Be by Raymond Challinor The 1,200 workers at Eckersley's mill assembled in the canteen.’ Over the loudspeaker, the manarer said, that he had grave news. All of them were going to lose their jobs. But the one consolation was that the name of Eckersley would not die; it would be used on products made elsewhere. “hen he sat down, miraculous thourh it may seem, all the workers about to “ecome unemployed, cheered! This pathetic piece of news from Wigan is typical in the crisis of textiles. Without a tradition of militancy, both workers and union are offering no serious resistance. They place their faith in a rovernment inquiry into the industry. It is difficult to imapine what they hope this will achieve. From the wholehearted support of Harold Wilson for the investigation into the printing industry and elsewhere, he clearly supports modernisation -his euphemism for introducin: new machinery and cutting the labour force. Higher profits and lower labour costs go hand-in-hand in Harold's schema. And that is why,undoubteily, he applauds present trends in textiles, The industry is very prosperous -- for the shareholders, The giant Viyella empire, which sacked. 2,170 last weex, sales rose from £6 million to £68 million between 1963 and 1966! Yet, this has been done with fewer workers. Durine the 1960's employment in cotton spinning dropped from 136,000 to 99,000 and in weaving from 123,000 to 89,000. But this is only a becinning. While still increasing output further, Mr. Joe Hyman, of Viyella, expects the industry to shed two-thirds of its e. isting labour force by 1970. This is the crux of the crisis, When the unions dwell on cheap imports from Portugal, they are raising what, in essence, is an irrelevancy.. yere the government to forbid all imports of textile coods, the same trends towards centralisation and unemployment would still exist. These are inherent in the capitalist system. The unions can only counter it, therefore, by posing the socialist alternative -=- public ownership with workers' control. They should be cointine out that workers are being sacrificed on the altar of higher profits, It will not be the shareholders who will be signing on at the Labour Exchanre. Their prospects are quite rosy. Financial columists in this week's Sunday Times and Sunday Observer regard the giants of the industry -- Courtaulds, Viyella, Enclish Sewing Cotton -- as good investments. But we are likely to see the same .attern repeated throughout the in ustry that happened in Courtaulds last year. The firm's profits rose 33% in 1964, 41° in 1965 and 9% in 1966. Courtaulds celebrated this phenomenal achievement by closing down four mills at Bolton. Such behaviour yeerns for a militant response. From the*the textile unions, however, it will not get it. Instead of adopting a class line, they are veering further away from a class positicn and angrily talking about disaffiliation from the Labour Party. Those writers, like Pat Jordan, who say "Stay in the rarty and firht", are not so much wrong as missing the point. They should realise that the textile workers! response is based on a lack of political sophistication and knowledge. Their unions have always been a bulwark of the right-wing. At Labour conferences they have always supported the platform on issues like
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the pay freeze, public ownership and the bomb: “And™t is unthinking support by the union's officials reflected apathy among the renk and file. Few members ever bothered to play a part in local constituency parties. The same is true of the Pottery Workers who have also disaffiliated. In his book Potbank, Mervyn Jones mentions how the executive uncritically supported the Transport House line. Burning political questions were never discussed at conferences or branches. Apathy existed at all levels. A study of Newcastle-under=Lyme politics showed no pottery workers were members of the borough council or active in the local Labour Party. Only 57 per cent of pottery workers voted Labour compared to 85 per cent of North Staffs miners.* Things might have changed slightly in the Pottery Workers' Union since these two books were published. Hewitt has retired as general secretary and Alf Dulson has taken his place. But even so, both with the disaffiliation of the pottery and textile workers, I cannot escape the conclusion: It is not so much that the left is losing potential support by these moves, as Harold Wilson is losing a staunch friend, * Constituency Politics. By Frank Bealey, J. Blondel ad W.-. McCann. ¢.179
Liaison Committee for Defence of Trade Unions
- National Month of Protest 1967