Cries of "poofs" and 'get back to the kitchen"
greeted several revolutionary socialist men and women when they got up to speak at the recent conference of the Liaison Committee for the Defence of Trade Unions. These jibes revealed very clearly some deep-rooted ideas about the family, ideas holding back otherwise very politically advanced militants.
A good illustration of these ideas was a picture on one of the Yorkshire colliery banners at the Wakefield Miners Galn. It showed a family husband, wife, son and daughter - mounting hand in hand a flight of steps on which were written Family Allowances", "Pensions", etc.
Al the top was an archway, inscribed with the word 'Socialism', beyond which a green and plcasant land awaited the family, retat anti abortion rally in Manchester drew close to 50,000 people Tha sums up an understanding of socialism unates the Hritish labout movement that there will be a gradual, steady, peaceful mogress untu capitalism i somehow finally islated out of existence. The family is seen a playing an essential role in this process; in is view the place of women is in the kitchen, however well equipped with fridges and dishI DON'T WORK I ONLY HOUSEWIFE.
CONFERENCE ON THE FAMILY LEEDS POLYTECHNIC UNION SATURDAY 12th May HISTORY OF THE FAMILY washers, and there is no place for homosexuals in this small tightly knit unit. The family unit is to be detended and improved, not challenged and analysed. Even the Communist Party sees the family as a boat sailing across the choppy seas of capitalism, propelled by the breeze of a rising standard of living and expanding welfare services into the safe harbour of socialism (see Women: the Road to Equality and Socialism, But this cosy picture has been shattered as the economic crisis has led to cuts in state welfare provision, rocketing prices, and forced more women to go out to work, It is at such times, when the safe vessel' of the family begins to spring a few leaks, that the forces of reaction rally to its defence. An example of this was the big anti-abortion demonstration in Manchester a few weeks ago, organised by supporters of the Festival of Light and other similar right-wing advocates of the Christian family and the boys of motherhood" In reality, it is the unpaid work of the wife in the home - cooking, cleaning, bringing up the children which provides the capitalists with a labour force, the husband, and a future labour force, the children. The capitalist takes no responsibility for the provision of the labour force he exploits, for whenever the economy runs into problems it's the family that carries the burden; through increased prices, lower wages, cuts in social expenditure, bad housing. unemployment, etc. Through the family, the cconomic dependence of women on men gives rise to the myth that women are inferior, to the sexual repression of women, and to their frequent conservatism (which the employers and the bourgeois press are quick to use against men on strike), not to mention the various aspects of the oppression of children, SOCIALIST REVOLUTION A socialist revolution opens up enormous possibilities for change in this pattern. After the Russian Revolution, for example, women were given full political and legal quality. Even more important, the first steps were taken to free women from the 'shut-in petty enterprise of the family. Nurseries, creches, communal laundries and restaurants for all were set up, releasing women from the treadmill of domestic labour Great advances were made in providing (2.25 paper) | Alf Jenning FIGHT IN INDUSTRY workers conflict?
director.
flict with the shop floor? Workers" Control,by Ernie Roberts (George Allen & Unwin, £4.25 hard, "Workers" Control' is a subject much shrouded in mystery, and the term is used to mean many different things. Attempts at clarification ure therefore extremely welcome. But unfortunate ly Ernie Roberts book fails in this respect. Rather than attempt to give a precise answer to the problem of what exactly workers' control might be, it evades this crucial theoreti cal problem by a simple device: every step forward in the class struggle is workers' The fight on the shop floor, the struggle to democratise the unions, the fight for international trade unionism, worker directors, the accountability of the Parliamentary Labour Party to conference, the battle against redundancies, occupation tactics, and the very existence of the shop stewards movement all this and much more is 'workers' control".
The most concrete sections of the book are those dcaling with the fight in industry. Roberts examines some of the many workers' control schemes which have been put forward over the years in various industries - cars, aircraft, capitalists steel, mines and the docks. The common demand is worker participation in management al all levels in the process of decision-making But this raises the question: don't the interests of the management and the interests of the The way Roberts deals with this problem is highly unsatisfactory. For example, he readily admits that the worker directors in steel are a fraud. But according to Roberts the trouble is that they are not directly elected and accountable to the workers. Leaving aside some curious remarks - slips? - elsewhere in the book (p. 175) that worker directors should receive the same salary as other directors (not guaranteed to go down well on the shop floor), Roberts believes that direct election will save the worker directors from corruption Workers should have the right to withdiaw their represcalative if he tails to protect their interests to the full extent of bis powers as a But don't his 'powers as a director' mean that regardless of his wishes be will come into con- of the matter.
This probiem is neatly sidp-stepped by linking workers participation with demands for nationalisation. Because tbeo, as the BEA workers believed (p. 175); The workers are the Corpuration, and their interests must coincide.
Proposals for workers' co-management are attempts to substitute something called "industrial democracy" for the class strugele. To sanctily this us workers control only helps the criemy. The democratic facade hides the Teal problem: which class really controls which The Hull dock-worker group who published the Hamberride Voice in 1965 had the right idea. Roberts describes how they bebeved "no workers could remain uncorrupred, once clected to a place on the board. Following tha healthy instinct, they shaped their proposals in such a way that they avoided the trap of co-management, despite simultaneously demanding nationalisation of the ports. They demanded the establishment of Portworkers Councils with power of continuous supervision over the National Port Autbority at both national and local leveis. These Councils would have no direct representution on the NPA, but would have acccas to meetings, minutes, accounts. elc. and power to report to Parliament their criticiams of the NPA.
Now Roberts objects that this scheme is Insufficient because it offers no say for the dock workers in the original formation of decisions' (p.177). But the dockers undersrood very well that working class power could not be lound in the management office. It lay else where. Before they could exercise effective power over capital and its operations, they understood the need to organise the aholition of the secrecy surrounding the Nº. *s affairs. To get access to the affairs of the NPA they needed legal powers. In other words, in order to prepare the ground for any really effective and lasting control ofer the operations of capital, certain preconditions in the stare had to be met. They could only get aceess by legal authority, and could only exercise effective control by means of a state apparatus which would intervene directly in the decisions of the NPA following their discoveries. The error the dockers did make however was in thinking that the existing capitalist state could be used to break through the class authority of the DUAL POWER Lenin and Trotsky, whose excellent work on this question we recommend to Bro. Roberts, linked workers control to duel power in the state. The legal authority for access to the books, the state force needed to intervene against the bosses, bankers and financiers. the commisions which would work out the elements of an cconomic plan across the these things would not be granted by the capitalist state The working class should take advantage of any laws passed by a Labour Government relating to commercial secrecy, factory councils and so forth. But to make control a reality, the workers would have to create theit own state authorty to take these steps: soviets, workers councils, etc. These organiss tions would take the workers from a position in which they simply react and protest against changes in capitalist organisation (by strikes, elc.) to a position of control. This is the heart It will be interesting to see the reaction of the Institute for Workers Control, of which Roberts is a leading member, when and if the British bourgeoisic introduce the co-management schemes developed in Germany: Under the banner of "workers" control" of course.
The new format International is now out. Internat ional Vol. 1, Ma. 1 (Spring 1573) is the first issee of a greetly expended theoretical journal of the /G which will be appearing quarter/p from now on.