LABOR UNDER SOCIALISM

...and the unsuccessful General Strike of 1926...

...This has resulted in the concept of industry boards responsive to the general public, rather than to any one segment of it...

...On the other hand, the chief , criticism from the floor at the regional TUC conferences arranged to discuss the Report was directed at that very question...

...This drew the fire of advocates of direct union participation in management, with the result that, in 1933, the TUC and the Labor party approved a joint statement recognizing the claim of unions to nominate candidates to the Public Boards...

...The coal industry is a good example...

...Those who run the nationalized industries, whether they represent the trade unions or noj^must be inspired by the conviction that every human being is entitled to respect and should not be treated with contempt or patronage...

...But among militant trade unionists, the idea of "workers' control," as proposed by the South Wales miners, seemed a logical enough sequel to the ouster of the capitalists...

...Yet, Britain's urgent need to hold her own in the export market has put a ceiling on increases in the price of coal, confronting the workers with the bedrock fact that further wage rises must depend on productivity...

...In fact, any purely materialist interpretation of trade unionism inevitably leads to syndicalist practices of one type or another...

...Nevertheless, in the interests of maintaining trade union independence and keeping control over nationalized industries in the hands of Parliament as representative of the community at large, the Council recommended that these union members "should surrender any position held in, or any formal responsibility to the trade union...

...In 1944, the TUC General Council's Report on Postwar Reconstruction recommended inclusion on the boards of members with wide trade union experience...

...to avoid facing reality...

...Faced with a disease requiring a long and arduous course of treatment, a patient is often sorely tempted to turn to quack remedies in the hope of an easy cure...

...He has contributed to many British periodicals...

...Consultative machinery as envisaged by the Report was also provided for...

...In the political life of a democracy, of course, considerations of expediency and of principle often become hopelessly entagled...

...At its 1949 Congress, the TUC's General Council reported on- its promised study of worker's participation...

...Those socialists, for example, who see in the class struggle not only a social fact but a rigid principle, are bound to regard some form of "workers' control" as their ultimate goal...

...The TUC conference adopted a resolution expressing "concern" at the composition of the industry boards and decommending the inclusion of more trade unionists...

...Hence, the recurring charge that the Labor Government has not been "socialist" enough in its policy...

...IN SHORT...

...Allan Flanders it a prominent British journalist who is active in in* trade union movement...

...The "underlying secular meaning of trade unionism," Sidney Webb wrote in 1919, is that of securing for the workers a better status in industry and in society...

...Last year's conference of the Transport and General Workers' Union carried the following resolution, by 433 votes to 170, over the opposition of its executive council: "That this conference, being very dissatisfied with the present position of many of the nationalised boards and executives, demands that trade union representatives should be placed upon these boards and executives with Jhe right of the members to recall such trade union representatives as and when considered necessary...

...This has been most clearly defined since 1912, when the South Wales miners first took the stand that the mines should be run by the miners by means of elected committees...

...The reality has been otherwise...

...Theoretical syndicalism, like other rigid doctrines, never won a firm hold in the British labor movement...

...In essence, it is attitudes and not . mechanisms which are the decisive element...

...At the party conference, a powerfullybacked resolution demanding "workers' participation through their trade unions in the direction and management of nationalized industry at all levels" was withdrawn only after the Party Executive and TUC General Council agreed to joint talks on the subject...

...If, however, human dignity and the right of the worker to free himself from an insulting dependence on the whims of a privileged class is recognized as the corner-stone of democratic socialism, then a fresh approach to the problem of "workers' control" is possible...

...One Obvious factor is the exaggerated hopes long associated with the idea of nationalization...

...What they chiefly ask is to be treated with respect and accorded some influence in those matters of industrial policy and management which affect their own well-being...

...WHAT IS the explanation for this recent ebullition of discontent with the running of the nationalized industries...

...Moreover, the highly-trained colliery managers have all had to be retained since the takeover...

...There, nationalization brought the miners immediate, tangible benefits, notably the changeover from a sixto a five-day week without loss of pay...

...The first nationalization bills after Labor's victory at the polls closely followed the TUCJs recommendations, two trade unionists*, CiUine and Ebby Edwards, joined the National Coal Hoard...

...Increased power and responsibility, however, have obliged British labor leaders to move from vague propaganda generalities to practical policy...

...The class struggle was out...

...The syndicalists had preached the gospel of "direct action," and, in the eyes of most workers, it had failed the pragmatic test...

