Incomes Policy, Legislation and Shop Stewards

Could I join in the Topham-Kidron controversy, given that a share in the body is mine? The argument over our book, Incomes Policy, Legislation and Shop Stewards, appears to fall into two parts: the question of trade union officialdom, and the question of politics, I don't, as Tony Topham does, (The Week, 23rd June), see any inconsistency in the discussion of wages. We make it clear in the chapter on "The Wages Front" that national bargaining is of great importance for all workers, including those whose local militancy enables them to raise their wages high above national minimum rates, What is increasingly true, though, is that the "wage drift" element has, since the war, come to play the role of "leading leg" in wage movements, In other words, on the wages front itself, shop stewards are increasingly becoming the leaders, consciously or not, There is no suggestion, however, that we believe that es national bargaining "leg" must be cut off, as Tony Topham suggests, What we do say, and still hold, is that trade union officialdom is, for historical reasons, increasingly separated from the rank and file membership of the unions. But it cannot for this reason be ignored, of "cut off". As in the stewards! movement in the First World War, the rank and file militants mst of course work with the full-time officials whenever they can, but must be able to preserve their independence of action whenever officials fail to support, or actually oppose, action that goes beyond the present limits of official policies, The linking-up of stewards (not, surely, a demand that Tony Topham would oppose?) will, of course, be more effective the more help and support the trade union officials give it. The problem is that their help and support, with some very fine and notable exceptions, will in general not be forthcoming. As for politics, Reg Birch is quite right. "The extension of shop stewards! organisations, their increase in number, will not automatically lead to the development of a Socialist movement", Who said it would? We didn't. Since it seems we must quote chapter and verse, the last part of the chapter on shop stewards and unofficial strikes points to the lack of politics as a central weakness of the contemporary shop stewards! organisations, That we didn't spell out a political program is certainly true: the book is addressed to a movement consisting of 57 varieties of Labour Lefts, Commnists, ex-~ Communists, Trotskyists, syndicalists, anarchists etc., each with its more or less separate - often very separate] - political leaderships, Neither our present relationship to the movement, nor Tony Topham's nor anyone else's, puts us, or them, in a position to lay down a general political line for the class to follow. The Government's Incomes Policy and its proposed legislation, however, offers a situation in which militants must unite perforce, regardless of their other political differences - as they did in last week's demonstration and lobby in London, The only possible political program for 1966 is a united front of all militants, regardless of other differences, against present Government policy, on the grounds that this policy is directed against the working class. Clear understanding of this need will take the working class forward in a very significant political direction, Beyond that, let controversy thrive, Those who would like to read what we said can get the book for 2s. 6d. (plus 6d, postage) from C. Davison, 83, Greyhound Road, London, N,17,.