the engineering industry should be borne in mind throughout this article. Some 2% million workers are employed in the industry. It has often been pointed out that it is less an industry than a constellation of industries, encompassing firms in the manufacture of all types of metal goods: machinery, components, electrical equipment, shipbuilding, aircraft, automobiles.1 Most of the largest firms in Britain fall within this category: G.K.N., Hawker, G.E.C./A.E.I., Plessey, Thorn, I.C.L., Vickers, B.S.A., British Leyland, Vauxhall, Lucas, etc. etc. Its size alone makes it the most decisive group of industries for the overall performance of British capitalism. Covering the majority of these firms is the Engineering Employ ers Federation. The EEF, as an institution, has a vast impact on the political and economic policies of the State. Politically and economically, this group, even leaving aside its vast financial operations and interconnections, is the backbone of the manufacturing section of the capitalist class. On the union side, the largest and most important union in the CSEU is the AUEW, followed by the T & GWU.Both the industry and the unions are theretore pivotal to the strength of the two respective sides of the class struggle.
A More Sophisticated Approach Unlike the industries in the public sector which suffered big defeats last winter, wage bargaining in the engineering industry tollows a two-tier pattern. The C.S.E.U. negotiates at national level to fix minimum rates. These are not even time rates, but simple national minima beneath which the wages of no worker in the industry must fall. The actual wage packet, for all but a very small percentage of workers, is largely made up of time rates, piece-rates, overtime and bonus system, all of which are negotiated locally, on a plant or company basis. Hence vast differentials result between different groups of workers. The best paid are skilled men on piece rates, the worst paid are unskilled men who benefit only indirectly from the high wages of the skilled piece-cate mer Only the least soilled and least well organised have a great deal to gain from gradual rises on minimum rates. For the skilled men, however. actual earnings are determined by the power of the shop floor to negotiate a high rate for a given job, and the national dealings are of secondary interest. (By comparison, for workers in those industries which have a single bier structure, everything stands or falls by the annual wage claim. These workers are relatively easy game for a determined State machine-e.g. the postal workers, municipal workers, etc.) Because overall earnings are determined by the balance of bargaining power on the shop floor and around the job in hand, rather than by the ability of the union to sustain an all out once and for all confrontation, the employers and Government will look to more sophisticated methods than those employed against any other group of Conflict over the Function of the Claim The claim includes many features which the EEF and CSEU will no doubt bargain over for a long time into the future. But one component of the present package breaks this picture. This is a demand for a 'substantial increase'. This has been rejected by the EEF This warrants some attention because it takes us into the relationship between the internal politics of the AUEW and the economic pressures on the rank and file. There were strong moves at the AUEW conference in April for the claim to consist of a demand for a straightforward across-the-board E6 a week increase. Some militants wished this to replace bargaining on minimum rates, others to supplement it. Militants felt that in view of the rising cost of living this was the only guarantee they had of maintaining their living standards. It was Hugh Scanlon himself, however, who defended the traditional pattern, warned the conference that the EEF would refuse such a demand and that for delegates to back it would lead to a serious fight(!) Scanlon repeated the arguments which constitute his left wing political platform in the AUEW: National bargaining helps close differentials and protects the poorly paid unskilled men in the industry. whilst it is bargaining at plant level which actually puts the flesh on the bone'. The defstep forward (but it must not be forgotten that the CSEU were prepared to accept status quo in relation to their own side-i.e. workers could take action on an issue while it was being processed, albeit through a shortened procedure). Some argue that the unions' withdrawal from York is a threat to force the employers to yield on the claim. However, withdrawal ense and extension of shop floor power was the key, and this policy of power to the shop floow was enshrined in the programme of the AUEW since his accession to power. The vote was swung against an across the board increase by the force of Scanlon's prestige. A demand for a 'substantial increase' was included as a compromise measure while the traditional structure of the claim was to continue.
The Balance of Bargaining Power If we examine the current economic situation in the industry and the economy as a whole, it can be seen, and was undoubtedly felt by the militants at the conference, that Scanion's position corresponds to a state of affairs which no longer prevails. The arrival of a period of first stagnant and then falling output in the industry, combined with rampant price inflation in the economy as a whole leaves the engineering workers in a position which is far from the straightforward one it was before 1970.
