Back to Labour Values index
Back to section index
Back to article index
Previous


TONY BENN
Secretary of State for Energy


It is certainly not surprising that the miners should be in the lead again, because it was the mining industry and the NUM which pioneered industrial unionism, which campaigned longest, hardest and most successfully for public ownership, and the question is - what is the next step to be in the organisation and running of this industry?

The membership of the unions in the industry must decide what that step will be and, whatever else you mean by industrial democracy, it cannot be imposed by the Government, it cannot be imposed by the National Coal Board and it cannot even be imposed by the National Executive Committee of the NUM without the goodwill and support of the membership.

Whatever is adopted must grow out of the experience of the members of the NUM, experience gained from their work in the pits.


What Is Trade Unionism?

What is the basic motivation of trade unionism? It is, in the first instance, to defend those who work in industry, secondly to negotiate with the employers in industry the wages and working conditions, health and safety and prospects of the people in that industry.

But it would be quite wrong to limit our understanding of trade unionism to that, for many of the banners carried at our demonstrations contain the three key words "Educate, Agitate and Control".


Ultimate Aim

From the very beginning, there has always been a strong stream in our trade union movement - in contrast to that of other countries - that the ultimate aim must be to control the industries in which we work.

The use of trade union power in its initial stages was to limit the power of market forces, for we have never agreed that market forces produce the right distribution of wealth and power in our society; to limit the powers of the owners of the industry and to limit the hitherto unrestrained discretion of management to run the industry.


Nationalisation

How many people working in nationalised industries are really satisfied by what came out of the nationalisation statute?

I believe the answer must necessarily be that there was much disappointment in a number of important directions and the disappointment in the case of the coal industry can be very simply stated - it was that, in the early stages of nationalisation, the coal industry contracted when many in the NUM would have liked to see it continue to expand.

We have to realise that nationalisation without the NUM being involved at the heart of the industry's policy, without an integrated fuel policy, and without real change at the place of work, fell far short of what was expected.


Plan for Coal

But a very substantial change in the relationship between the NUM and the mining industry has been achieved by the Tripartite arrangements which produced the Plan for Coal - a joint strategy for the industry has now been hammered out on the basis of joint discussion and joint agreement.

The next step after the Tripartite Agreement was the long haul to get the integrated fuel policy which the NUM has so long demanded, and as part of that the Energy Commission, which includes all the energy unions and the managements of the nationalised energy industries, has just had its first meeting.

These are all major events in the development of industrial democracy, but you and I know that this progress - and it is formidable progress - has not yet had its impact at the place of work except insofar as those of you in the pits have a more secure future in an industry whose future is secured by an integrated fuel policy.

There are three schools of thought about industrial democracy from which, in effect, the NUM will have to choose.

The first is a school of thought prevalent within private industry of what I would call participation without power; the second might be termed power without participation, and the third is a step-by-step programme towards full self-management and workers' control within the mining industry.

Since these schools of thought are very often confused, let me discuss them separately. The first need not detain us too long.


Participation Without Power

It is the idea, very widely held by business leaders in the private sector, that the way to get round trade union strength is to offer participation without real power. All the words used about industrial democracy have got to be judged by the simple criterion - do they permit a real shift of power, or not?

I've also heard that better communications - if the workers only knew more fully what the management were thinking - would end the conflict in industry. That's a theory you can read in the management magazines.

Involvement that falls short of a shift of power is very widely distrusted [sic. discussed?] by those whose real objective is to bypass the trade union by offering the shadow of control in place of the substance of independent trade unionism. Nobody in the labour and trade union movement can be interested in participation without power.


Power Without Participation

The second argument is the insistence that we've already got real power and that this is stronger without any form of industrial democracy than weakening it by adding to it something which falls short of full power.

Trade unionists aware of the seductive arguments to move the trade unions away from that real power are going to be tempted to respond by saying, "Very well, we will stick with the power we have and will have no part in any form of industrial democracy that falls short of 100 per cent workers' control in a 100 per cent socialist society."

No one can dispute the power of independent trade unionism -  the capacity to represent the membership free from any cloying links of semi-responsibility, free from the compromises that are inevitable when you are engaged, directly or indirectly, in management decisions, avoiding the compromises that are inevitable if you are involved in partly running a system that, far from being socialist in character, is primarily capitalist.


Participation & Capitalism

The argument is that it is not right to involve the trade union in any of these processes until socialism has arrived, but being a Labour Minister in a Labour Government in a capitalist society is, in a way, a sort of worker on the Board.

If I devote time to this argument it is because it is the daily problem that I experience, and it's not an easy thing to do. On the one hand you have to safeguard the interests of the members of the community and to combine with it a desire and an impetus to transform the society you are engaged in managing.

The theory, however understandable the ideological position may be, that socialists will remain in opposition until socialism is created and then we'll come in and run it is absolutely contrary to the whole history and tradition of the British Labour Movement.


Isolation

If it is really true that the NUM wants nothing to do with the management of the mining industry until socialism is created, what in heaven's name are you doing sponsoring NUM Members of Parliament in the hope that they will run an economy that still falls short of socialism?

What on earth is Alex Eadie doing, first as an NUM-sponsored MP and as a leading and distinguished Minister in the Labour Government, responsible for the development of the coal industry in a capitalist society if the strategy of the NUM is to stand back and wait, like Joshua walking round Jericho tooting his horn until the walls fall down and he moves in to collect his inheritance?


Step-by-Step

There is a danger in the debate on industrial democracy within the NUM of accidentally rejecting the whole of our history of building on strength to strength and going stage by stage.

To sum it up, we've always believed in fighting for socialism and not waiting for socialism because, in the process of fighting for it, you breed the leadership which is capable of running it when it actually has been won.

Therefore it will not surprise you that the programme I'm putting forward is that a step-by-step movement towards self-management is right.

Does anyone really believe that the NUM would not be strong enough to prevent a phoney scheme from weakening its basic strength?

We must build on the structures of strength and how you do it must be decided within the membership of the NUM itself. It's not for me to tell you how it should be done.

Whatever comes forward must come after discussion and agreement by the unions within the industry, including NACODS [The National Association of Colliery Overmen, Deputies and Shotfirers] and BACM [The British Association of Colliery Management]. The overwhelming majority of people in the industry are members of the NUM, but NACODS and BACM grew out of the NUM.


Attitude to Management

We must be clear about the attitude to management implicit in industrial democracy. I've never yet met a shop steward, in discussion on industrial democracy, who didn't want to see the finest management managing the company. What they do want is that the management should be accountable to them and not some remote multi-national boss in Tokyo, Milan, New York or wherever it happens to be.

I'm sure that what sometimes appear to be the insuperable problems of how to preserve the discretion of management, the skills of management, the statutory responsibilities of management in the mining industry are wholly soluble if it's possible to get discussions going at the working level between all three unions in the industry.


Miners’ Next Step - Workers’ Control

I do believe that the time has come for the miners' next step. Great progress has been made and, although there have been difficulties and failures in the past, no one should apologise for what we have achieved so far. It is a very formidable record and it takes us to a point from which we have to move forward.

Our past history, our present experience and our future prospects all point to a staged move to full self-management and workers' control within the mining industry.

                                                                                                        Next