Sunday, January 28, 2007
For Democracy Within the Labour Movement
By Michael Kidron
TRADE UNION DEMOCRACY - WHERE?
The Labour Party Conference at Scarborough and the wave of strikes in the docks and in London Transport have raised the issue of democracy within our Movement. We must not let it be quietly buried.
The voting at Scarborough was a farce. The big union bosses, some of whom need fear nothing from the rank and file as they never stand for re-election, put their millions of votes at the disposal of the NEC - in support of German Rearmament, in support of SEATO, against every attempt of the rank and file of their own unions to tie their hands.
The crassest example of this insulting attitude to rank and file opinion was the case of the Amalgamated Society of Woodworkers’ vote on German Rearmament. The Society’s executive were explicitly mandated to oppose German Rearmament. In the event, the executive succumbed to NEC pressure and voted for it. This last-minute switch lost the vote on German Rearmament for the Left.
TRADE UNION DEMOCRACY - HOW?
How is it that the Constituency Labour Party delegates to Conference voice the opinion of the rank and file labour Party member, while the Union delegates generally do not? For one thing, the Constituency parties, being smaller, are much more amenable to rank and file pressure. But mainly, the reason lies in the fact that their delegates to Conference are elected, not selected from a permanent staff. The delegate if chosen because he holds views along the lines of those expressed in the local Party’s resolutions, not because he happens to express the views held by the Party machine.
A glimpse of the same type of democratic expression can sometimes be caught in the Trade Union world too. At the Trades Union Congress, the 300,000 textile workers vote according to their various sub-divisions; weavers, spinners, carders, etc. all vote separately. At the annual labour party Conference, the 300,000 votes are cast in one bloc. This year, for example, the textile workers were evenly split on the question of German Rearmament at the Brighton Congress - One month later, at Scarborough, all 300,000 were cast in the ballot box for German Rearmament.
What can happen at the Trades Union Congress can happen at the Labour Party Conference. Union delegates must be made responsible to the rank and file membership. Each delegate must represent only a certain number of members. They must be elected specifically for Conference on the basis of the views they hold publicly.
This applies not only to delegates to Conference but to all policy-making officers of the unions. They must stand for frequent election and be subject to instantaneous dismissal by the rank and file. Responsibility for the rank and file member of a union must rest with the rank and file - not with a small body of paid men who lose contact with their electors as soon as they meet the bosses.
THE BRIDLINGTON AGREEMENT
The responsibility of the rank and file grows tremendously during an industrial dispute. At such a time, sensitivity of union officials to the wishes of the membership is of paramount importance. Nothing must stand in the way of the conscious intervention of the rank and file in its own affairs.
At present, one of the weapons used by the TUC General Council to prevent such intervention is the Bridlington agreement, a ruling of the TUC which states that no union may enrol any members “claimed” by another union while that union is engaged in an industrial dispute. The Agreement is now being invoked by the Transport and general Workers Union to prevent the National Amalgamated Stevedores and Dockers (the Blue Union) from enrolling dissatisfied T & G members. It is only one weapon in the arsenal used to smash the small, militant union, but it is of importance because of the principle involved.
Within the Capitalist system, the working class must constantly be on guard against attacks on their living standards. One of the means of defence is the unions. But the unions themselves are powerless without the weapon of last resort: the strike - first the industrial strike, then the political one. When a union bureaucracy virtually outlaws the strike weapon, condemns every strike as unofficial, tries t bully its members into returning to work as a preliminary to “conducting negotiations” and, in short, does every bit of dirty work for the bosses that the bosses cannot do for themselves, that union bureaucracy can do noting for its members. It holds no terror for the bosses. Such a bureaucratically run union is the TGWU.
The officials of the T&GWU are as skilful negotiators as any. But of what use are negotiations without the threat of force? If the T&GWU caves in when it comes to a strike, its members must have every right to withdraw from it and join any other union that shows fight. In the case of the dockers, it means joining the NASD.
But what about poaching? Won’t a giant like the T&GWU be able to “bribe” members of other unions to join them by offering lower membership fees etc? it certainly may, but the final test for its own members always remains: does the union obtain better conditions, or does it not? A union that spends all its resources on “poaching” members from the others will have very little time for fighting the bosses. It will find itself spending more and more time “poaching” back its own members that have left.
