TRADE Three features of the class struggle in Britain have attracted great international attention during past months: the economic crisis and the fall in the exchange rate of the pound sterling; the defeats suffered by the Labour party in a number of by-elections; and the great dec line in the number of strikes and industrial struggles. The roots of the first of these features, the economic crisis, were dealt with in a previous issue of INPRECOR (No.40/41, December 18, 1975.) The second, the Labour party's electoral defeats, presents no special problems of analysis. Any government made up of a party of the working class which presides over an 8% fall in the living standard of the working class, a doubling of unemployment, and heavy cuts in social spending will inevitably reap the electoral consequences. Labour's experience in Britain is but a confirmation of the lesson of Denmark, Australia, and New Zealand: Any Social Democratic party that pursues openly rightist policies in the present period will suffer big electoral losses. An analysis of the third feature, however - the quite significant decline in mass working class struggles - is not only the most difficult, but also the most urgent for revolutionary Marxists. Weight of the trade-union struggle For the past eight years, struggles of the trade unions have been the overwhelmingly predominant mass ex-
BRITAIN UNIONS AND by ALAN JONES pression of the change in class relations and the relationship of class forces in Britain. Numerically, the unions, with their 11 million members, are the most important organizations of the working class in Britain. But more than that, no other manifestations of the class struggle can remotely compare to the struggles waged by the unions, which have involved as many as 3-4 million workers in mass mobilizations around wages and other union issues, not to mention the 250, 000-1, 500, -000 workers who held political strikes against anti-union legislation, the 140,000 who mobilized in the demonstration against the Industrial Relations Bill, the 100,000 who marched in solidarity with the workers of the Upper Clyde Shipyards, or the 20, 000 workers who engaged in advanced forms of political struggle during the 1972 miners strike. Throughout the past eight years, it has been the mass trade-union struggles that have marked turning points in the overall relationship of class forces in the country. The most important political developments, such as the fall of the Tory government of Edward Heath, flowed precisely from the effects of such struggles. In short, these struggles have been the chief driving Orce of the crisis and have determined the relationship of forces. Moreover, no analysis has convincingly demonstrated that there is any real potential for sustained
BRITAIN mass actions on such a scale around any other issue. Hence, any view of the class struggle in Britain that does not forsee a renewal of major trade-union battles and which simultaneously maintains that no major defeat of the working class has occurred is based on the false notion that a political crisis can be resolved in favor of the working class without any major intervention of the masses in the field of open class struggle. It follows that if the mass trade-union struggles of the British working class were to decline for a prolonged period to their pre-1968 level, a qualitatively new and less favorable situation would be created in Britain. No victory on any other field could compensate for such a defeat. The entire activity and perspective for revolutionaries in Britain is thus greatly affected by whether or not they anticipate a new rise of mass working class struggles after the recent downturn.
JONES BASNETT The industrial cycle Many factors are involved in the recent downturn of mass trade-union struggles, not only the economic situation, but also social and political elements such as the continued illusions of the working class in the Labour party, the role of the Labour left, the developments in the Tory party, the crisis of the bourgeois political order in Scotland, and so on. Here, however, we will concentrate on only one aspect and determinant: the relation of the economic crisis to the level of mass trade-union struggles. With the 1974-75 recession British capitalism entered a qualitatively new economic period, one which may be scientifically characterized as a period of stagnation, although not yet decline, of the productive forces. The previous period, that of the postwar boom, was one of rise of the forces of production, despite all the fluctuations. It is no accident, then, that mass trade-union struggles have been the principal characteristic of the class struggle in Britain during the the past eight years. The driving force of the crisis of British capitalism is the precipitous decline in the rate of profit. Raising the rate of profit requires a sustained offensive against the working class aimed at qualitatively increasing the level of exploitation and depriving the class of a good part of the gains that were made during the postwar period. The chief obstacle to this bourgeois offensive is precisely the organizational strength and 8 combativity of the mass workers organizations, above all the unions. In turn, this basic fact of the economic crisis makes it clear why the struggle over the rate of exploitation and the reaction of the unions to this has been at the center of the political crisis. The ability of the capitalist class to deal with every other problem is fairly directly determined by the degree to which it succeeds in gaining greater economic maneuvering room by imposing a defeat on the working class. Further, in the present British context every major economic struggle almost inevitably tends to assume the form of a political crisis. Given the present relationship of class forces, it is only through the direct intervention of the bourgeois state that the capitalist class can hope to win victories, as has been shown by quite a number of crises, from incomes policy to the anti-union laws to British Leyland and Chrysler. Of course, the conclusions for the perspectives of the
