighting against the attacks on the living standards of the working class was th trade unions. While the Labour government attacked the Health service, cut the housing programme and increased the number of unemployed, it was the trade unions which really fought back. It was only the large wage increases which they gained which preserved the living standards of a large saction of the working class. But there were of course big problems in this. First of all, sections of the working class outside the trade unions-for example the old, many women workers, etc.did not share fully in these benefits. This is why it is completely correct for a union such as the T&G to campaign on behalf of Old Age Pensioners. Such activity needs to be extended. The living standard of the working class cannot be protected simply by trade union action, but if such action is extended to fields such as education, housing, pensions and so on, then a great deal more than is being done at the moment can be achieved. But the problem of how far this potential is to be realised -which is linked to quite a lot of things which happened under the last Labour government-lies in the type of policies which the trade unions are going to Over the last few years wage increases have been high. But in too many instances, as in the case of UCS, the trade union leaders have been the problem in the first place. The only way that content to sign agreements which kept up wages but at the expense of sacrificing conditions or of granting redundancies. This system of productivity bargaining was bad enough at a time of relative economic prosperity, but it becomes absolutely fatal in the present period. Over the last few years trade union leaders both "right" and "left" have accepted the principle of men losing their jobs so that those still in work could maintain their standard of living. By dain! this, these leaders have led many men to
believe that this practice is a part of responsible trade unionism. This is bad enough in itself, but it is now creating a situation where the men who lose thair jobs have no hope of finding another one. This is only too obviously the case in a city like Glasgow, where there are roughly 24 men out of work for every vacancy which is available, but it is also true in all areas of the country. The existence of this pool of unemployed creates a situation where those who are in work are scared to use their trade union power. Thus once again we can see how unemployment is an acid test, The short-sighted policies of productivity bargaining not only have helped to create the present problem of unemployment, but in doing so, they have now even failed in their original aim of keeping up wages The greatest single threat to strong trade unions, which are the most basic tools in keeping up the working class's living standards, is now the very unemployment which productivity deals helped to create.
When it comes to dealing with the problem of the already unemployed, the inadequacies of trade union policy are also shown. It is a very Important step forward that sections of the trade unions, such as districts of the T&G, are now rafusing to sign productivity deals which Involved unemployment, but in quite a few cases this is shutting the stable door after the horse has gone. A huge problem for the trade unions is now to orgarise-une prosenny unem ployed. This is a key question and one which at the same time shows all the short-sightedness of There are many reasons why trade union administrators prefer not to have to organise the unemployed. At the crudest possible level, there is the point that the unemployed do not pay as much dues as do members in employment. Also the unemployed do not fit into the nice tidy categories which many fulltime union organisers prefer to deal with. They are not all in one place, they are not easy to deal with, their problems are frequentiy of a very individual nature, which means he cannot fit them into his slot-like mind. Most important of all, however, the unemployed are an explosive section of the population. Their problems are so acute that in many cases it is obvious that appeals to "reason" "common sense" be acoepted. After all, the belief that basically our present society is all right might seem true if you are doing a E25-a-week job in a factory, but it seems much less reasonable if you are having to live on £8 a week on the dole. Because the problems of the unemployed are so acute. and the only solutions to their problems are so drastic, the trade union bureaucrat, who more than anything wishes to have a quiet life, prefers to avoid the question of organising the unem ployed. This means that unions do not set up special sections to deal with the organisation of their unemployed members, they do not allocate money and fulltime organisers to deal with Trades Councils they normally refuse to allow the unemployed to be represented. This may suit the trade union bureaucrat Dut unfortunately this lesson to the working class, they left the it is fatal for the working class. Once again, unemployment becomes an acid test, We can judge the extent to which a union's policies are decided by the interests of the working class and how much by the desires of the trade union administrators, by seeing to what extent that union seriousy undertakes the task of orgenising trying to spread with every means at its disposal. the unemo oved.
