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LIMITS TO WHAT A SHOP STEWARD CAN DO
It is a fact that none of these additional concessions are new ones: they represent the further development of the interim report rejected on 27th July. They had already been agreed in substance by the J-A Committee and the port employers. The unofficial shop stewards committee were correct in stating the result of three weeks negotiating was not a cast-iron guarantee of continuing work as dockers. Why then did the delegates decide to recommend resumption of work and why did the dockers themselves, who had come out solidly in support of the unofficial shop stewards Committee's four demands (see beginning of this article), go back to work when those demands had not been met. The answer lies in how the dockers viewed those demands. They were viewed by them as demands of principle: what they ought to have; what they were entitled to have. They backed those demands of principle up with the force of their withdrawal of labour and then waited to see how much the employers would grant. But, because the working class also realise that principles are seldom if ever realised in practice, they accept that their TU officials come back with less than demanded. Individual explanations of why this happens may vary from "sell-out" to "what else could we really expect"; but the fact remains that the working class stand out for their principled demands as long as it appears they will gain something by doing so. They recognise that in the end, they have to return to work with less than their principles gained. If they had not recognised this, production would have ceased long ago. The militant shop stewards who formulate these principles, on the other hand, do not seem to take the same view: for them a principle is a principle to which the workers must remain true or sell out or weaken by giving in to the employer or union official. This is nothing more or less than moralism. It is a less realistic assessment of the economic struggle than the action of the working class as a whole, based on a realistic view of the balance of class forces. Taking up a moral stand for demands of principle means that shop stewards
(l) cannot explain to their constituents how much of their demands they can expect to get
(2) why they should return to work after the employers have conceded as much as they are prepared under maximum pressure from the working class.
Instead the shop stewards can only argue that the demands "ought" to be met and that therefore the working class "ought" to remain out until they are granted. Similarly, in formulating these demands the shop stewards take the reality of the production process and the economic struggle into account only insofar as these are necessary in order to get the working class to come out on strike. The principle on which they operate is that the employer deserves to be attacked - he upholds a system which is wrong and evil and therefore he ought to be resisted. The demands therefore do not advance the working class' interest in a conscious, considered way - they do so only insofar as they reflect the material reality through and in spite of their moralism.
It should be clearly understood that the militant shop stewards do not behave in this way because they are moralists by nature but because British working class politics has never presented them with anything else. The shop steward comes to that position out of the material reality of his leadership of the working class. Simple reflection makes him conclude that the working class is exploited and that there is much in the organisation of production and society that is irrational and arbitrary. However, when he reads or listens to the explanations proferred by 'the left' he is told this is not because of the historical development of the productive forces but because capitalism is a "crazy diktat ... which bids them (the employers) represent its needs as the needs of all humanity" (SW, 5.8.72, p.5). "The threat (of using troops if necessary in the dock strike) ... needs to be regarded as a declaration of war not only against the dockers, but against the whole trade union movement and the rights of the British working people to defend their jobs against redundancies and sackings produced in the interests of the small, rich, profit-grabbing class of capitalist sharks which Heath's Government represents." (Morning Star, Leader, p.l, 4.8.72.). And against this evil system he is told he must lead the working class in resistance. Not that the resistance will succeed. The capitalists are incapable of granting any concession: "Month by month the newspapers record ever higher unemployment figures. From time to time they mention the appalling human consequences of unemployment. Even members of the employing class have expressed their concern. But neither the employers nor the Tories can do anything about the situation because they uphold the system that puts profits before human beings." (SW, 5.8.72).
If SW is correct, then their characterisation of the dock strike as being able to do something about unemployment in the next sentence is incorrect. The working class can gain nothing through struggle because the employing class can give nothing: capitalism would collapse if they did. And we have seen the contortions SW or the MS have to go through to explain concessions by the employers. The ruling class had to be forced into doing so by a magnificent, historic display of working class solidarity certainly unequalled in this century. For IS and the CP concessions are inexplicable precisely because the employers and capitalism are moral concepts not material ones: they are by nature bad and so a good action (concession) is uncharacteristic and atypical. (This conception of employers and ruling class undoubtedly coincided with historical reality much more closely in the late l8th- mid 19th century in Britain. i.e. concession was atypical and uncharacteristic. Not because the employers and ruling class were more evil than they are now; but because they had not analysed the class struggle under industrial capitalism or learned how to take it into account. To proffer it to the working class now as an analysis is absurd. SW neglects to mention that unemployment has been falling rapidly for several months and that already the margins of productive capacity are being reached in crucial industrial sectors.) The working class is confronted by two diametrically opposed dicta: capitalism and the employers are incapable of redressing any grievances by their nature and the working class can gain its demands - all of them - through magnificent, historic struggle. Perhaps it is The Communist that is mistaken and this is true dialectic: the unity of opposites. If it is dialectic, it is certainly idealist dialectic for it in no way coincides with material reality.