SCANLON class struggle to be drawn from an examination of only one element of the situation must be tentative and preliminary, although an analysis of social and political developments supports the same general conclusions. But the economic analysis is suggestive of at least certain determinants and dynamics of the class struggle. Trade-union membership It is well known that British imperialism has been able to instill a powerful reformism and political underdevelopment into the British workers movement through political maneuvers and economic concessions made possible by the enormous international strength this imperialism developed during the nineteenth century. But there has been a dialectical complement to this process. British capitalism bought the political backwardness and reformism of the British labor movement at the cost of allowing the British working class to create more powerful organizations with which to defend its economic interests than the working class of any country in Europe. The problem is that given the historic decline of British imperialism, the bourgeoisie is no longer able to afford these organizations. In spite of the existence of a strongly integrationist bureaucracy, it is inconceivable for the bourgeoisie to inflict the sort of defeat on the working class required by the present crisis unless these organizations are significantly weakened. The chief strategic problem for the bourgeoisie on the economic field is how to weaken these organizations without in the process creating the conditions for the working class to break with the political reformism that has historically
dominated it. In this context, one of the most significant elements of the post-1968 crisis has been that membership in the trade-unions, far from declining, has been going through an expansion unprecedented since the end of the second world war. This expansion of membership is all the more remarkable when set against the economic and social context. Employment in Britain was contracting even before the onset of the 1974 recession. It stood at 23.3 million in 1966 and had fallen to 22 million as of 1971. (All figures in this section, unless otherwise specified, are from the excellent article by John Hughes, of Trade Union Growth, " in Trade Union Register 1973.) Furthermore, this decline was most dramatic in manufacturing industries and other sectors that are traditionally the most heavily unionized sectors. Further, the decline in manual employment, traditional stronghold of trade unionism, was especially severe in every sector. The latest figures fully confirm the continuation of these trends. But despite this unfavorable economic situation, trade-union membership has increased sharply since 1968, as shown by the following figures:
Unionization as % of Union Membership of total employees 1967 9,747,000 42.5 1968 9,745,000 43 1969 10,004,000 44 1970 10,685,000 47.5 1971 10,619,000 48 The increase during the four years 1968-1971 represented a rise of 600, 000 in male union membership and 400,000 in female union membership. A period of rising unemployment sow not a decline but a significant rise in trade-union membership - for the first time ever in Britain. If we look beyond the gross figures, it is clear what processes were occurring within the unions. First, in the heavy industrial unions there has been a considerable increase in the degree of organization at the base throughout the postwar period, especially an increase in the number of stewards. The number of AUEW (Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers) shop stewards, for example, increased 50% between 1947 and 1961. This was three times the increase in the number of manual workers in these factories. Further, the process was accelerating during this period: the rise in the number of stewards between 1957 and 1961 was twice that of the period 1947-56. (Marsh and Coker, British Journal of Industrial Relations, Vol. 1, No.2.) During the period of the late 1960s and early 1970s there was a rapid spread of shop steward organization into new sectors - white collar workers and health workers for example. Hence, whereas estimates of the total number of shop stewards at the beginning of the 1960s stood at about 175,000-200, 000, today's figure
I4: TREMENT Rik N8
DE is more than 300,000. Thus, within the numerical expansion, there has been a consolidation and strengthening of union organization. The second trend is a clear expansion of the unions into new sectors, particularly among the public sector, white collar workers, and women workers. The membership of the largest non-manual union in the public sector (NALGO) increased more than 100,000 (29%) during the five years prior to 1971. The membership of the largest civil service union (CPJA) incr-ased 36, 000 (24%). CPSA membership stood at 220, 000 by 1976; NALGO membership was 625, 000, and the NUPE (the main manual workers union in the public sector) had 600,000 members. The increase in the private sector is revealed in the membership figures for the four largest unions oriented toward non-manual workers in the engineering and financial sectors:
Membership in thousands 1966 1971 ASTMS (white collar commercial and industrial) 72 250 APEX (white collar engi-
76 118 AUEW (Tech) (white collar industrial) 73 101 NUBE (banks) 58 93 Total 279 562 There has also been a particularly steep increase in union membership among women, which overlaps with the increase in the white collar membership in the public and private sectors, where the percentage of women workers is high. Union membership among women increased from
BRITAIN
1.9 million in 1966 to 2.6 million in 1971, raising the percentage of unionized full-time women workers from about 24% of all full-time women workers in 1960 to just over 30% in 1971. The increase in the number of women in unions during the past ten years was about
1,097,000; for men it was 605,000. There are twentythree unions affiliated to the Trade Union Congress
(TUC) with predominatly female membership, while the subordination and oppression of women in the labor movement is revealed by the fact that only 2% of trade-union officials are women.