Engineering workers can gain real increases in earnings only by pushing up the piece-rate in individual plants on individual jobs (using all the methods of comparability etc.). However, stagnant output in the economy results in seriously falling output in the engineering industry. There are exceptions to this generalization of course. Automobiles for example, are experiencing a mini-boom at present, but fall, properly speaking, in the category of consumer goods. But the main body of the engineering industry-from machine tools to all types of machinery-is constituted by capital goods. Clearly any stagnation in the overall output of the economy produces a much deeper and longer trough on the ordergraphs of engineering firms, as consumer goods industries cut or suspend their investment programmes drastically. This is seen to have its most drastic effect on the machine tool industry where orders during any month of 1971 have been at least 40% lower than any equivalent month in 1970.2 This has coincided with a marked decline in orders from overseas. The effects this type of situation has on the shop-floor is to set in reverse the relationship of bargaining forces which existed previous to 1970. Rising output created a situation in goods industries for obvious reasons) and where piece-rates could be forced up. The reversal is particularly vicious. Firstly, the decline in the volume of work automatically cuts earnings by loss of overtime bonuses. etc., and short time working despite rises in the rate. But the ability to force the rates up is now weakened by two further factors. The employers, once a certain point of stagnation is reached are prepared to risk strikes since their order books are low and the consequent savings on the wage bill as a result of being temporarily closed down are welcome to the employer. This ability to take à strike is demonstrated by the recent re-appearance of lock outs in the engineering industry. Secondly the level of unemployment has a direct effect on bargaining power over rates. It must be remembered that historically, piece-rates have not resulted from any particular technical factors but from conscious imposition by the employers during the period of high unemployment in the twenties. If you didn't like the rate, plenty were at the gate who would take it. Correspondingly, workers who had fixed wage packets had some protection and would fight standing battles before their earnings were cut (e.g. the miners). The period of boom and full employment since the last War exactly reversed this relationship so that engineers are now among the highest paid group of workers in the country. The reappearance of severe unemployment however enables the employers to go over to the offensive again in this respect. The re-appearance of unemployment in Coventry engineering firms for example for the first time since the War, provided the signal for 1 the employers current offensive in that area; the struggle over the Coventry Toolroom Agreement, in which lock-outs were used, is only the beginning here.
The EEF and the Claim In this type of situation, the militants begin to look beyond the piece-rate for some improvement in their economic position. This is the root meaning of the incident at the April conference described earlier. The compromise however throws them back on their resources at a time when the basis of their power is being eroded, and the employers are taking advantage of this to launch an offensive. The strategy the EEF will employ is clear. On the one hand, the negotiations over minimum national wage levels will be spun out indefinitely. The first offer made by the EEF was of a E1.50 a week on the minimum rates from next July! Equal pay for women of course will be postponed for ever. But the question of the 'substantial increase' has to be resolved. If the CSEU is forceful about this component of the deal-and it will be difficult for them to face next year's conferences if they are not-then the EEF will suggest that this is bargained on a plant basis. For the reasons outlined above, the EEF have little to fear from this since the general balance of bargaining forces in the plants is now turning in their favour. Moreover, they demonstrated this to their own satisfaction earlier this year in the case of the DATA wage claim. DATA placed a claim for a f9 a week across-the-board for its white collar staff in the engineering industry. The EEF's offer of E2-E3 was rejected and plant bargaining initiated. The result was that in hardly a single case did the settlements rise above this level. The economic situation is now worse than when DATA put their claim, and at least the DATA claim had a figure attached to it. However, if the CSEU and EEF do go for plant bargaining on this issue, it will be complicated by a further factor. From now on there will be no procedure in the industry. Indeed it is around the York Procedure Agreements that the central struggle may well take place irrespective of what happens to the pay claim.
What are the York Agreements?
