FOR what purpose does all this machinery and organized power exist?
The first thing which must be strikingly clear to anyone who has given any study to Trade Unionism is the proletarian character of the movement. It is a movement of wageworkers. All its problems are based upon the fact that the members of the unions are wageworkers who, to live, must sell their labour power to the private owners of the means of production. They are parts of a competitive system, the motive of which is that of production for profit. The labour it uses is a commodity subject to all the laws of commodity production. The fundamental purpose of the Trade Unions, therefore, must be the pursuit of the interests of the wage-workers.
That their struggle takes on a defensive form at one stage and a revolutionary form at another is due entirely to the relations existing between the class forces at a particular time. This relationship depends basicly upon the economic maturity and stability of the system—both in part and as a whole.
It must be realized, however, that the revolutionary significance of any action, whether it be political or of a direct mass type, does not depend entirely upon what the participants think of it. This depends upon the relation of the classes at the time and whether it changes that relationship in the direction of the abolition of classes.
For example, the General Strike of 1926 was not undertaken with a view to overthrowing the existing system, but it profoundly shook the system and contributed in no small degree to the subsequent tremendous increase of the Labour vote in 1929, aiming at Socialism as against capitalism. Indeed it must be recognized that viewed objectively the marshalling of the forces of labour under the banner of Socialism for the purpose of achieving political power to abolish capitalism, in this period of chronic crisis of capitalism, is revolutionary. It is the failure to recognize this fact and consciously to direct the whole policy of the Trade Unions and the Labour Movement in the light of that recognition that constitutes the greatest danger facing the coming Labour government, threatening the movement with disintegration and the triumph of counter-revolution in the form of Fascism.
The transition from one system to another is by no means a mechanical process. However “inevitable” the change may be, the time necessary to effect it can never be measured. Nor can the amount of human suffering and conflict involved before the change is carried through be estimated. So uncertain is the “inevitability” that the possibility of a period of blackest reaction and disintegration of civilization cannot be ruled out of the perspectives of capitalist society.
Everything in this respect depends upon the development of the socialist ideas in the ranks of the people and the growth of the will to power on the part of the Labour forces for the purpose of Socialism, before the forces of reaction are able to consolidate their power under the banner of Fascism. This fateful issue was presented to the Labour Movement in each country where Fascism to-day holds power prior to the victory of Fascism. Had the Labour and Socialist Movement of Italy seized the opportunity presented to it in the fateful days of 1921, when the workers took control of the factories, and consolidated that victory by conquering the powers of the State, Fascism in Italy would have been defeated in its infancy.
Had the German Labour Party in 1918, when the power of the State fell into its hands after the fall of the Kaiser, advanced decisively to the fulfilment of its socialist aims, instead of concentrating upon formal democracy and leaving the economic power in the hands of the landlords and capitalists as heretofore, Hitlerism could never have flourished. Fascist ideas spread amongst the masses proportionately to their disillusionment with a Labour Movement which has failed to grasp its historic opportunity to fulfil its socialist aims.
Hence the importance of evaluating the work and functions of the Trade Unions correctly in relation to their fundamental aims and those of the whole Labour Movement. That the Trade Unions are committed to socialist aims is not a matter for debate. They are committed to it by virtue of their relation to the Labour Party, by the Trade Union Congress constitution and its decisions. The stated objects of the Trades Union Congress put the “nationalization of the land, mines and minerals, and railways” in the forefront of its demands and aims. The most recent Congress (1934) re-affirmed “Our complete faith in the principles of Socialism”.
Therefore when discussing the functions of the unions in relation to industry it must never be forgotten that they are also waging a political struggle with and through the Labour Party. The deeper the crisis of the present system grows, the more the question of political power assumes an importance to which all other questions become subordinate and the more the fundamental aims supersede the incidental. As a matter of fact the latter merge into the former and become unrealizable unless the basic changes are achieved.
Of the bearing of this question on the future of the unions it will be necessary to discuss. Here let us turn to what are usually called the specifically Trade Union functions of this powerful machine whose structure I have sketched.
These can be divided into two, namely those of social insurance and those dealing with the conditions of employment. Long before the days of State Insurance and the Old Age Pensions Act the Trade Unions provided insurance against sickness, injury, old age, and unemployment. The administration of these funds was supplemented in every Trade Union branch by innumerable spontaneous acts of assistance to members who had exhausted benefits, or who through some misfortune had failed to qualify for benefit. These benefits have been maintained since the coming of State Insurance and have contributed considerably to the amelioration of the conditions of millions of workers in the critical years since the War.
The social insurance aspect of Trade Unionism gives a vested interest to the members and is an important factor in the stability of the unions. The social life of the Trade Union branch is reinforced by the Trade Union social clubs, in which members and friends foregather fraternally and thereby consolidate the social bonds of their class.