Trade-union struggle
While the expansion of trade-union membership during the past period has been notable, it is another element
- the explosion of mass strike struggles — that has really marked the greatest change in the situation since
1968. This is shown in the figures for days lost in strikes.
Number of days lost in strikes
(in thousands)
1966
2,398
1967
2,787
1968
4,690
1969
6,846
1970
10,980
1971
13,551
1972
23,904
1973
7,197
1974
14,750
(Source Hyman, "Industrial Conflict and Political Econmy, " in Socialist Register, 1973 for 1966-72; Financial
Times, August 16, 1976, for 1973 and 1974.)
As regards the more precise trends revealed by these figures, we may first note that the actual number of strikes increased more slowly than the number of days lost in strikes, as shown by these figures:
Number of Strikes
1966
1,937
1967
2,116
1968
2,378
1969
3,116
1970
3,906
1971
2,228
1972
2,470
1973
2,873
2,922
1974
(Same source as above)
In short, although the number of days lost in strikes for the highest year in the 1970s was twelve times that of the lowest year for the 1960s, the number of strikes in the record year of 1970 was only slightly more than 50% higher than during the lowest year of the 1960s. This means that while there were not more strikes, the struggles were getting longer and were involving more workers. Almost twice as many workers were involved in strikes in the peak year of 1972 (some 1, 705, 000) as
10 in 1967 (731, 000). The length of the average strike increased from four days in 1967 to fourteen days in 1972. Thus, struggles were penetrating into new layers of workers and each struggle was becoming longer and more severe than during the 1950s and 1960s. Taking either measure, however - the number of strikes or the number of days lost in strikes - it is quite clear that the past two years, and especially 1976, have seen a massive decline in the level of struggle. The relevant statistics are as follows:
Number of Strikes Days Lost (in thousands) 1975 2,282 6,021 1976* 1,800 3,000 * Extrapolated from the first six months. (Source: Financial Times, August 16, 1976.) Thus, by the first half of 1976 the number of days lost in strikes was down to below the 1968 level. In terms of the number of strikes, the change was even more dramatic: the first six months of 1976 saw fewer strikes than any year since 1953. It is clear from these figures that the situation is paradoxical. During the period prior to 1968, in spite of a strengthening of internal union organization, there was a relatively low level of trade-union struggle and a stagnation, or even decline, of the implantation of the unions in the work force; the percentage of the labor force in unions declined from 45% in 1948 to 41% in 1966. After 1968, as we have seen, the steep rise in trade-union struggles was accompanied by a major extension of trade-union membership. During the past two years, however, a complete divergence has arisen between the trend of struggle and the trend of trade-union membership. The trend of struggle has declined, while that of union membership has continued to rise. The September 1976 congress of the TUC recorded that total membership of affiliated unions had risen to 11, 036, 000 (Tribune, September 10, 1976.) Two explanations of this rather startling disparity may be offered, one of which has no real historical precedent. The first, an unfavorable one, is that the continued rise in union membership is merely a "hangover" effect from the previous period of struggle, in other words, that the upsurge of struggle produced a wave of unionization even after the upsurge itself had ebbed. If this explanation is accepted, we should expect the rise in union membership to turn about soon. The second explanation, the more favorable one, is that on the contrary the continued influx of workers into the unions reflects the fact that despite a temporary setback, the working class remains essentially undefeated and the qualitative turn in the situation registered in 1968 has not been reversed. This view clearly has important implications for the perspectives of the class struggle. It not only means that we should expect a new upturn of mass struggles, but also implies important consequences for the view of the siate of mass working class consciousness. Workers do not join or-