The 1922 Agreement establishes a procedure through which both local disputes and local claims are processed. Under this procedure, negotiations take place on an ad hoc basis on particular issues arising. In many industries there are standing Joint Industrial Councils which often meet at several levels and on which both unions and employers are represented. In engineering however, this is not the case. If disputes are not settled between the worker/steward and the Foreman or Shop Manager than they pass on to Works Conference Beyond this scanty domestic structure there are Local and Central Conferences. These consist of panels of employers judging the merits of trade union claims, and acting as judge and jury on their own cases. If no settlement is reached then the question is passed on to York where it is dealt with at national level. It takes an average of 13 weeks for a dispute to get to York, and in 1966 for example, of the 519 cases heard, only 55 were settled. More than a 'cooling-off' device, this farcical procedure gives the employers a free hand to initiate changes of all kinds while disputes are shunted off to one side. Money claims. for instance can be passed back and forth, saving thousands of pounds.
Negotiations to obtain fuller domestic procedures, and the substitution of Joint Industrial Councils for the lengthy and one-sided external stages of procedure, broke down in the spring. The main point of difference has been on the 'status quo'. The operation of the status quo would mean that employers would no longer have the right to go ahead with any changes in 'material, means or methods' which had been disputed, while is pretty irrevocable. Moreover, the AUEW have now sent out instructions to all groups of shop stewards to go ahead and attempt to negotiate a local disputes procedure, plant by plant. The danger of this&/iew however is that it assumes the EEF really want the York Agreement to stay as they are. They don't. They too want a revised procedurebut on a rather different basis as we shall see.
What Are the Bosses After?
The disadvantages to the employer of lengthy external and scant internal procedures have been pointed out in the Donovan Report and many subsequent papers by employers associations. Where groups of workers are strong enough to carry out almost spontaneous strike action, the existence of a disputes procedure that was originally designed by the employers as a cooling off device, further encourages workers to vote with their feet. In April 1970, the CBI published the findings of a CBI Study Group. It made the point by saying that lengthy procedures undermine local authority'. They also pointed out that where employers were now seeking to tie wages to productivity, the existence of a domestic dispute procedure was essential. Without this it was impossible to carry through daily decisions with speed and deal with disputes quickly and 'safely. Moreover the sophistication of this type of bargaining demands that many questions be settled on the spot by experts (e.g. on work study) who are resident on the shop floor and not called in only at Local Conference level or beyond to pass judgement at several removes from concrete reality. One of the complaints of the EEF against the unions has been that the acceptance in 1968 by the CSEU of productivity agreements got no further than an acceptance in principle. When it came to the shop floor, the workers were hostile. The employers then found themselves with no established and 'credible' machinery for putting across any detailed proposals or carrying out the constant negotiations by stick and carrot that normally accompany a transition to a system of productivity based earnings and/or measured daywork.
The Study Group also makes the point that the main reason for a firm joining an employers association is to gain access to its procedure machinery with the unions. In recent years many firms have left the EEFChrysler, for example,-to conclude their own agreements. Finally, the Group laid heavy emphasis on the need for a procedure which the men could be brought to see as "credible'.
All these points were made by the Donovan Report. According to Donovan, lack of credible procedure resulted in a lack of management policy in the plant, absence of successful productivity bargaining (hence a failure of incomes policy) absence of a coherent wage structure, a loss of management control and a general failure to develop management expertise. Donovan saw the practices of the EEF as doing nothing to reduce the number of wildcat' and 'unconstitutional' strikes in Britain, most of which fell under its jurisdiction. 'Adequate" domestic procedures would therefore help reassert management control over the productive process and union control over the militants.
The EEF State their Demands The response of the EEF to Donovan is outlined in the pamphlet: "The Donovan Report, An Assessment by the EEF,"4 "Throughout its Report, the Commission displays a good deal of optimism as to the effect which an extension of factory agreements is likely to have in improving industrial relations. While the Federation appreciates that improved procedure...... could help to reduce the number of strikes
due to misunderstandings, this greater 'orderliness" in the factories is no guarantee that the agreements will not continue to be flouted." (p. 18) "The Federation's greatest criticism of the Commission's Report is that it has largely discounted the present-day realities of union power at workshop and district levels. (p. 30) For the EEF, full employment is the "principal cause of the disorder in the system which the Commission describes" (p. 13), compounded by "unregulated trade union activity at plant level" (p.10). The EEF demands that unions discipline their members in the plants, and steps should be taken, both by the unions and the law, to break the district committees of shop stewards which are so powerful in the industry. These committees, while having no formal negotiating powers, act as coordinating bodies in local disputes, organising solidarity, finance for unconstitutional strikes, etc. Further the EEF demands some help in solving the 'problem' of multi-unionism in one plapt, by which unions compete for members on the basis of their militancy.
