in last week's Red Weekly, Steve Bodington of the Institute for Workers Control stressed the importance of workers' control. He emphasised its importance in the fight against the anarchy of capitalism and pointed out the role it can play in working towards a socialist society.
ist solutions, his article suffers from an almost eternal timelessness and lack of concrete prop osals for action. Most of the arguments he uses nave been popular currency in "workers'" control" circles for many years now. Even given that the article was written before the annoncement of the Healey measures, tnere is little suggestion that the workers' movement is facing the greatest onslaught launched by the ruling class since the 1930s.
The Healey measures did not come out of thin air. They were a response by the Labour Government to the present crisis of British capitalism. What comrade Bodington fails to do is to put the struggle for workers control in the context of that crisis and the major new problems facing working class militants. And without doubt, a problem that these militants have to confront is the tact that it is the Labour Government that is leading the attack.
TURNING BLIND EYE No mention is made of the fact that Benn who will be summing-up at the Institute of Workers' Control Conference this weekend - was chopped a few weeks ago from the key post of Minister for Industry, from where he claimed to be working for the introduction of comrade Bodington's people-power'. And this same Benn now sits in a Government imposing the biggest wage cuts since Ramsay McDonald. We therefore have the spectacle of this advocate of 'people-power' collaborating in a Government that openly serves 'capital We are all for collaborating with Benn or any member of the Labour leadership - but on the simple condition that they are on the right side of the barricades on the central question of the hour. At the moment Benn is on the wrong side, acquiescing in a violent attack on the very militant workers who alone can really wage the struggle for workers control. It is a disgrace that such a person should make the final address to the Conference; what the IWC shourd be demanding is that he resigns from the Government to wage a struggle against its policies or else is given no platform at the Conference.
And incidentally, comrade Bodington is very wrong if he believes that cuddling up to Benn, no matter what he does, will enable the IWC to 'gain credibility'. On the contrary, by associating itself with people launching vicious attacks on the working class, all the IWC will do is to ensure that sections of militant workers turn away from it. The IWC should be going out of its way to give a platform to every trade fused, who opposes these measures. It should give no platform at all to anyone who doesn t. If and when Benn changes his line on this he should be given a platform - but not until.
THEORY ONLY Comrade Bodington is right to stress that workers' control is directly relevant.to the problems and tasks facing the working class in their fight against the capitalist crisis. But he only makes the point - he doesn't actually demonstrate how this truth actually works out in pracuce.
He makes the valid point that the working class should look beyond its immediate concerns and take up broader questions about who holds power in society and how that can be changed. But if you don't first have clear cut answers about what the working class should do to meet the practical material problems that are hitting it over the head every day, then all this talk of power' is meaningless.
Look at the TUC. Almost exactly two years ago they published a report on 'Industrial Democracy which made quite sweeping proposals for the whittling down of the authority of shareholders and company managers in favour of elected workers renrecentatives The *...could focus the struggle to shift the balance of power in Britain, and move the country in the direction of socialist democracy.
Two years have passed, and what has the TUC done about this Report? Nothing except sit on it. And now this same TUC, far from moving 'in the direction of socialist democracy', has negotiated a deal which will involve a massive cut in the living standards of the working class! This is why it is vital that the IWC Conference must place right at the top of its agenda the organisation of the fight against Labour's incomes policy.
Many of the economic demands of the IWC and even of the Tribune MPs are widely accepted in the working class. Obviously the IMG has many criticisms of these policies and does not consider that they are far-reaching enough. However, it is not primarily at present on the questions of simple economic policies that the most central divisions on the left lie. AU IVE IWC should not give Benn a platform while he sits in the Labour Government, but only if ....
For example, the economic proposals put forward by the Tribune Group do not go nearly far enough either in nationalisation or steps to protect the working class from inflation and unemployment. Nevertheless these measures, if put into practice, would mean a real short term improvement in living standards particularly compared to Healey's cuts. Where however, absolutely massive differences exist is on how these can be fought for.
The "left' MPs put their economic proposals forward in a context outside of and separate from the present struggles of the working class.
They offer their plans as an 'answer without seeing that it is only through using the strength of the working class and thereby advancing the latter's struggles that such policies can ever hope to be implemented.
Whilst there is no doubt that centralised action through a government is the best way to call for these measures, they cannot be lett in cold storage until one day there is a 'left' wages, for example, is a demand that can and should be fought for now. That can be achieved by mass industrial action - backed by the Labour lett - and is not dependent on a Parliamentary majority.
The winning of such a demand would not only defend the working class against the ravages of inflation, but it would give an enormous boost to its confidence, develop an anti-capitalist consciousness amongst wide sections of workers, and strengthen the workers movement in relation to the ruling class.
The fight for a sliding scale of wages, a shorter working week with work-sharing and no loss of pay; the nationalisation of all firms threatening redundancies; reversal of the present Budget cuts; the launching of a massive programme of public works, financed by taxing the rich and abolishing defence spending; and the nationalisation of the banks, insurance and finance companies under workers' control - all this can only be achieved if the movement is based on the strength and organisation of the working class. And such organisation cannot be simply conjured out of thin air. It has to be built up both by central policies and by linking these policies at every stage to the living struggles of working people.
If we go beyond the present stage of the class struggle and consider the situation of a VULN future ' left wing' government, this shows equally clearly that any movement for workers' control not clearly rooted in mass organisation and struggle will get nowhere. Against a lett wing government attempting to implement radical mesures of economic reform, there is not the slightest doubt that the ruling class will employ massive measures of economic sabotage. Chile and Portugal - as well as what was done to block the nationalisation of the Steel Industry in 1950-51 — are salutary reminders of this. Only massive organisation at at the base, an organisation developed for An attempt at political as well as economic sabotage by the ruling class is also certain. It would need massive organisation of the working class — the development of workers councils of the type which began to appear in Chille has to be'linked to organisation moving in this direction, and campaigned for over many years, otherwise it will end up in the Santiago stadium and not in a socialist solution. By leaving out this crucial political dimension. comrade Bodington leaves the movement for workers' control up in the air BEGIN DISCUSSION The issues which face this IWC Conference are many. Under the best of circumstances, it will gather only a small fraction of those forces in the labour movement who are prepared to fight Government policy. Moreover, the IWC itself has functioning local organisations in only two or three areas, and even they are very weak. What the IWC Conference can do is start the discussion on how to fight Government policy and , even more important start the organisation of those torces prepared to lead a fightback If the IWC Conferênce were to issue a clear call for the organisation of national and local united conferences and organisation of the labour movement to discuss how to fight incomes policy and resist the attacks, if all the delegates attending were pledged to build such conferences, and if the apparatus of the IWC were committed to campaign in the labour movement for such conferences, a major step forward in uniting and organising the left agains the Government would have been taken.
LINKS There may be some who consider these steps a 'diversion' from the IWC's stated goal of popularising workers control. But quite the opposite is true. In order successfully to win the mass of workers against the policies of the pro-capitalist forces within the workers' movement, it is necessary not only to have alternative policies on paper to those of Wilson but to clearly link these at every stage to the struggles of the working class. Without this, all comrade Bodington's fine sentiments on workets control will simply remain pipe dreams
. red weekly 17 july 1975 maynard interview
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But despite its non sectarian approach and its obviously genuine attempt to propound sociai- Brian Slocock replies to Steve Bodington's article in last week's RED WEEKLY
many years in advance, can break such sabotage ECONOMIC SABOTAGE
INT• TEI