ganizations for nothing. If there is a continuing trend of adherence of broader and broader layers of workers to the unions, it means that despite the setbacks, the working class, at least on a number of issues, has not been convinced that it is no longer possible to find solutions to some of their problems through the organizations of the working class. Thus, deciding between these two interpretations of the disparity between working class struggle and membership in the unions is a question of some importance. It can best be examined by looking more closely at the trends of struggle during the period since 1968. Type of struggle The first point that must be noted about the trend of struggle since 1968 is that the apparent stability in the number of strikes actually concealed highly divergent tendencies. First, throughout the 1950s and early 1960s a very large number of strikes were small-scale ones in the mining industry. (In the mid-1950s such strikes accounted for three-fourths of total work stoppages.) These declined massively with the abolition of the piecework system in the mid-1960s. By the mid-1970s only 12% of total strikes occurred in the mining industry. (Financial Times, August 16, 1976.) Thus, the apparent stability in the number of strikes masked a major extension of strike activity among wider layers, as we have already noted in the figures for the number of workers engaged in struggles. Second, this extension of industrial struggles was highly concentrated in an enormous increase in the number of struggles over wages. This may be seen by comparing the total number of strikes with the number of strikes for wage increases.
Wage Strikes Strikes Number of for Wage as % Strikes Increases of Total 1960 2, 832 471 17 1961 2,086 458 17 1962 2,449 380 16 1963 2,068 383 19 1964 2,524 540 22 1965 2,354 648 28 1966 1,937 431 22 1967 2,116 638 30 1968 2,378 925 39 1969 3,116 1,542 49 1970 3,906 2,162 55 1971 2,228 890 40 1972 2,470 1,216 49 (Source: Hyman, op. cit.) The figures on days lost in strikes are even clearer. By the early 1970s some one-half of stoppages and four-fifths of days lost resulted from wage disputes. (See Financial Times, July 26, 1976, and August 16, 1976.) In other words, although there were some important struggles over such issues as unemployment, the huge increase in working-class struggles after 1968 was extremely concentrated in the form of a massive explosion of wage struggles. The explosive political character of these battles derived not from the qualitative sort of demands raised, but from the fact that decrepit British capitalism could not afford to grant such wage demands and that the bourgeois state was continually forced to step in through incomes policies and anti-union legislation in order to combat these struggles; this gave the struggles an explicitly political character. It is thus entirely correct to observe that the massive wage struggles and the efforts of the state to halt them were the central political features of the situation; on the other hand, the ebb of these struggles was quite sufficient to demonstrate the relatively limited sort of struggles around which the mass of the working class had advanced (which, of course, is not to say that certain vanguard sections had not gone well beyond this). This further reflects the important limits of the advance of mass working class consciousness.
RESTORE 3II CUTS SOCIAL LIS ENO SAVE JOBS 1101 CUIS ITS CONTRACT It is above all the collapse of wage struggles since summer 1975 that explains the overall downturn in struggle. Indeed, with hardly more than a handful of such major struggles during the past year, and with wage struggles generally accounting for such a high percentage of struggles, the statistical decline could be almost entirely accounted for by the decline in wage struggles. This, of course, does not mean that there has been no decline in other types of struggles. On the contrary, it is deeply significant, for example, that there has been no struggle against layoffs comparable to that of the Upper Clyde Shipyards in 1971; but it is above all in this decline in wage battles that the reasons for the general fall in struggle must be sought. It is therefore necessary to look at the reasons for the decline in wage fights and the changing consciousness of the working class it represents.