Whoever support a agreement for ”spheres of influence” within the Labour Movement, like the Bridlington agreement, shows little trust in the discretion of the workers. And as always when it comes to relying on the workers’ own initiative, Arthur Deakin and Harry Pollitt vie with one another in trying to escape the direct control of the rank and filer and work through the “machine:” Deakin shouts “Bridlington agreement” and Pollitt returns the chorus: “Let no poaching of one union’s members by another take place under any circumstances.” (Daily Worker, 15/10/54). We ask one question of the Deakin-Pollitt axis: Who should chose whom? Unions their members or members their unions? But the bureaucrats of both sides know where they stand - kill all independent rank and file action, kill an independent militant union like the NASD.
Rank and filers of the Labour Movement must press for free choice: For the election of all policy-making officials and delegates. For the direct responsibility of such representatives to their electors and the right of instantaneous dismissal. For the revoking of the Bridlington Agreement.
* M Kidron’s remarks on the Bridlington Agreement do not reflect the views of the editors of Socialist Review. Controversy on the subject will be welcomed. - Editor.
Socialist Review Vol 4 No 3, November 1954
Socialist Review Vol 4 No 3, November 1954
Labels: Rank and Fileism, Revolutionary Archive, Socialist Review Group, Trades Unionism, Trotskyism
Sunday, January 07, 2007
Afterword
to
IS Policy Statement on Industrial Work
The importance of the Policy Statement on Industrial Work adopted by the International Socialists in 1971 lies in that none of the established leaders of IS wrote it. There can be no doubt that had Jim Higgins, as the groups most authoritative trades unionist, or any of the leading theorists of IS written the document that it would have been superior in every way. Except it would not have represented, as it does, the collective experience of that small layer of industrial, primarily blue collar, militants who had been won to IS in the previous few years.
It represents the collective views of the most politically advanced militants with regard to internal union democracy and its relationship to the struggle against the employers. It represents a set of views that were not confined to IS, although best represented by the organisation, but were to be found throughout the entire workers movement at the height of post-war militancy from which time the document dates. The role of IS in the production of the document was that of a fraction of the class defined by its politics but not separate from the class, or the embryonic vanguard within it, as a whole.
This is in contrast to the role played by the ‘orthodox Trotskyists’ of the period who also had a small following within the class. They, namely the Socialist Labour League of Gerry Healy, saw their task as bringing knowledge of sacred scriptures (the Transitional Program, etc.) to the workers and thereby enlightening them. This policy, substitutionist by its very nature, was seen as being based on the idea of the revolutionary party bringing revolutionary class consciousness to the working class from outside its ranks, a parody of Kautskys views as quoted by Lenin in What Is To Be Done? and was often counter-posed to the supposed economism attributed to IS.
In fact the writing of the document bears witness to IS acting as a part of the class, of a party of its vanguard if you like, developing itself by developing roots within the class and its trade union organisations. Central to this effort was the development of rank and file bodies within the unions themselves but based on workplace or industrial location. Such a strategic conception being very different from the efforts of the orthodox whose entire efforts were to win ‘leadership’ in the class by counter-posing their own narrow party organisation to the reformist bureaucracy within the unions. In its concreteness having nothing abstract about it we may also legitimately contrast the rank and file strategy to the conception of a ‘class struggle left’ that the Mandelites touted at this time as they turned away from their infatuation with guerrilla warfare.
More importantly although the document could easily be subscribed to by the present day SWP it is arguable that its practice is very far from the IS conception of rank and fileism as represented in the Policy Statement. Despite its verbal genuflections to rank and fileism the practice of the SWP is reminiscent of nothing so much as the Mandelite idea of a class struggle left wing in its very amorphousness. Thus on the one hand the SWP claim to be producing rank and file papers, lacking any genuine basis of support from the union rank and file, while on the other hand their members on the executive of PCS vote to drop the ‘suspended strike’ on the pensions issue. This in contrast to the spirit of the Policy Statement which demanded negotiations with the bosses be subject to the ratification of mass meetings.