THE HISTORICAL USE OF THE WEAPON OF UWEMPLOYMENT In the worst days of the 1930s, over 2% million men were unemployed. Nearly one man in five was without a job. In some towns over 50% of the labour force was on the dole. These wore the darkest days for the working class this century. Not merely those out of work suffered. For those in work things were little better. The trace union organisation of the working class was smashed. Trade union membership had fallen by a half in only tweive years. If you look at a union like the Engineers', YOU LaH see that their membership, which had stood at 407,000 in 1920, had fallen to a mere 135,000 in 1933. This decline of working class organise tion was shown in a 10% fall in wage rates which occurred between 1924 and 1934. In Europe the situation was still worse. In Germany in particular, the refusal of the German trade unions to organise the unemployed workers resulted in a situation where, instead of the working class uniting against Hitler, he had been allowed, with the backing of the huge German industrialists, to come to power. Once in government, the first people he acted against were not the Jows, but the trade unions The smashing of the organisations of the German working class had been the reason why industria lists had backed him, and he had to carry out the of unused productive rusources and the level of tusk moy nao decided tor nim, It is tre persecution of the Jews we are taught about school, but it was the smashing of the trade unions which was his real aim. mination grew up in the working class that nothing like it would ever happen again. The power of this determination was recognised even by right-wing Tories. For example, Quintin Hogg, now Lord Hailsham, said in the House of Commons in 1943, "If you do not give the people reform they are going to give you revolution. Since 1945, every single government, whether Tory or Labour, has declared that it will maintain full employment. Yet when the working class organisations formed their determination never to return to the situation of the 1930h, they failed to malyse what were the lessons of that period. The trade unions failed to analyse that it was the refusal of the German trade unions to orga ruse the unemployed which created the condiions for the Fascists to do it themselves. They ruled to realise that it was only the refusal of the trade unions to launch a vigorous fight against unemployment which allowed Mosley's brownshirts to spread with some degree of success their racialist, anti-semitic and anti-trade union propaganda. Most Important of all, they did not analyse that it was capitalism that was responsible for unemployment. By not campeigning on this basis, and by not pointing out field open for alternative explanations of unemployment the most dangerous of which is of course that it is high wages which create unemployment.
This explanation of unemployment in terms of high wages is one which the government is The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Barber, said in the House of Commons on April 21st that, "I am in no doubt whatever that the major cause of the increase in unemployment is the absurdly high level of many of the pay settle ments which we have experienced since the autumn of 1969." This line of argument is taken up and thundered out millions of times every day in every single major newspaper. In reality. of course, this argument does not have a vestige of truth in it. In fact, if we look at things historically, unemployment normally accompanies low wages. The unemployment of the 1930s followed a whole period of years when wages had been falling. The reason why high unemployment and low wages always go together is, of course, that high unemployment is designed to destroy the power of the trade unions to win big wage increases. This is quite clearly understood tv the representatives of the amniowint class, and in fact the weapon of using unemplayment to hold down wage increases is an old one. The businessman's journal The Economist, for example, quite openly said that, "We must rel on unemployment to destroy the militancy of the trade unions." To take just one other example, the economist Professor Paish argues in his pamphlet Rise and Fall of Incomes Palicy that "Incomes must never again be allowed to Ts as tast relatively to output as i te last Tea years, and this, in turn, means that the margin unemployment must be higher than it has been since the war.
Barber's and the capitalists arguments are in fact so stupid that it is easy to refute them even The number of people in work is of course enormously affected by the number of goods which can be sold. The amount that can be sold is in turn decided by how much money is available to buy them, and one of the most impor tant things in deciding that is how many people are getting paid wages and how high those wages are. By cutting wages and increasing unemployment, so raising the number of people not receiving a pay packet at all, you are actually decreasing the amount of money available to buy goods. This will cut the sale of goods and therefore increase unemployment. In fact, to increase the number of goods that can be sold, and therefore cut unemployment, it is necessary to greatly increase wages In any sensible economic system that is what would be done to increase employment. Unfortunately ours is not a sensible economic system.