11
BRITAIN Inflation and wages The most obvious factors in the decline in wage militancy are rising unemployment and the government incomes policy. As the August 16, 1976, Financial Times put it: "Employers in engineering, for instance, where strikes have been more than halved in the January-June period compared with last year, believe the figures are readily explained: rising unemployment is frightening the militants and incomes policy is taking pay out of the arena. " The reality, however, is not quite that simple. Other elements must be added to explain the current massive decline in struggle. This may be illustrated by the following table, in which the horizontal lines indicate turns in the unemployment cycle.
No. of un- No. of Days lost
Year employed Strikes in strikes
(000) (000)
1947 299 1721 2433
1948 338 1759 1944
1949 338 1426 1807
1950 308 1339 1389
1951 281 1719 1694
1952 463 1714 1792
1953 380 1746 2184
1954 318 1989 2457
1955 265 2419 3781
1956 287 2648 2083
1957 347 2859 8412/2252(*)
1958 501 2629 3462
1959 512 2093 5270
1960 393 2832 3024
1961 377 2686 3046
1962 500 2449 5798/1289(**)
1963 612 2068 1755
1964 414 2524 2277
1965 360 2354 2925
1965 391 1937 2398
1967 600 2116 2787
1968 601 2378 4690/3190(***)
1969 597 3116 6846
1970 640 3906 10980
1971 758 2228 13551
1972 844 2470 23904
1973 598 2873 7197
1974 750 2922 14750
1975 900 2282 6021
1976 1250 1800 3000 *The exceptional figure of 8,412 is largely accounted for by the 4 million days lost in the engineers' strike and the more than 2 million days lost in the shipyard workers' strike. These were essentially protest strikes. The second figure is the total minus the days lost in these two strikes. ** Two one-day engineering strikes in 1962 accounted for 3.5 million days lost. Because their protest character distorts the figures, the total is tabulated as above. *** A one-day engineering strike was held that year, which accounted for 1.5 million days lost. This has been deducted from the total as above. 12
(Sources: British Economy Key Statistics 1900-75, for unemployment 1951-69; Field: Unemployment, the Facts, for unemployment 1971-73; Who's Next for the Chop, published by Counter-Information Services, for unemployment 1974-75; British Political Facts 1900-60, for strike statistics 1947-60; Hyman, "Industrial Conflict and Political Economy, " for strike statistics 1961-72; Financial Times, August 16, 1976, for strike statistics 1973-75; strike statistics for 1976 extrapolated from first six months of year.) As is evident from these figures, there is no clear sign that unemployment had a serious impact in reducing strike levels prior to the present cycle. On the contrary, during the five previous cycles of the postwar period, two peak years of unemployment (1952 and 1967-68) saw no important decrease in the number of strikes, two years (1959 and the extraordinary year of 1972) were peak years of both unemployment and strike struggles, and only one year (1963) recorded a major dec line in struggles. There are more definite signs, however, of the impact of the onset of unemployment. Of the four years during which unemployment began to rise at the turn of the industrial cycle, two of them (1956 and 1966) were marked by declines in the number of days lost in strikes, one (1961) saw strike days remain static, and only one (1970) saw an increase in the number of strike days. Granted, such comparisons are of only limited value in view of the much greater impact of unemployment during the present cycle, in terms of both severity and duration. Nevertheless, while there is good evidence that the onset of rising unemployment (more than its absolute scope) does have an effect on militancy, it is not at all clear that this could account for the total effect. This is further confirmed by additional relevant comparisons. The previous years of highest unemployment, 1971-72, were also years of the most widespread and Glasgow, are also cities of extremely high unemployment. Undoubtedly, unemployment has had an important effect on the level of trade-union struggle, but other elements must be introduced to account for all the determinants of he downturn of the past two years. Incomes policy The second element is incomes policy. Traditionally, high unemployment and incomes policies have been used by the bourgeoisie alternately in keeping wages down. The major incomes policies implemented since the second world war are as follows: the Selwyn Lloyd Pay Pause of 1961-62; the Labour government freeze, followed by 32% and then 22% and 42% limits in 1966-69; and the Phases I-III of the Heath Tory government from 1973 to mid-1974. In other words, since 1960 the only years in which formal incomes policies have not been in effect were 1963-64, which were peak years of unemployment during that industrial cycle, and 1970-72, the peak unemployment years of the following cycle.
