There can be little doubt that the workers' control campaign represents a growth point in the British socialist movement at the present time. Increasing numbers of rank and file workers are being drawn into the campaign. This is healthy: it is important that workers' control ideas should be in the forefront of any socialist strategy. However it is important for socialists to know where the campaign is going. The need for theoretical and programmatic clarification about workers' control is ever present.
INFLUENCE OR POWER?
Ken Coates and Tony Topham say: "Workers' control exists wherever trade union practices, shop stewards' sanctions and collective power constrain employers." I don't think it is a matter of a quibble over definitions, but I would say that the state of affairs the authors describe here is simply generalising about the possibility for WORKERS' INFLUENCE in capitalist society. The use of the phrase "workers' control" in this context is misleading because it suggests that the workers can have hegemonic power over employers in a capitalist society. The phrase WORKERS' INFLUENCE seems to be a more neutral and accurate description of that situation. What I understand by workers' control, i.e., workers' self-management, is impossible in a capitalist society - by definition.
As I said at the Coventry and Nottingham workers' control conferences, the Labour Party document on Industrial Democracy is basically reactionary. Obviously there are bits in it which can be used by workers and socialist (notably the "open the books" section); but basically the document is a "heading off" and not a socialist tract. It is essentially about humanising industrial relations in the existing structure of society. Its basic and fallacious assumption is in seeing the state as able and willing to hand over more power to the workers via the trade unions. Workers' control is about POWER, and the key weakness and misconception in the Labour Party document is that it misunderstands the nature of state power and power in society.
In contrast to workers' control demands, workers' participation "demands" do not fundamentally [illegible] ruling class. As Coates and Topham put it in their pamphlet: "The case for the positive advance of workers' control programmes now, is that the best form of defence is attack: that unless new positions of workers' control are won, over and against property rights, the defence will, at best, produce the old stale-mate of pure collective bargaining."
Yes, the [illegible] is the strength of the attack on property rights.
ORGANISATION
Any campaign for workers' control must emphasise CLASS issues. It is useful that there is currently an output of literature on various aspects of workers' control; but workers' control conferences must not become a substitute for class struggle. It is vital that rigorous arguments on a workers' control programme are urgently worked on with the aim of producing a workers' theory always in our sights. The workers' control campaign must be developed as part of a socialist movement. Such a movement must continually recruit rank and file workers.
an idea. There are signs that bits of the ideas are getting through to some militant workers - but not in an organised way. And, of course, "resolutions to annual conference" whether Labour Party T.U.C. or trade union are of limited use here. Resolutions on "nationalisation and workers' control" are hardly worth more than the traditional straight "nationalisation" type. There is more hope in seeing engineering shop stewards campaigning on workers' control issues. But it is not realistic to expect shop stewards to become THE key political vanguard on workers' control. Ken Tarbuck and Chris Arthur argue, in their excellent pamphlet: "Workers' Control - what next?", (2) for the ORGANISATION of a socialist programme with workers' control as a central part, and that "the construction of" (a political) "party is a necessary condition of success." It must be a party "basing itself on class struggle". They are right to emphasise that this means a revolutionary party, not a sect or a pressure group.
Footnotes:
(1) 1/6d; from Tony Topham, 1 Plantation Drive, Anlaby Park, Hull;
(2) 6d; from K. Tarbuck, 56, Baswick Lane, Stafford
See also Bulletin No. 2 of the 1968 Nottingham workers' control conference for conflicting analyses of the Labour Party document by Terry Pitt; and Ken Coates and Tony Topham. We understand that this is out of print, but readers should send enquiries to Ken Coates, 19 Greenfield St., Dunkirk, Nottingham, as it is intended to reprint.