INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST JOURNAL 5-6 NOW OUT* from a student of politics : The latest issue of International Socialist Journel contains several art+ icles which are very timely: in particular the one by Tony Topham = "Package Deals in British Collective Bargaining", I think it worth quoting in extensio the conclusion of Tony's article because of the relevance it has for all the discussions now taking place about an incomes policy and the relationship between the trade unions and the Labour Government:
"eeit should now be clear that saying "Yes" to a national incomes policy ‘ would involve the trade union and labour movement in endorsement of a total strategy which runs from the national level to the shop steward at the point of production, The logic of the situation demands that, if national policies are to succeed, local working class power must be curbed, The object of the long term wage contract is to achieve this latter purpose, At the level of national, industry-wide bargaining, the employers are finding difficulties in superimposing the long term contract on top of a complex, inter-related wage structure...This is because the urions must - in response to their members! pressures - reserve the right to reopen a long term contract as other groups around them move their relative positions..the advocates of incomes policy are driven to bring in the law..to achieve the desired result - the break-through of the wages rounds.
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"..efrom this point of view, Fawley had one special feature - the exclusively plant-level nature of the bargain, This meant that when the management thought it had succeeded by the productivity deal in undermining the role of the stewards, the latter immediately found that "outlet" they were bound to seek, in controlling the application of the agreement, and in basic wage changes themselves. Their relationship with the district union cfficials developed correspondingly: instead of handling a separate area (overtime, etc.), they came to share,..with the officials in handling the main negotiations,...Where however we have the more usual national industry egreement..this re-drawing of the front will not be so easy for the steward, Indeed the Engineering Employers! Federation is seeking explicitly to obtain union agreement to a freeze of local negotiations as part of the long term deal. But the shop stewards, we can safely predict, will seek their "outlets" - they too have been through the school of partial control. The union leadership's attitude towards these applications is therefore crucial. If they sign contracts,..they are on a slippery slope which leads towards legal and disciplinary attempts to curb stewards! activity...
"The only way out of this dilemma for a trade union leadership which does not consciously seek the authoritarian consequences of these developments, is to shift the whole quality of its response to the long term contract..on to ground which will at the least preserve the steward's role as a representative of worke®s' aspirations, And in fact such ground will be found..in offensive demands 4 which centre around workers! control..eThe only alternative which can succeed is for the left-union shop steward bargaining power..to shift from accomodation to attack. This means - not saying "NO" to the new strategies but posing the x alterndive in terms of control. Thus, just as we should pose the overall demand "No incomes policy without workers! control," so we should elaborate this to argue for "No change in labour practices without workers' control," and also "No productivity deal without the opening of the books,"...And..we must draw attention to the objective of the package deal - the restoration or increasing of the rate of profit. This stratesy brings the local struggle into an organic relationship with the national ones..." * Available from 19, Greenfield Street, Dunkirk, Nottinzham, 4/6 post paid, We shall be summarising other articles in the .journal in our next issue,