The EEF admits local bargaining and local agreements would be favourable to it-but only if the EEF are given the weapons to break the combativity and confidence of the shop floor as well. Without that there would be no guarantee, in the view of the EEF, that a move towards local structures would not serve to re-inforce militancy. The EEF is reluctant to abandon the York Agreements until these weapons are available. A far more comprehensive legal framework than that advocated by Donovan "will eventually have to be provided"* (p.30).
The Tory Response- The Bill and the AUEW The sophistication of the Industrial RElations Bill is in large measure an attempt by the Tory Party to satisfy the demands of the EEF. Many of its features are undoubtediy aimed specifically at the engineering unions. Take the question of sole bargaining agents for instance. The institution of sole bargaining agents is aimed directly at the situation in engineering where various groups of shop stewards engineering industry which the EEF has refand various groups of shop stewards from different unions, are active in one plant, and who are supplemented in turn by the district commit. tees of stewards. A sole bargaining unit would effectively make activity by other bodies inside or outside the plant, illegal. The definition of the bargaining unit by the Court of Industrial Relations, would bring together in a single, legally definable, unit, selected and 'approved" representatives from any plant or company. In many cases, where reference to the Court had been made, smaller unions could be placed outside the bargaining system altogether; in other cases, the most powerful union could have its representatives brushed aside for those of a weaker one. Militants would also be frozen out' through the selection of 'approved' representatives. This bargaining unit would of course ential the simultaneous creation of a procedure. But it would be a procedure which in many cases was approved by the Court, was legally enforceable, and excluded all extra-procedural action from the area. This, combined with tough legal measures in the Act against 'unofficial' action in general (see "The Industrial Relations Bill, A Declaration of War', Peter Hampton, IMG publications, for a fuller outline) would be far more effective to the EEF than the optimism of Donovan, which advocated a good measure of voluntary effort and hope, in those areas that the EEF defines as being at the heart of the problem.
The assertion that the Industrial Relations Act is aimed primarily at the engineering unions, should be taken seriously. It is no accident that Hugh Scanion is the only important member of the TUC advocating a tough line on the non-registration policy. The strategic position of both the engineering unions and the engineering industry must also be borne in mind. A shiftto the right on the part of Scanion for instance would make the TUC far more amenable to Government pressure than it is already, and would temporarily demoralise the working class as a whole. The industry itself. controlled by the largest and most reactionary employers association in the country, includes a big proportion of the largest corporations whose interests the Labour Party had at heart during the period of merger, rationalisation and capital investment in the sixties, and which forms a vital part of the future of British capitalism in the EEC.It also includes a host of small employers who form the power base for the Powellite wing of the Tory Party. Nor is it just the fact that the greatest number of 'unofficial" strikes occur in this industry: the industry is also confronted with a system of wage-payment which is a barrier to capital investment in the sense that it inhibits total management control over the work process.
SCANLON This analysis enables us, before going on to discuss the possible course of events, to take a brief look at Scanlon. Obviously, for the variety of reasons we have discussed, the position on the shop floor is significantly different to that of other sectors of industry. Elsewhere, whilst the status quo provision is not necessarily written into procedures, a much larger measure of it actually prevails than is the case in engineering. The reason why relations cannot be 'normalised' in the industry from the EEF's point of view is because normalisation can only occur after or simultaneously with the smashing of an abnormally powerful shop floor. In other industries for example, where the work force is more passive and the union less militant management is, on the whole, quite able to accommodate 'adequate' consulation on disputes arising from say changes in working methods following from a productivity deal. The reason for this is that success for the employer in this type of operation has little to do with the number of times workers are allowed to complain about changes in working methods, but on the contrary on how prepared the men are to walk out when they discover that the changes have resulted in worsening of conditions, in redundancy, etc.