The industrial side of Trade Union activity is most extensive. The unions regulate wages, hours of labour, etc., by means of collective agreements with the employers. In some industries, where the workers are well organized, the unions have agreements covering the employment of labour, the regulation of overtime, protective safety regulations, etc. The miners have their independent checkweighmen who check the weight of coals sent up from the pit. They are also entitled by statute to appoint examiners to inspect the pit. The builders have codes of safety regulations. The Transport and General Workers Union have many agreements governing allocations of work schedules, decasualization schemes for workers, etc. Probably the largest field of influence is that of the unwritten rules and customs. These extend in many directions, such as the distribution of work, overtime regulations, starting and stopping times for meals, the introduction of new machinery, the transfer of labour, limitations and training of apprentices, outworking allowances, etc.
In this century there has been a considerable extension of joint action with the State. One of the most important is the Trade Board system, through which the employers throughout the industries concerned are compelled to observe minimum wage standards. The Trade Boards are established in industries where the workers are badly organized. The conditions of the workers in what are known as the “sweated industries” gave rise to them. The Boards are comprised of equal numbers of employers’ and workers’ representatives, together with “independent” members appointed by the Minister of Labour. One of the most important of these is the Agricultural Wages Board.
In some industries there are what is known as Whitley Councils, a system of Joint Industrial Councils launched by the Government immediately after the war as a counter move to the independent workers’ committees of the shop stewards. The latter were demanding an increasing share in the control of industry as the means to social ownership. The Government answered with the scheme of equal representation of the employers and workmen in factory committees and national and local industrial councils to maintain private ownership. These councils were to be held responsible for discussing the general state and policy of industry and the efficiency of its administration. It meant that the workers’ organizations had to become a kind of efficiency bureau for the employers. In most cases where they were established they became in practice concerned mainly with questions of wages and hours.
A further development of conciliation machinery arose from the pressure of the workers’ organizations for improvement of conditions, in the form of conciliation boards and .tribunals. These, of course, can work just so long as the employers and the Government are in a position to make concessions to the economic demands of the workers. But as soon as the pressure of the crisis conditions of capitalism tend to prohibit such concessions, the arbitration and conciliation machinery breaks down. The experience of the Railway Wages Board is a case in point. So long as it had a basis for compromise decisions there was no question of it being discarded. When the wages question became acute and the unions refused to concede further to the employers, the latter proposed the abolition of the Wages Boards and the establishment of a legal arbitrator whose decision would be final and legally binding.
The intensification of the competitive struggle in a number of industries has been accompanied by an ignoring of agreements between employers and the Trade Unions. From this state of affairs has come the demand for the legalizing of agreements and arbitration awards. This has appeared in the cotton and iron and steel industries and represents a dangerous innovation in which the workers and their organizations will be brought under the direct control of the State.
Besides these forms of arbitration machinery for holding the Trade Unions back from the path of direct mass action on economic questions such as wages and hours of labour, the unions have their representatives in a variety of Government created advisory committees such as the National Advisory Council for Juvenile Unemployment, Courts of Referees for dealing with appeal cases in the administration of the State Unemployment Insurance.
A further important development in the direction of collaboration with the employers and the Government took place after the General Strike of 1926. The General Council of the Trades Union Congress and subsequently almost all the Trade Union executives appeared to abandon the idea of ever again using the strike weapon. Although the Government and leading employers had used the most threatening language to the unions and had passed the Trade Union Act of 1927, which literally hamstrung the unions, the General Council of the Trades Union Congress, with the approval of the unions, entered into entirely new relations with the employers through the Federation of British Industries and the Confederation of employers. They mutually agreed to issue joint statements on such subjects as Unemployment, Industry and Finance, Social Service, Empire Development, and kindred subjects all on the basis of the restoration of capitalism, and entirely remote from the declared aims of the Trade Union Congress and the Labour Party. They issued a joint memorandum on Finance to the World Economic Conference of 1932, which the Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer welcomed as a document which he could himself have drafted with satisfaction. Later the General Council sent representatives to the Empire Conference at Ottawa convened by the British Government.
All these forms of working with the State and the employers have grown out of the function of the unions, in acting as a brake upon the intensive exploitation of the workers. The basis of this superstructure of conciliation is the strike weapon, i.e. the organized power of the workers to withhold their labour. Despite the obvious deviation from the declared socialist aim, and the conscious effort on the part of the unions to “make capitalism work” and condition their demands to the “balance sheets” of capitalism, the unions have repeatedly found themselves in the position of direct opposition to the State and the employers. The General Strike of 1926 is, of course, the classic incident illustrating the logic of the economic contradictions between the claims of the workers and the capitalists.
It may be said that this occurred before the new plans for co-operation were established. Such a plea cannot be made concerning the actions of the unions in 1931. Their unanimous resistance to the “economy demands” brought down the Labour Government.
The main function of the unions, therefore, is the pursuit of the interests of the working-class. The defence of its interests accentuates the crisis of capitalism, as was demonstrated in 1926 and 1931. The apparent rise in status which appeared to be emerging with the growth of collaboration with the State and the employers proves to be false in the face of the intensified exploitation of the workers. There is no increase of responsibility for production, no change in the wage-slave position of the workers. Such changes can come only with the change in ownership of the means of production.
Thus the defence of the economic interests of the workers and the question of their status merges into a single issue—the achievement of the fundamental aims of the Labour Movement—as the means of solving the immediate “bread and butter” questions which occupy the continual attention of the Trade Unions.
Next: IV. The Trade Unions and the State