Back to Labour Values index
Back to Workers Control Index
Back to article index
Previous
WORKERS' CONTROL AND TRADE UNIONS
Trade Unions in Britain arose before working class political organisations, and indeed it was the trade unions who provided the resources for establishing the Labour Party. The Labour Party has existed for 73 years, while trade unions have been part of working class life for nearly 150 years. The trade union in Britain was seen by the working class and accepted by the capitalists, after 70 years of working class pressure (piecemeal and spontaneous at first, but after the 1820s, persistent, organised and conscious pressure), as a voluntary representative organisation which spoke for workers not just about wages or hours, but also all the social, and political issues of the day. Trade unions passed resolutions about Home Rule for Ireland and Mr. Disraeli's support for Bulgarian atrocities as well as about Russian despotism. It was the TUC which was responsible for the enquiry that led to the 1944 Education Act and also for the enquiry that became the Beveridge Report. While in France, Germany and Italy these activities and role were filled by Social Democrats and Communists, in Britain it has been the trade unions.
33. The jobs which trade unions were organised to do - restricting the labour market to secure employment in bad times and bid up wages in good ones; resisting encroachments on the standard wage, hours of work and pace of work - have been rendered routine and very light work indeed by Keynesian fiscal policies and then by Incomes Policy and perhaps even more by the capitalists learning from experience that it was more profitable to negotiate and consult with workers and improve their working conditions than to lengthen the working day and pace of work. However, in Britain, because trade unions have an established place as the spokesman of the working class on political and social and economic affairs, it is perfectly understandable that they should continue to be seen and treated as voluntary, representative organisations by all politicians and the press.
34. The reality is that the working class has not participated in trade unions as a class since 1945. It has had no need, since the small minority who are very interested in trade unions are now perfectly adequate numbers to do all the jobs and gain all the demands which the working class require. Further, the working class can control that small minority perfectly adequately when it acts on its own initiative to gain something the working class don't want at all, e.g., the GEC-AEI shop stewards' failure to have a work-in to protest against redundancies in the winter of 1969 or the GMWU's remarkable overnight conversion to militancy and democracy after being vilified and deserted by the Pilkington workers in their unofficial strike of summer 1971. It is an established relation between "the people" and "the representatives" (in this case shop stewards, branch officials and other interested workers) that at such times when "the representatives" consider "the people" are necessary to carry, the representative's demand with the employers or to defend a threatened principle or privilege, "the people" down tools and withdraw labour. With 150 years of experience and reflection about trade union action for these aims, British workers are quite capable and do judge for themselves whether their representatives have made the right judgement in calling a strike or urging a strike's continuation. The defeat which fell to the miners' leaders who called for strike action against the Government and Phase II in the ballot in January 1973 or the failure of the AEU to sustain its campaign of militancy in the summer of 1972 are examples as telling and weighty as the successes of militants like Fords in 1968 or the miners' strike in January 1972.
35. While the working class has been quire prepared to keep its trade unions going because in the light of its experience they are doing necessary work for it, it has ceased to participate in trade unions in the debating of political and economic and social issues - quite naturally since it has stopped going to trade union meetings. This has made trade unions notoriously unreliable in their role as accurate gauge of working class opinion. But with no other alternative, politicians and the press have continued to take the trade unions as a gauge, because the British parliamentary system would simply seize up if there were nothing which could be taken as working class opinion.
36. The institution of workers' control is going to mean that the working class is faced with being a party to decisions some of which it will know nothing about and others where it will know much but be in the habit of letting the employers do the dirty work (for instance, disciplining workers who disrupt or impede production; making provision for safety) : consequently it is extremely unlikely that the class will entrust its representatives of the trade unions to undertake these new jobs for it with the same freedom of action that they enjoy in trade union matters. Only when the class feels itself competent to judge its representative's actions will it allow that much latitude and cease participating in workers' control as a class. Until then workers' control is likely to become as much of a hothouse of reflection, debate and experiment as the trade unions were 150 years ago. It is likely to contribute as much to the political, development of the working class, acting for itself in pursuit of definite aims, as have the trade unions.
