This summed up the whole pragmatic approach of the Labour leaders. For them, socialism, which was a grand idea, was only possible in the dim and distant future after a very long period of transition. Unlike the “utopians” who demanded wholesale change, they were “realistic” people who lived in the here and now. They believed that gradually, over many years, maybe many decades, capitalism would be slowly and peacefully transformed into socialism. They were typical petty-bourgeois Fabians, completely blinded to the realities of class society.
Nationalisation or public ownership had long been the aspiration of the organised labour movement. It was the means by which socialism would supersede capitalism. Ever since 1919, the Miners’ Federation had demanded nationalisation of the mines under workers’ control. However, by 1947, government consultations with the TUC and the miners’ union resulted not in the nationalisation dreamed of by the socialist pioneers, but state ownership under the control of bureaucratic unelected management boards at regional and national level. These governing boards were staffed not with ordinary workers, but with former managers, ex-generals, top civil servants and a sprinkling of right-wing trade union officials. In the contemptuous words of the former “Left” Stafford Cripps: “workers simply did not have the necessary skills to participate in management.”[1] Apparently they were too ignorant and uneducated to understand the “divine rights of management”. For Cripps, management would have to be left to the pampered bureaucrats of the Establishment and their friends in the capitalist boardrooms, the traditional “Captains of Industry”, who had the necessary acumen. Manny Shinwell, the government minister, noted not surprisingly, that many of his officials at the Ministry of Fuel and Power were “apathetic or antagonistic to nationalisation”. But nothing was done about it. They all carried on as respectable statesmen and women, careful not to challenge the real power in society, the giant monopolies and their millionaire owners.
Sir Walter Citrine, who had already been knighted by the National government, was now granted a peerage, and brought onto a board of nationalised industry. Eddy Edwards, the miners’ national secretary, went on to the National Coal Board, swapping his cloth cap for a bowler hat. The same was true of all the other management boards. In other words, this was not workers’ control or management – far from it – but a bureaucratic management, that mirrored the capitalist managerial elite, and utterly divorced from working people on the shop floor. While the miners celebrated the nationalisation of their industry and the end of the dictatorial rule of the coal magnates, which represented a gigantic step forward, they were still forced to fight the bureaucrats running the National Coal Board.
At the same time, the former coalowners, such as Powell Dyffryn in South Wales invested their compensation in profitable oil shares, and still continued to supply the industry – on very favourable terms – with new mining equipment. And of course, the profitable distribution of coal still remained in private hands. Meanwhile, the nationalised industries were saddled with colossal debts and massive interest charges, mainly acquired through the borrowing needed to modernise out-dated plant and machinery.
As expected, Clement Attlee brought a number of trade union leaders and union-sponsored MPs into the government: Nye Bevan at Health, Ellen Wilkinson at Education, Isaacs, chairman of the TUC, as Minister of Labour, and finally, Ernest Bevin as Foreign secretary. Throughout these post-war years there was very close collaboration between the trade union leaders and the government, which leaned heavily upon the former to maintain “industrial peace” and guarantee production. “Communist” trade union officials such as Arthur Horner continued to play second fiddle in this drive for increased coal production, just as they had done during the war.
Horner, the newly-elected general secretary of the NUM, in fact headed a £20,000 union campaign to increase coal production. “For the first time in the history of the trade union movement in this country”, stated Horner, “the miners’ union assumed the responsibility of actively assisting in the efforts to increase coal output.” In the words of Harry Pollitt: “The battle for production… must not be confined to the nationalised industries. The unions should demand that joint production machinery – national, regional, local and factory – should be set up in all industries without delay.” Incredibly, the stance the CP leaders were little different from Mondism and right-wing reformism. But with full employment, the workers were not content to wait patiently for “jam tomorrow”, and began to push for a bigger share of the cake that they produced.
As soon as Labour came to power, the Attlee government was faced with a continuing ten-week old national dock strike over revised wage rates. Employers at the Surrey Docks in London had already suspended 1,500 workers for working to rule. As expected, this provoked further unofficial action. The Churchill government had already used troops against the strike in Glasgow, Grimsby and Swansea. He then ordered 600 troops on standby to unload strike-bound ships at the Surrey Docks. Now, five days after the general election, the new Labour government ordered the troops to unload the cargoes at Surrey. This use of troops to break the strike by a Labour government came as a shock, and led to the growth of unofficial committees on the docks across the country.
Another unofficial dock strike took place in the autumn, involving 43,000 strikers at its height. This second strike resulted from widespread discontent over wages, conditions and, in particular, grievances against the TGWU officialdom. Arthur Deakin, who took over from Bevin, continued to rule the union with a rod of iron. The union bureaucracy treated the rank and file with complete contempt, and blocked official strike action at every turn. “Settlements were made, usually most inadequate, without any reference back to the membership”, stated Jack Jones. “Although numerous agreements left a lot to be desired, if unofficial strikes took place the local union officials were simply told: ‘Get those men back to work!’ I knew we would never build strong unions while such attitudes prevailed.”[2] This approach resulted in widespread resentment and even outright hostility towards the union officials. Again, 21,000 troops were used to break the ten-week old strike. By November, the workers decided to return to work with promises of an official investigation to look into their grievances.
Unlike the interwar period, the situation after 1945 saw a considerable expansion of world trade and was accompanied by full employment in the advanced capitalist countries. Under these conditions, even if the employers wanted to, it was impossible to return to the old pre-war casual labour system. The dockers were in a strong position at last to improve their terms and conditions, and the employers were forced to recognise this new balance of forces. The Foster Committee made recommendations on decasualisation and the Labour government introduced the Dock Workers (Regulation of Employment) Scheme in 1947. Following on from the wartime regulation of the docks, the bosses had no alternative but to accept the establishment of such a Dock Labour Scheme. This, in turn, set up a Dock Labour Board made up of employers and union representatives to administer the scheme. While employers continued to hire workers on the same basis, those workers not hired received full pay from the Board. By this means, however, the government side-stepped the question of nationalisation of the profitable dock industry. Furthermore, the scheme did not cover all dockers, especially those in the very small ports. In the future, this was to become a major issue as the numbers of non-registered dockers grew with the new containerisation and mechanisation of the industry.