The old reformist idea of partnership (that is, class collaboration) is completely out of step with present-day reality. There are many examples of this. In the steel industry, for instance, the trade unions were drawn into so-called participation with management. As a result, the unions have been forced to carry out attacks on their own members. A letter in The Financial Times from John Grieve Smith, the Director of Planning in British Steel, 1968-80, revealed how these “worker directors” were duped.
“We had employee directors, initially on the divisional boards and later on the main board,” stated Smith. “They were in a difficult situation at a time when the industry was going through a significant (and long-overdue) period of modernisation and restructuring, which involved the closure of more than 30 outdated open hearth plants and their replacement by five large oxygen steel making plants. But despite the conflicting pressures of the shopfloor and the boardroom, they played a vital role in enabling these massive changes to go ahead smoothly and with a large measure of agreement. I also found that trade union representatives on the supervisory boards of continental steel companies played a significant role.”[2]
These agreed changes led to mass sackings and the destruction of tens of thousands of steelworkers’ jobs.
Today, after all the sacrifices made by steelworkers, the bosses are coming back for more. Corus, the consortium of private British and Dutch steel interests, after cutting 10,000 jobs, are planning to axe several thousand more in order to reduce costs. They are the modern Luddites, destroying the workers’ livelihoods wherever they go. Yet, to quote the words of The Financial Times, the steel unions instead of planning a militant counter-offensive, simply expressed “disquiet” at the possibility of large-scale job losses.[3]
This sums up the discredited tactics of “New Realism”. The philosophy that says that the dictates of the market must be accepted without question has resulted in agreements being torn up, workplaces closed and millions of workers put on the dole. Both Tory and Labour governments have been guilty of massaging unemployment figures, but mass unemployment in Britain remains a cancer of society, especially in areas once reliant on heavy industry. The trade union leaders constantly try to reach an accommodation with the ruling class. But the capitalists are never satisfied.
In the past, the trade unions served to raise the living standards of the working class. They played a leading role in securing the democratic rights and civil liberties we enjoy today. These achievements gave the trade unions tremendous authority in the eyes of workers. Over time, however, the tactics of the ruling class towards the unions changed. The British bourgeoisie became very astute in its dealings with the workers’ movement. They replaced the early policy of repression against the trade unions with a combination of repression and concession. Above all, the ruling class systematically sought to buy off and corrupt the Labour and trade union leaders, and draw them into the web of the capitalist system.
Lenin noted that without the support of the Labour and trade union leaders, capitalism would not last six weeks. What the ruling class failed to achieve by repression, they achieved by pressure, manipulation and corruption, sometimes subtle, and sometimes not so subtle. All kinds of influences were brought to bear to draw the Labour and trade union leaders into ruling class circles and weaken their ties with the working class. They were made to feel very “important” and statesmanlike:
“They praise him to the skies if he nibbles at the bait, and they give him a good brushing the wrong way if he takes the slightest step against the bourgeoisie”, wrote Trotsky. “And this does not just happen once, but day-by-day, week-by-week, and year-in and year-out.”[4]
A section of the leaders began to enjoy a lifestyle increasingly divorced from the rank and file. Their salaries were much higher than those of the average members. Some had lucrative part-time jobs on government quangos and the like. In the AEEU, the officials received “golden handshakes” worth hundreds of thousands of pounds on retirement. One such union official, Charlie McKenzie, was set to leave his job with a corporate-style £320,000 deal plus a union car. He was Sir Ken Jackson’s campaign manager (where he was accused of being involved in ballot rigging) and was to receive his full salary for the following five years. The deal was scaled down after an outcry by union members, but was still very substantial.
Quite a few of these careerists accepted knighthoods, peerages and the like for services rendered. We recall the cases of Lord Carron, Lord Cooper, Lord Chapple, Lord Scanlon, Sir Sidney Greene, and so on. The list is very long. Sir Bill Connor, leader of the (low-paid) shopworkers’ union USDAW, was knighted in the New Years’ Honour’s List, for his contribution to “industrial relations”. Blair likewise honoured Bill Morris with a “well-deserved” knighthood.
The poison of careerism has always had a corrosive influence in the Labour and trade union movement. Many officials are appointed and not elected, making nonsense of accountability. In the past many were elected for life. Their role as “mediators” in the class struggle pushed them to seek compromises with the bosses, and to take the line of least resistance wherever possible. “If you face most of the present trade union leaders with faeces in the street – in other words with revolution – they would wet themselves”, as one Whitehall insider told The Times.[5] Given their social position, increasingly isolated from the pressures of working life, the trade union bureaucracy tended to act more and more as policemen over their rank and file. Strikes and militancy were viewed as an inconvenience for the officials’ daily routine. Unwilling to struggle, they justified the signing away of rights and conditions through “sweet-heart” deals and “flexibility” arrangements, as if there was no alternative.
In the AEEU militants were isolated, sidelined and victimised. They were seen as potential enemies, just as in the days of Carron and Chapple. Some were expelled from the unions on trumped-up charges. Moreover, this practice is far from over, as shown by the recent suspension and removal of two ATGWU officials – Mick O’Reilly and Eugene McGlone in Northern Ireland. This high-handed action was decided by Bill Morris, without consultation with the General Executive Council or the Irish Regional Committee. Although they were reinstated into different jobs after a campaign within the union, these bureaucratic attacks threatened to destabilise a major trade union, which in the context of Ireland, is non-sectarian and has long been a force for working class unity.