Scanion'sadvocacy of' workers control" is in fact little more in practice than advocacy of the normalisation" of plant relations inan industry where relations are decidedly abnormal!
Similarly, his platform in the AEUW of-to paraphrase it-"power to the shop stewards" is again a demand for formal recognition and ratification of the existing reality in the used in the past to accept. With the break-up of the Carron clique in the mid-sixties, Scanlon's left wing position stands out in greater relief.
The Big Showdown?
Given this analysis of the question of procedures and shop floor power, the point that is being made should by now be obvious. Whilst any future decision to negotiate the 'substantial increase' plant by plant, and the decision already taken to instruct shop stewards to negotiate a dispute procedure plant by plant, flow quite logically from Scanlon's ideology, they do not necessarily represent the best course of action in present economic and political conditions. Indeed, the policy of individual groups of workers fighting to acquire a disputes procedure on terms which have been rejected nation: ally is fraught with dangers. From all that has been said it should be clear that the Government would almost certainly take the decision to allow groups of engineering employers to have recourse to the Industrial Relations Court. The Court is now established. Many members of the EEF will see this as a now-ornever situation—a million unemployed, a backward TUC which cannot even co-ordinate a non-registration policy, the employers willing and able to fight. Many would see this as the opportunity to solve their problems in one blow. A procedure imposed by the Court has to be between precisely defined parties. Hence the imposition of 'sole bargaining units' is inevitably entailed by Court imposed procedures. It is also reasonable to suppose that the EEF have been weakening the AUEW financially before the winter. The EEF had such a policy in relation to DATA earlier in the year. It circularized its members to provoke confrontations expensive to the unions as a preliminary to suggesting to DATA that the negotiations on its claim should take place on a plant by plant basis.s Moreover, in its economic report for 1971, the EEF openly calls for the use of legal measures against "certain groups of workers" The Tories have more than satisfied its demand for 'effective" legal machinery to be set up. Even were none of this to occur immediately, the simultaneous demands by groups of workers for both a wage increase and a procedureassuming this to be possible and that it becomes CSEU policy —would result in many plants in one demand being swapped for another. Not very favourable to the workers! Alternatively a national strike over the York Agreements could not result in the Agreement being re-imposed in the same shape or form-the terms of the present Act in regard to procedures do not cover agreements between unions and employers associations. Hence the behaviour of the AUEW and the CSEU is strange. No threats or preparations to use the whole power of the union in a unified and coordinated way have been made on either of the two issues. Instead the isolated powers of isolated workers are to be used when the rank and file are under extreme attack. This is not a useful strategy to employ. Moreover the course of the whole war could be decisively affected by the outcome of the engineering battle. Thus for example, if the Court is invoked (registration or non-registration is not the issue here) in a local battle, Scanion and the left bureaucracy are faced with a choice. Either they live up to their word and call an all out strike where previously their policy has been to avoid one, or else they back down. This would constitute a massive defeat in the eyes of the trade union movement who are still looking to the engineers for a lead on this and other questions.
By calling no action when talks on York broke down and agreeing to follow procedure(1) for cancellation, the unions have given the employers time to prepare, to exhaust the union funds further, and have insured that the battle be staged in conditions less favourable than previously. and with less effective weapons at its disposal. Scanion's policies on the questions in hand are essentially the product not of any attachment to rank and file struggle but of a fear of upsetting the balance of power inside the TUC which would freeze Scanion out. In this closed world of timidity, the basic determinant of policy is the "confidence" of investors. An effective policy moreover for killing the York agreements would make even non-registration under the Act a rather more dangerous game for the other bureaucracies in the TUC. The pressure of capitalist ideology. which pretends to deduce unemployment from high wages, moreover, makes even the existing AUEW package appear to the TUC as an obstacle to the future agreement on an incomes policy.
Consequences of a Defeat-The Bourgeoisie, Labour, the Unions and the Left.