The stupidity of Barber's arguments are under stood by the TUC. They quite rightly say that the way to cure unemployment is to expand the economy and not to actually cut the amount political action. Here little is to be expected that can be sold by holding back wages. The TUC has argued that the way to cure the problem of unemployment is to expand the economy. A rate of growth of the economy pf 5% would cut unemployment by 300,000 in a year and would provide an extra £1,000 million-worth of goods, houses, services, schools, etc. Yet despite all this-the stupidity of the government's arguments, the fact that the solution to the economic problem in terms of growth is so obvious, despite the fact that the entire working class movement would fight with all its enormous strench against anv return to d 1930s type situation, the TUC remains paralysed. It fails to see that the problem of the 1930s was caused by capitalism, and that to avoid that type of situation capitalism needs to be destroyed and not tinkered with. You cannot skin a live tiger inch by inch. Capitalism may have changed its face, new men may be running it, it may have been forced to.make a fen concessions in the form of welfare services. but it still remains capitalism, and when the great god of profit demands a sacrifice in the shape of hundreds of thousands of unemployed, then as long as capitalism remains, its demands will be carried out by any government, whether it be Tory or Labour. By falling to campaign on that basis and instead trying to persuade the same men who create the problem of unemploy ment to solve it, the TUC shows its ideas to be completely unrealistic and utopian. As long as it is prepared to try to solve the problem of unemployment within capitalism, then the govemment can always point out that in order to expand the economy, employers demand greater profits, and that means holding back wages. Also by trying to solve the problems of unemployment within capitalism, it means that the TUC will not resolutely resist the government's productivity and restructuring schemes which are what helps to create the problem of unemployment in the first place.
Because in the past the Labour Party has been responsible tor not nignang unemproyment, or has actively created it, and because for their don reasons the trade unions have not wantud to organise the unamployed, the tusk of fallen on polifical organisations and on rank and file action. Unfortunately this situation still exists today. The votes of the UCS men to occupy the yards if necessary sets the pace, but throughout the country many similar fights, even if on a smaller scale, need to be fought. Many people are doing a tremendous job in Claimants Unions and similar organisations, but this work cannot be carried through success fully unless the official sections of the trade union movement can be forced into action. Certain actions in situations like UCS can be taken at once. These include bans on overtime, bans on productivity deals, worksharing But thase can only be short-term measures. In the long run, only measures of nationalisation and workers' control will safeguard the situation for workers on the Upper Clyde and others in similar situations. These con only be gained by massive trade union action, which necessarily means forcing the backing of the official sections of the trade union movement, and through froin the Labour Party. What is needed is for the trade unions themselves to draw up a scheme for a planned expanding economy. This is tum can only be done once control of investment is taken out of the hands of the capitalists and is placed under workers' control.
As for the work of organising the unemployed, because of the refusal of the official trade unions to do it, organisations like Claimants Unions are doing most of the work. It is vital that this work is continued, but these organisations must not be seen as perfect just because they are somehow "outside" the control of the union officials. On the contrary, work in these organisations is not a substitute for work inside the official movement; it is a way of ensuring that the maximum possible leverage is exerted inside the official movement. Every trade unionist can see the force of arguments for the unemployed to be represented on Trades Councils and for the trade unions to allocate funds and manpower to organising the unemployed, These facts are so obvious that militants will wage big fights against trade union officials to get these things accepted. Unemployment is an issue in which the inade quacy of reformist trade union leaders can be seen not at some high level of abstraction but on a matter of day-to-day struggle which is at the same time a matter of life and death for trade unionism. In the 1930s, the Communist Party undertook the task of building move ments of the unemployed. Now it is too enmeshed in parliamentarianism and reformist trade unionism to do so. The small revolutionary groups can now make an impact in a struggle which is central to the needs of the working class, As Trotsky said, living in a revolutionary epoch does not mean that you can ignore the day to day struggle of the working class; what it does mean, however, is that even the day-to day struggle can be carried on within a revolutionary perspective, In the case of unemployment, we can go further; what the whole experience of the period since 1945 shows is that only those with a revolutionary perspective can carry on successfully the day-to-day wark of the struggle against unemployment. The opportunities are there if only revolution