As for the effects of these policies on trade-union struggles, the 1961-62 policy did coincide with a slight decline in the number of strikes and a rather marked fall in the number of strike days (more than
50% when adjusted for the engineers' strike); the 1966-69 policy also coincided with a slight fall in the number of strikes and some decrease (about 10%) in the number of days lost; the 1973 to mid-1974 policy saw an increase in the number of strikes but a significant fall in the number of days lost (down by 66%, but the comparison to the extraordinary year of 1972 exaggerates the trend In sum, incomes policies have had clearer effects on reducing militant struggles than has unemployment, which is logical considering the extent to which wage struggles have accounted for days lost. Further, the present incomes policy is unique in the postwar period in that it is being imposed simultaneous with rising unemployment rather than alternately with it. The combination is undoubtedly particularly powerful. Effect on real wages The third element in the situation - and the one most sharply changed since the 1971-72 recession - is the effect of workers struggles on real wages. Here it is important to note that there was a very real material basis for the explosion of wage struggles during the years 1968-74. The wage increases won by the workers during that period were reflected in genuine gains in real income. The following table shows the evolution clearly.
Movement of Real Wages in Pence of 1963 value (100p-£1) 1963-64
+50 1964-65 -17 1965-66 +44 1966-67 -22 1967-68
+20 1938-69 +29 1969-70 +39 1970-71
+33 1971-72
+107 1972-73
+69 (Source: Bacon and Eltis, Britain's Economic Problem: Too Few Producers, p. 164.) The figures on personal spending show the same pattern. Taking the 1948 level as an index of 100, the volume of personal spending stood at 147 in 1968. By 1973 it had risen to 172. (Lloyd's Bank Review, April 1976.) In sum, after a period of fluctuation and stagnation during the mid-1960s, the post-1968 strike wave brought the working class six years of uninterrupted increases in real incomes. It was only with the imposition of the new incomes policy of the Tories in 1973 that real wages fell - by 69p in real terms in 1973-74. Thus, throughout the first six years of the new wave of struggle, the effects of trade-union militancy on real wages were clear.
The situation is much different during the period 1974-76.
After the setback of 1973, the working class launched a major wave of struggles. The number of days lost in strikes in 1974 was the second highest since 1926, the year of the general strike. But this wave of struggle did not produce the sharp gains in real wages of the previous wave, as shown below:
Index of Real Take-Home Pay {January 1974=100) 1973 October 105
December 106 1974 February
April June Augus: October December 1975 February
April June 99 *Artificially depressed by the three-day week. (Source: Labour Research, September 1975.) The pattern is clear. The mass upsurge of the working class that brought down the Heath government also drove wages up. But there was no sustained expansion. Within six months after the peak period of these gains, all the benefits of the struggle had been wiped out. Again, the figures on personal spending show the same pattern. At the beginning of 1973 this stood at index 172. It had fallen to 168 by the beginning of 1974. The struggles of winter 1974 and throughout the year drove it back to 172 by the first quarter of 1975. But by the third quarter of that year it had fallen to 167. (Lloyd's Bank Review, April 1976.) The reason the workers failed to make the sort of gains they had in 1968-74 was the unprecedented increase in the rate of inflation, which was running at an annual average of 25% in mid-1975 and stands at 15% today. The overall result is clear enough. The massive strike wave of 1968-74 brought six years of uninterrupted rises in living standards. The major struggles of 1974-76 actually left the workers worse off at the end than they had been at the beginning. This is a very real part of the material basis of the changes in working class struggles. In 1968-74 militants could justly say, "Struggle pays off. " By mid-1975 the Labour government could in effect say, "Struggle is useless; an alternative is necessary. " The support the Labour government has been able to muster for its incomes policy was not based solely on illusion, but had a real base in the experience of broad sections of the working class. The change in the situation since 1974 is not simply that the difficulties of struggles have mounted, but also that they have no longer brought about the same (To be concluded in the next issue of INPRECOR.)
THE POLITICAL