...Surprisingly, the Council's Report was unanimously approved by the TUC, which failed to challenge it on trade union participation or any other point...

...The TUC General Council's report, dealing with the composition ol tl»t Boards which were to administer publicly owned industries, specifically stated: "Members of such a Board should In all cases be appointed by the Government, and should consist neither of technical experts nor of repretentative* of particular interests, but of persons appointed solely for their ability to All the position...

...Instead, the advent of the Attlee regime merely precipitated a host of unsolved problems relating to the role of a trade union in a socialist society...

...These were "Black Friday" (April 14, 1921), when the mutual-support alignment of the railwaymen, transport workers and miners collapsed...

...They have had to deal, by and large, with the same old managers, and possibilities for rapid advances are severely limited...

...The intervening thirty years have not produced any experience which seriously challenges this dictum, as far as British trade unionism is concerned...

...Two events in the post-World War I years of industrial strife struck mortal blows at the syndicalist approach, although neither invalidated its principles...

...The unions declared the efficiency ahd prosperity of industry their prime concern, resting on this their claim to a greater say in its conduct • * • IT WAS NOT until 1932 that the Trades Union Congress made its first general statement of views on industrial reorganization...

...The council's continued rejection of "workers' control" met with no serious challenge by the Congress itself...

...With the defeat of the Tories and the installation for the first time of a majority Labor Government with full powers, it seemed reasonable enough to assume that the old labor-management problems would miraculously dissolve and that labor unions and Labor Government would automatically fall into step for the greater good of the working man...

...Decades of propaganda had left the workers with the conviction that nationalization would mean (1) getting rid of their present "bosses...

...AS THROUGHOUT their .history, the primary activity of the British trade unions is still collective bargaining...

...This helps explain why even the National Union of Mineworkers reported to the TUC that "the good will that has been built up so laboriously since (nationalization) is being replaced by cynicism...

...The British trade union movement has always represented for many of its most active adherents a potential instrument for sharing in the control of industry and thus determining directly the conditions of labor...

...With the approach of nationalization, the trade unions became concerned about their "independence...

...Whether the present forms of nationalization represent a compromise with original Labor principles, 'however, or merely a more realistic choice of methods has never been clearly determined...

...The National Union of Railwaymen has gone so far as to balk at establishment of the consultative machinery set up in other industries until its demands for workers participation are met...

...However, British labor has always given this a wider meaning than have U. S. unions...

...British Labor is still groping for an answer to the question: What are we striving for...

...Similarly, many workers in nationalized industries have tended to fall back on the old propaganda slogan...

...The Labor Party Conference that year went even fur- , ther, adopting a resolution which declared that the unions should have a statutory right to 50% representation on the boards of nationalized industries...

...Some have adapted themselves to the new relationship with the workers, but many more are set in their ways and unwilling to learn...

...Genuine consultation, reinforced by strong, independent trade unionism, can guarantee the workers a status fully commensurate with their dignity as human beings...

...Nationalization of industry transferred from the realm of theoretical debate to urgent reality such issues as these: Can the unions attempt to fix wages without regard for the total economy...

...For more than ten years this conflict remained unresolved...

...Few industrial workers feel any desire to take over the technical functions of management...

...and (2) greatly improving their own conditions of employment by eliminating profits...

...No doubt, the growing emphasis on the "public interest" and "efficient organization" in Labor party pronouncements is partly a bid for the middle-class voter...

...TOD.AY...

...The demand for "workers' control" is a natural but exaggerated reaction to being treated as inferiors, as "hands" to be hired and fired according to the state of the market...

...There was clearly still a vocal minority supporting the old Idea of "workers' control...

...Its proposals involved no departure from previous policy, Chief emphasis was on improving the working of the consultative machinery...

...Such an outlook will quickly justify itself in the response it will evoke among the masses of organised workers...

...Conflicts between union and management have persisted, even though Government is now in many cases the management...

...It also proposed formation of consultative councils at all levels of the public-owned industries to represent the infirests of the workers...

...Should u union participate in management and, if so, how are the interests of the workers protected...

...In the following years, under the leadership of-Walter Citrine and Ernest Bevin, the British trade >«rrron movement adopted a new approach to the control of industry based on industrial peace and collaboration with the employers...

...DISSATISFACTION with the organization of the nationalized industries first cropped up in 1948 at both the Labor Party and TUC conferences...