Swing to right strengthens bosses
Socialist Organiser1980sTUC, Labour conferences:
Transcribed by hand from the printed page.
This is the second part of a two-part analysis of the current industrial situation by ALAN THORNETT. Last week's article looked at some length at the problems facing the struggle in the coal industry. This week Alan looks at the impact on the shop floor of the political shift by trade union and Labour leaders.
The post-election period has seen a significant shift to the right in the TUC and Labour Party conferences.
The shift represents the reaction of both the Labour Party and trade union leaders to Labour's election defeat.
They are now determined to win the next election at any cost. This involves, as they have seen it since June 9, establishing and consolidating a centre-right leadership of the party; the promotion of a 'unity' platform around it; the neutralisation of the left; and moves to begin systematically to change the 'left' policies which the right wing see as having contributed to the election defeat.
Since the shift to the right at the TUC Congress was a central part of this process, all this has significant implications for the industrial situation.
After the election Arthur Scargill's correct, although demagogic, call to 'fight them on the picket lines' was cast contemptuously aside by the trade union leaders and the TUC itself, despite the fact that Scargill's statement found significant support in the working class.
Determined
The TUC were determined that the practical reflection of what they wanted to see inside the Labour Party would be an absence of industrial struggles against the Government (or against the employers for that matter, since such struggles would tend to strengthen the left in the Party and disrupt the 'unity' drive).
Thus in the post-election period the TUC have added reason to oppose struggles, over and above their betrayals in the Tories' first term of office, which flowed from their reformist politics.
A number of factors helped [illegible] right wing in the TUC [illegible] their objective at the [illegible] conference. Some of [illegible] factors have had a lasting [illegible] significant effect on the [illegible].
[illegible] right wing to seriously isolate the left.
It started with the political victimisation of the Cowley 13 — which may have come up to some extent by chance, but was then used skilfully by both BL management and the media to promote a campaign of anti-communism.
This had some impact in significantly increasing the isolation of militants in industries where the struggle is sharp, since they were increasingly seen as outsiders.
It continued and was built up further by Scargill's visit to the USSR just before the TUC Congress, and then focused on the South Korean jet.
These developments became the basis both for a pro-Reagan resolution on the Korean jet at the beginning of the Congress and for Frank Chapple's strident anti-communist opening speech which very much set the tone of the conference.
Chapple could suddenly be presented as a major TUC leader speaking for the TUC, and not an ultra-right on the fringes.
This left Scargill and the left beleaguered and on the defensive, although of course still retaining much support amongst the rank and file.
These retreats are in sharp contrast to the mood within the working class where, despite the pressure of mass unemployment, the General Election result and the successes of the employers' offensive, there have been a number of tenacious struggles amongst sections of workers, some of which have scored important victories: Greenings and Michelin are examples.
The decision of the NUJ executive to resist the injunction at the Stockport Messenger reflected this mood: other struggles like Vauxhall have been demobilised by the leadership but have shown the potential. The current strikes in the pits — at Monktonhall and Cronton — show this as well, as does the determination of the Chloride strikers.
All this result[ed] in a wholly negative TUC Congress. The only time the platform came to life was when something left was said and the right wing sprang to attack it.
It created the right conditions for the decisions to enter into talks with Tebbit (from the position that the 'only' way to change the Tebbit proposals was to talk to him and persuade him to change them!), to loosen links with the Labour Party, and implicitly move away from unilateralism.
Coming after the Tory election victory which itself strengthened the employers, the retreats, however, added to the employers' confidence. The result has been a very significant sharpening of the employers' offensive.
This has come both in terms of a sharpening of the attacks of the employers themselves at the point of production, and through their willingness to use Prior and Tebbit in the courts.
The Cowley 13 reflected it; the massive speed-up imposed on parts of Cowley since then reflects it; the Stockport Messenger injunction reflected it very clearly; the current situation in the Post Office and BT reflects it even more, both through the victimisation of a leading postal worker militant in Basingstoke for alleged time-keeping offences and of course the current situation with the telecom engineers.