If this analysis is broadly correct, then two consequences could follow if the Government allowed the new Act to be used and the employers conducted a massive attack. Firstly, the most powerfully organised and highly conscious sections of workers would continue to fight ferocious local battles, attacking both the employers and the recalcitrant union bureaucracy in desparate defensive battles. On the other hand, the mass of workers, inside and outside engineering, would reach the half-conscious conclusion that the battle on the trade union front was lost and the time had come to attempt to solve their problems on the political front-i.e. it would accelerate the drift back into the Labour Party. For syndicalist currents on the Left, the first type of occurrence would be welcomed uncritically. These tendencies in characteristic fashion confuse the concepts of bureaucracy and centralisation. That is they fail to understand that centralised command and co-ordinated action in a trade union is vital to winning those battles, the outcome of which change the general relationship of forces. The obstacle to this of course is the lack of an adequate political leadership in the union. But to attempt to throw out a politically bankrupt bureaucracy by throwing out centralisation is to throw out the baby with the bathwater. The point is of course to change the political forces inside of the union, not to 'solve' the problem by attempting to 'bypass' the question of the bureaucracy altogether, thereby leaving it in absolute command. To retain and strengthen the centralised co-ordination of the union however requires the prior creation of layer upon layer of highly conscious workers who are strong enough not to be thrown back when the existing leadership j is bankrupt and who have sufficient influence to wield the power of the whole union behind alternative policies.
Accompanying this would be an acceleration of a general drift back into the Labour Party as a political focus. Neither must it be too easily assumed that the Labour Party is dead. The post-war character of the Labour Party-a party with bourgeois policies and a mass working class base —has been made possible by a divergence of interests between the manufacturing and financial wings of the British bourgeoisie, the former seeking expansionist policies, high levels of domestic investment coupled with protectionist demands, the latter seeking deflationary and restrictionist policies in the interests of sterling and its own position as international banker.
At the moment, the Labour Party has lost its dual programme because the Tory Pary has been able to gain the allegiance of both wingsdeflation and a trade balance combined with massive assaults on the trade unions. Entry into the EEC is also popular with both sectors. The extent to which the Labour Party is dead or dying depends not on whether or not reformist gains are or are not possible in the present period, la policy of reversing Tory decisions is adequate in this respect) but on whether the conditons inside the bourgeoisie enable the Labour Party to base part of its programme on this cleavage, hence sustaining its dual programme. This depends on very large questions beyond the scope of this articlefor instance how resolvable is this divergence of interests in the long term-bearing in mind the contraction of the sterling area, the greater integration of banks with corporations since the last war, and the greater integration of British and European imperialism in the EEC. But clearly a defeat for the engineers would provide the preconditions for more rapid investment in the backbone of British manufacturing at the same time as it sig nalled the retreat of the wage offensive thus paving the way for more expansionist policies These consequences following this type of defeat, might begin to loosen the political hold of the Tory Party over the corporations which it has acquired with the IRB and EEC policies. This might provide a basis for the Labour Party to rebuild the traditional alliance, advocating re-expansion of the economy-a better deal for the corporations inside the EEC ('renegotiate the terms' and get tough with the Eurocrats) bringing simultaneously to the corporations an incomes policy from the unions and proposals for massive public expenditure on the economic infrustruc ture ('public works" solution to unemployment). At the present moment in time, the Labour Party cannot move in either direction without loosing the possibility of regaining its former character. But again, a defeat for the engineers would accelerate the pressure from the working class base for a radical posture by the Labour Party, e.g. on unemployment and the repeal of the anti-union laws (if the Act is used substantially on the engineers then the Labour Party will promise to reform it-after it has done its work).
If a revival of the Labour Party is again on the cards, then a defeat for the engineers will not only accelerate it, but it will contribute to undermining the essential prerequisite for the working class in these conditions: a trade union movement strong enough to take independent initiatives.
NOTES 1 Peter Smith, The Engineering Settlement, Trade Union Register 1969.
2 Financial Times, 8.5.1971 3 Many of the details that follow are taken from Michael Somerton The Proposal for changes in the Engineering Procedural Agreements" - T.U. Register 1970.
4 The Donovan Report. An Assessment by the EEF Jan. 1969. Published by the EEF.
5 For further details see Financial Times, 4.5.71 and 21.7.71.
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which employers could not risk a strike (delivery dates are all important in capital