37. Until full workers' control is achieved, the relations between trade unions and the workers' representatives in management will be laden with difficulty, particularly because trade unions will have a vested interest in claiming that the workers' representative has sold out to management and is therefore not to be trusted - the trade unions thereby magnify their own importance. Because of this, it makes sense to bind the trade union to the workers' representatives in management in some way, thereby forcing the trade union to be a participant in the workers' appraisal of the representatives' actions. One way would be to require every representative to be a trade union member in any firm where trade unions have negotiating rights, but specifying that a representative is not responsible or answerable either to his trade union branch or trade union officials above him for his actions. As a representative he is answerable only to his electors - the workers in his factory or firm. This in practice is the position of a shop steward in Britain and it is probable that many shop stewards will become workers' management representatives - though it should most definitely not be a precondition. Because trade union membership in firms where trade unions have negotiating rights is usually 100%, this condition grants no favouritism to one section of workers over another while reserving to the trade unions their own position.
The trade unions passed at the 1973 TUC the first statement on workers' control by the trade union movement since 1949. Coming after a complete silence of 25 years in which the possibilities of the working class gaining large measures of workers' control if given a lead by the trade unions [would have been considerable? - PB], this statement can justifiably be termed not a result of trade union initiative but rather a reaction to the moves by the Government and CBI, moves which had the clear intention of introducing workers' control, in Britain.
The TUC statement (in the form of an interim report on Industrial Democracy by the General Council) shows that the TUC views workers' control from a class viewpoint and is only interested in workers' control insofar as it increases the power of the working class to influence decisions.
38. "It is a basic function of trade unions to obtain a degree of joint control through representation at the point at which decisions affecting workpeople are made. It has long been the case that trade unions at all levels have influenced managerial decisions, and the need for greater influence has been recognised. Logically speaking, there is not a major barrier to be broken down which prevents trade unions from participating in major decisions within the present system, because they already do so. The extension of joint control or joint regulation in any form, including collective bargaining, is a de facto sharing of the management prerogative. However, this has not extended to the point where management are formally responsible to workpeople in the same way as they are to shareholders." (Interim Report, p. 35)
However, the interim report shows itself more interested in preserving the existing trade union structure intact for all time than in developing the ability of the working class to take full control of production. The report comes out decisively against works councils and instead supports an extension of the scope of "the present structure of collective bargaining machinery to bring into the field of negotiations matters which are currently outside collective agreements." (p. 28)
It is clear that the development of works councils would provide for the regular assemblies of workers and public debate cited in paragraph 9 of this policy statement as a necessary condition for workers' control. It is also clear that such works councils would tend to erode the jurisdiction of individual trade unions and instead develop the power and ability of the shopfloor. It is possible that this might create a desire for industrial unions in the working class as being the most logical reflections of their existence. In the same way as the trade union officials resisted and fought the shop stewards during World War I because the shop stewards limited the officials' power of initiative by giving a definite voice to the working class views at the shop floor, so the TUC in 1973 is resisting the first hints that such a development at the shop floor could be taken further through works councils. In Britain trade unions are organised on a craft basis (the AUEW and the Boilermakers) and on a general, or amalgamated basis (the TGWU or GMWU). There are only two industrial unions (the NUM and the NUR). This means that in each factory there is great concern by union officials to protect the jurisdictional rights of each union. Plant bargaining and shop stewards combines have begun to overcome such divisions. Works councils would increase the workers' ability to overcome them. In factories and firms where trade unions have negotiating rights, it makes sense to constitute the works council under trade union auspices - the auspices of the factory shop stewards committee which includes shop stewards from ALL trade unions in the factory. Elections for workers' management representatives would be conducted in the works council. The works council is merely the logical extension of the factory meetings already called by shop stewards' committees everywhere to explain a dispute or air a grievance. The TUC by opposing works councils shows itself more interested in trade union "property rights" than in workers' control.
Until and unless the TUC, trade union officials and shop stewards show that they are more interested in what the working class can gain from workers' control than in preserving their own jurisdiction, the working class will get no positive help or lead from that quarter in relation to workers' control. The trade union movement must do more than react to the proposals of the bourgeoisie about workers' control if the working class is to take it seriously as having the working class's interests at heart. The trade union movement must take the initiative in organising the working class to take control over production. If it does not do so, then the class will simply be forced to look elsewhere within its ranks for leadership.