In BT a previously relatively soft-line management has been given the job of implementing the major single privatisation move of the Tory government. After months of a careful soft approach they have decided that now is the time to put the boot in and create a confrontation.
They proceeded to send 2000 workers home until the POEU was prepared to remove the sanctions.
At the same time Michael Edwardes, now running the Mercury project, took a High Court injunction to restrain the POEU from taking sanctions against Mercury or its backers.
Politically, however, the most fundamental development is taking place in the coal industry.
Ian MacGregor is now in control of the National Coal Board and is programmed to do to jobs and conditions there what he has already done in BL and the steel industry.
Even before he had taken office, however, the success of the management offensive and the virtual collapse of the Scargill leadership in the face of it has been a very major and central gain for the Thatcher government, a collapse which has a serious effect on the whole working class. (This was covered in detail in last week's article).
The Tory bandwagon has gone forward in one industry after another.
Shipbuilding workers have been told that there will be no pay increases this year unless they are tied to job losses, and this under conditions where they have had no rise for 18 months.
One yard will be closed on the Tyne, and British Shipbuilders want a further 2000 jobs to go. Two yards on the Tyne are earmarked for privatisation.
The employers are demanding an end to all so-called restrictive practices and are proposing new working conditions along the lines of those demanded at Highland Fabricators at Nigg recently.
In the water industry the employers are demanding an end to the closed shop even before the Tebbit provisions on the closed shop have come into force.
It is clearly a preparatory move, and must be seen as Government policy for the public sector. Wholesale moves to break up the closed shop would pose a very major problem for the trade union movement.
All this does not imply that Tory industrial strategy will continue to be successful any more than it implies that the right wing in the TUC or the Labour Party will remain on top.
Vauxhall car workers have recently shown how quickly struggles can emerge (and how quickly they meet the same problems of leadership).
The new Tory cuts in the NHS, representing the real Tory position after a lying election campaign, are probably the biggest single attack on the working class by direct decision of the Government. 5000 jobs are to go and massive privatisation put into effect.
Hostile
We are now being told the shape of the future NHS, and it is nothing like what has existed for the past 30 years. This goes alongside drastic cuts in the social services and education, with moves towards cuts in DHSS benefits.
There is little chance of the NHS cuts going through without serious opposition. Indeed, the NHS is likely to be one of the major areas of struggle against the government in the present period.
The hostile reaction to the latest cuts goes very deep and beyond the labour movement, although Tories protesting at the Tory Party conference of course were calling for the sacking of ancillary workers rather than medical staff.
The resistance of District Health Authorities like Brent is significant, but they are being replaced. Their stand, therefore, is meaningless, unless backed up by the trade union movement.
Where a clear lead has been given, the response has been very strong. Hackney, Lewisham, Hillingdon, Stockport and Northumberland have all seen important mobilisations. In Cardiff, health workers have struck demanding more staff. The possibility is raised of fighting to reverse some of the cuts.
In Bradford, the Thornton View hospital occupation points the way forward against closures. It is a very powerful occupation, with a remarkable degree of workers' control. Management have been removed from the site, and forced to 'recognise' and negotiate with the occupation committee. This strength points towards other workers' control demands — like opening the books of the health authorities — which are capable of developing the struggle still further.
The basis clearly exists for a national movement against NHS cuts. It is an area where the TUC can be challenged to halt the retreat and make a stand.
Local campaigns based on trades councils, Labour councils, community health councils and labour movement organisations could play a major role in this.
It is plain that the emergence of major struggles in the NHS or elsewhere would have a significant impact on the political situation and pose the possibility of challenging the retreats of the trade union leaders.
It would give the opportunity for Marxists to intervene and give a lead which starts not from class collaboration in the face of the economic crisis, or the Parliamentary considerations of the right wing of the Labour Party, but from the independent interests of the working class.
[Photo: The emergence of right winger Alastair Graham (CPSA) summed up this year's TUC.]
[Photo: British Telecom: relatively soft management turning to a hard line]