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CONCLUSION
Workers' Control, in the last analysis, means simply the right of workers to hire and fire management. Under workers' control management will be subordinate to and forced to operate in the interests of its workforce. At present management is responsible only to dithering shareholders (parliamentarians and civil servants in the public sector) who have no idea how to fulfil their social obligations. Already the only outside influence which forces management to act at all responsibly is the working class' collective bargaining power. But collective bargaining only modifies the form in which management decisions are finally implemented. It has no bearing on what decisions are made or in whose interest.
Under workers' control management will be forced to reassess its priorities in the light of workers' sovereignty in the firm; real sovereignty with power to back it up and strength to enforce it. Existing management will have to satisfy the workers or be replaced.
Beyond the economic reality of capitalism in crisis there is only workers' control. Now that the working class has fulfilled its primary tasks of economic and political organisation and has destroyed the power of capital to mount any serious offensive or sustain class war against it there is nowhere else for it to go unless it is to deny its position as a potential ruling class.
The TUC's proposals for using legislation on industrial democracy as a lever to extend working class power into the boardroom are an important step on that road. But the TUC, acting in accordance with what has been standard socialist practice since the war, chose not to involve the working class as a whole in its debate on industrial democracy. Its ideas have not been developed, have not even been discussed in the context of a fundamental reassessment of the working class' position in society. The ideas in the report on industrial democracy do not, therefore, define the attitude of the working class; they are the ideas of a progressive majority on the General Council, no more. Consequently the TUC's proposals are more open to negotiation and compromise than they should be. Already conservative opposition from within the trade union movement has caused the TUC to cool its legislative ardour.
There is nothing unacceptable in making legislation dependent on the willingness of the unions concerned to operate the machinery (in the form of an enabling act) provided the system they can choose to opt for has provision for nothing less than parity of representation with employers' representatives and requires that all elections for worker directors are through existing trade union channels. There can be no question of compromise on those vital elements in the TUC's report. If there were, legislation on industrial democracy could prove as much a hindrance as an aid to the development of workers' control.
The CBI's proposals for legislation along the lines of their participation agreements are explicitly aimed to frustrate the development of workers' control. They are a product of rampant senility and have no progressive content whatsoever.
Only real movement towards workers' control will ultimately prove acceptable to the working class. But we do not expect the Committee of Inquiry to initiate such moves unless faced with substantial social pressure to do so. It is now up to the progressives in the TUC to rectify past mistakes and take their ideas to the Labour movement throughout the country. The proceedings of the Bullock Commission must become the focal point for the long overdue debate on the future aims and strategy of the British Labour movement. Socialists must begin now to build up popular support in the working class for workers' control and the TUC's proposals.
If we succeed in that then whatever the opinions of individual members of the Committee its report will have to recommend substantial and progressive change or go by the board. We have the opportunity now to wipe out the memory of past failures from Sankey to the Industry Bill, and ensure that British society moves substantially towards workers' control and socialism