Edited Michael Barratt Brown and Ken Coates, Trade Union Register No. 3, Spokesman Books, £1.50.
Registers of trade-union activity in Britain are not scarce. Every revolutionary who holds a union card should know exactly where to look up accurate information on developments relating to his or her own, or indeed any, trade-union organization. The daily 'Labour News' column in the Financial Times, the monthly 'Industrial Notes' diary in Labour Research, the annual TUC Report, all record valuable details and events—the last two of these being carefully indexed and obtainable in many libraries and union offices. However, three times in the last five years (1969, 1970 and 1973), a book has been published with the title The Trade Union Register. Enquiring militants should understand right from the start that the title is an inaccurate one. Only a small proportion of each of these volumes is devoted to the factual recording of union developments, in the fairly useful forms of a diary of main events, the reprinting of selected trade-union documents, a number of statistical tables on the economy and a rather weird listing of 'books for trade unionists'. The remainder consists of feature articles, which combine the very personal viewpoints of individual writers with varying doses of accumulated data. The principal underlying trend of thought is the social philosophy of one political formation, the Institute of Workers' Control. The individual viewpoints, however varied, fall generally within the IWC's fairly elastic consensus. In short, not so much a trade-union register as a register of the spectrum of political views inside the Institute itself.
One of the main contributions to this third volume, taking up nearly forty pages, is an article by Ken Coates on 'Converting the Unions to Socialism'. Here as elsewhere, the familiar lucidity of style and literary flair in Coates' writing cannot mask his failings and omissions. A sketchy guide to the problems of British capitalism does not adequately justify its dramatic description as 'the weak link' among the capitalist powers. A colourful summary of union struggles over the Industrial Relations Act, particularly one which fails to specify such phenomena as the rôle of the Liaison Committee for the Defence of Trade Unions, does not convince the reader that 'it is perfectly plain that the unions are well capable of defending themselves against future provocations'. There is no analysis of the deliberate manoeuvrings of the trade-union bureaucracy or of the dangers of racism to the organized labour movement. Worse, the road to achieving socialism is shrouded in grey mists. 'Democratizing' society is seen as a 'process' of expanding work-ins and factory occupations, and forcing an 'aggressive erosion of "managerial" prerogatives'. Should capitalism resist these intrusions, advice is scarce: 'that barrier will only be surmounted by political action, by a change in the law'. A single sentence is later added by way of clarification: 'an appropriate political arm for labour. . . at least at first, can only take the form of efforts to reclaim the Labour Party for socialist policies'. Little wonder then that Coates, who three years ago described Wedgwood Benn's sudden support for 'workers' control' as truly 'remarkable' and marked by 'weaknesses' ('Workers' Control versus the anti-union laws' in Spokesman Pamphlet No. 11, 1970.), avoids in this new book any criticism of Benn, Scanlon etc. retaining his venom for crude analogies between Workers' Press and the prosecutors in the Moscow trials. Few will select this book for bedtime reading on the strength of Coates' contribution alone.
The hotch-potch of other articles includes both good and bad material. In the latter category come two offerings by Norman Lewis on aspects of the Industrial Relations Act; in contrast to Coates, who at least debunks the 'age-old flummery' of English capitalist law, Lewis sheds tears lest, due to the anti-union laws, 'labour law in all its manifestations might have fallen in disrepute, which could be little short of tragedy'. On the other hand, an interesting article by John Hughes argues, on the basis of statistical analysis, that the unions' growth rate in recent years has been underestimated, many new members having joined despite the important factors working against unionization (decline of traditionally organized industries; relative increases in the employment of non-manual workers, women and part-timers, without strong union traditions; and of course increased unemployment). Much of this material has however already been published by the Trade Union Research Unit as a pamphlet.
Another contribution, oddly titled 'Women's Economic Revolution', uncritically applauds the TUC for its 'honourable part' in promoting equal pay for women workers. Although it does make some worthwhile points about job evaluation, it finally puts its faith in hopes of new state legislation against discrimination.
More useful in general than the longer contributions is the 'Round the Industries' review of developments in engineering, the docks and elsewhere, where the details of recent events are less smudged by reformist interpretations and comments—though these persist. The revolutionary can certainly make some use of this social-democratic medley of a 'register'—but he can be forgiven if he skips half the book.
Richard Neubauer