our and Jack Jones are trying to sell then, However, they have no answer to Labour or the union leaders when they are accused of sabotaging the fight for justice, social equality and socialism, as the Labour fakes like to call their pro-capitalist plan.
Martin Jukes, director general of the Engineering Employers" Federation, Britain's largest employers' association, stated in an interview on BBC radio:
"The Social Contract is vatuable as far as it does prod uce wage restraint. * He obviously doesn't see the Social Contract as contributing to the struggle for socialism 1 Neither should his employees!
and the banks.
port. for the social contract as a step along. this road. The argument runs: Labour can only fulfill their side of the sociat contract by carrying out a wide extenOnly when a Labour Government can get its hands working class a rising standard of inon the assets and profits of the major massive programme of social reforms in the interests of the working claas."
However, there is a problem here.
Nationalisation measures have been For instance, the mines have made millions of pounds in surplus since they for the authority of any Parliament were nationalised. But most of it was siphoned off immediately in compens ation and interest payments, (In 1963, £50 million of a L72 million surplus was eaten up by compensation and inOnly the outright expropriationwithout compensation-of assets and moncy" that has already been taken in taxes from workers' pockets Against the miserable proposals of the Labour Party, the unions should advance a trade union plan for the nationalisation of Industry under workers control. However to be citective such a plan would need to be a programme for the nationalisation of all major industry, It would refuse to pay compen sation. It would end the present system by which nationalised concerns support capitalist business with cheap fucl, steel and trans.
EXPROPRIATION
It would prevent the employers in industries which remained in the bosses hands from sacking workers and raising their prices to meet the new economic situation, It would beon to work out the pronties for production on the basis of the needs and desires of the working class, not on the need of the capitalists for a fat profit, It would guarantee the come, along with all necessary soc- selves. ial and cultural services.
All this, of course, would be a beautiful state of affairs. And no doubt it is the goal the Labour 'lefts hold in their minds eye. The problem, of course, is how such a plan could be created and implemented. After all, such a plan envisages the expropriation and destruction of ruling class power and is bound to be met with vigorous opposition. The experience of Chile vividly shows that the ruling class has no respect clls, if it ceases to serve their interests.
Such a plan could only be drawn up by the workers' organisations and implemented through workers controi. The working class, organised through a national system of derocratic workers councils, and backed up by working class self-defence org the nationalisation of all major industry, and the banks."
responsibility for the cheos and disas ter the employers capitalist oystem produces The principle of work or full pay has to be fought for: no re dundancies and no reduction of pay If the working week is cur. Workers should occupy factories if redundancies are threatened and demand that the Government nationalise the entire fürm under workers' control, with no job loss.
These proposals can be wedded to the fight for socialism if the workers movement develops its own org anisations which owe their allegiance not to Parliament and the law, but only to the working class. No longer should the bosses, backed up by tho Government, the civil service, and the law, be allowed to exert a stranglehold over the fate of jobs and workers" living standards. This control must be in the hands of workers themIn the coming months, militants will be debating the way forward ag against the social contract, and the ideas of Labour's left wing. But the atmosphere won't be anything like the gentlemanly corridors and tea-room of the House of Commons It won't even reflect the restrained bustle of Transport House. The debate will oceur on the picket line, in the occupied factories, shop stew. ards committees and trades coun Out of it can come the begin. nings of a socialist society.
Red Weekly 3 October 1974 Page 7
biggest worries.
crisis in Scotland
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TIM HALL