It should be noted just how much has changed in the field of trades unionism since the document was passed and how the context of 1971 shaped the document. Thus by demanding that negotiations be submitted to mass meetings the document reveals its roots as lying in the blue collar unions of the mass production industries of the time particularly engineering. Today even in that reduced industry mass meetings are rare and have always been less typical of white collar unionism. The Policy Statement is then marked by its origins from deep within a tradition of the British trade union movement which no longer exists on the same scale or in quite the same forms it did between the rise of the General Unions and the defeat of the Miners Strike.
Despite the restructuring of British capitalism since 1979 the efforts of IS to understand the lessons of earlier class struggles, as represented so well in the contents of the issue of the International Socialism journal in which the Policy Statement appeared (see here for a full list of contents), continues to yield results from which revolutionaries can benefit. For example the Policy Statement makes considerable efforts to develop a number of principles by which militants can struggle for workers’ democracy within the trades unions. One aspect of which struggle was the fight against bureaucratism and the co-option of militants into the bureaucracy itself.
Today, if anything, that anti-bureaucratic struggle is more important than it was in 1971. At that time in those plants where Joint Shop Steward Committees existed they were unofficial bodies outside the direct control of either the union bureaucracies or of the state. Today by contrast such committees are recognised and governed by both law and the union bureaucracies with the result that they have all too often become bureaucratised and incorporated into the machinery erected by the bosses to police the workers. Indeed despite the decrease in union density and absolute numbers of unionists there has been a proportionate increase in the size of the union bureaucracy parasitic on the dues paid by the rank and file membership.
It becomes even more important then for revolutionaries to emphasise the need to resist the union bureaucracies and their politics of class collaborationism. Given which it is critical to avoid the possibility of naïve revolutionaries becoming detached from their class base in the workplaces not only by virtue of accepting appointed positions in the union bureaucracy but also by becoming elected to leading committees when lacking support for class struggle policies. If anything the Policy Statement neglects these dual dangers as at the time it was written the number of serious activists of all political hues within the unions was far greater and the level of class struggle far higher so that such a likelihood was unlikely.
What may come as a shock to many young revolutionaries today is the stress placed on workplace organisation in the document. It is then worth contrasting it to those sections of the Transitional Program which discuss trades unionism marked as they are by the authors knowledge of the French working class scene and, to a lesser extent, by the then recent experiences of the American working class in forging the CIO. As such the Transitional Program points towards the absolute importance of workplace democracy in a fashion similar to the main drive of the Policy Statement although the specifics of this are obscured by the roots of the Transitional Program in a union tradition very different to those of Britain in 1971 a fact which the orthodox Trotskyists neglected to their cost.
What emerges from both the Policy Statement and the relevant sections of the Transitional Program is a commitment to workers’ democracy based on the workers own organs of struggle. Such organs, in the first instance strike committees and mass meetings, are however extremely unlikely to emerge if militants allow themselves to become enmeshed with the union bureaucracy when lacking support for their politics at grassroots level. The domination of say the PCS National Executive by members of various left groups is then meaningless when they cannot if so much as lift a finger to defend hard won pension rights. The same is true of the SWP members on the PCS executive who voted against strike action, not only were they betraying the interests of new entrants to the civil service for purely opportunist reasons, but they were also lining up against the need of the proletariat to learn from its own experiences of class struggle in favour of a conception of socialism that sees it as something which ‘leaders’ can deliver to the class through clever negotiations rather than something that must be fought for by the workers ourselves.
Labels: International Socialists, Rank and Fileism, Trades Unionism
Saturday, January 06, 2007
International Socialists
Policy Statement on Industrial Work
1971
This policy statement was adopted at a conference of IS members active in industrial and trade union work, and endorsed by the National Committee. It gives the general guidelines for revolutionary socialists on the question. Of course a fight for ‘democracy’ in the abstract will not succeed. The democratic demands have to be linked, in every-case, with specific policy demands on wages, conditions, safety and so on. The formulation of realistic revolutionary policies in the various industries and unions is the task IS industrial militants are now tackling. The present statement is a common element in all of them.
Conference recognises that, under modern conditions, the trade union bureaucracy is a special social group which is used in the maintenance of capitalist class rule.
While the bureaucracy reflects in varying degrees at different times, the pressure of the membership, it also serves as an instrument through which the employers and the State try to discipline and control workers, to limit and often sabotage disputes, to check solidarity actions and to prevent the union of political and industrial struggles. This dual role does not depend mainly on the political outlook of the individual official, though this is of some importance. It depends on the actual position of the bureaucracy in capitalist society. The officials are a relatively privileged group organised in hierarchies enjoying better pay, conditions and, usually, job security than the rank and file militant. They are under very strong pressure to conform to the model of the ‘responsible’ trade union officer, responsible not to the membership, but to the standards of the employer and the state machine.
Under pressure from both the workers and the employers, the bureaucracies try all the time to become independent, to change their position from that of servant of the membership to that of master. To the extent that they succeed in this the unions become mainly organisations for controlling the workers and only secondarily organisations of the workers.
Even where this has already happened to a large extent, Conference rejects the idea that the unions can be bypassed or ignored or that breakaway unions should be promoted. The experience of the last sixty years shows that these views lead to a dangerous isolation of militants from the mass of their fellow workers and so to a strengthening of the bureaucracy. The struggle against the bureaucracy requires the needs a combination of rank and file activity and work in the union machine. Unofficial and official organisations must both be used.
In the longer term the struggle against the bureaucracy requires the development of a national rank and file organisation and a program of action which combines immediate and long term demands. Central to this program is the question of control by the membership.
Therefore Conference recognises the urgent need to campaign for rank and file control of the trade unions. We recognise the that no democratic constitution alone guarantees active democracy, that being dependent on the degree of participation by the membership at large. Where rank and file members draw up programmes of demands specific to their individual union, these should (a) be based on the principles outlined below and (b) be related to the immediate experience of trade unionists in struggle and not mere blueprints abstracted from the present level of class activity.
Officials
1. All officials should be elected and subject to constant recall.
2. All full-time officials should be paid the average wage in their industry.
3. Union policy-making bodies should be comprised of elected lay officials only.
4. Election addresses to be circulated unaltered for candidates for all elected positions in the union.
5. Any educational qualifications for union office should be abolished.
6. No member to be disqualified from holding office on political grounds.
7. Full minutes and voting records of policy making bodies should be circularised.
8. No political censorship of union journal.
National Conference
1. National delegate conferences should be held annually.
2. Standing Orders committees should annually comprise of elected lay-officials.
3. No branch block voting.
Appeals Court
1. Appeals Committees should be comprised of elected lay-officials.
Amalgamations
1. While in principle we support industrial unions and any amalgamations contributing to that end, the priority remains for maximum rank and file unity, for joint shop stewards committees, factory and combine wide.
Negotiations.
1. No secret negotiations.
2. Every stage of negotiations should be subject to rank and file ratifications at mass meetings.
3. Mass meetings should never be presented with package deals unless each part of the deal has been voted on separately beforehand.
Strikes.
1. All strikes in support of trade union principle, conditions or wages be made official.
2. Dispute benefit to be raised by levy of entire membership when necessary.
Closed Shop
1. Support of 100 per cent trade unionism and the right of trade unionists to enforce closed shops.
2. Opposition to check-off system.
3. Opposition to employer policed ‘agency shops’.
4. Support of the right for trade unionists to discipline fellow workers who flout democratic decisions.
5. Access to job waiting lists by shop stewards committees. Waiting lists to be on the basis, first applied first employed.
Shop Stewards
1. Opposition to any ‘managerial policing’ by shop stewards. No participation on management committees intended to keep shop stewards off the shop floor for long periods.
2. Shop stewards to hold regular report back meetings: insistence on allocated time for such meetings; especially where there is shift working.
Individual Rights
1. Right of members to criticise union policy
2. Right of members to meet unofficially and visit other branches.
3. Right of members to communicate with the press.
4. Right of members to write, circularise and/or sell political literature.
5. Right of appeal direct to Appeals court.
6. Right of all members, irrespective of sex or race, to pay equal contributions, to receive equal benefits and to have equal access to all union delegacies and offices.
*** *** *** *** *** ***
International Socialism Number 48 June/July 1971
Labels: International Socialists, Rank and Fileism, Revolutionary Archive, Trades Unionism
