a reply by Alan Rooney I would like to reply briefly to K, Rintoul's remarks about my article "Thoughts on the March", Comrade Hintoul suggests that I am only attacking the Vietnam policies of the British CP, CND and Parliamentary Left for personal reasons; I can best make clear my criticisms by extracting the main parts of my argument from "The Week" (March 23rd). "As yet, the policies of the British Comm unist Party, CND and the Parliamentary Labour 'Left'. have mainly been confined to acting as public relations agents for U Thant's pontifications on Vietnam, How presumptuous such people are! Comfortable, complacent outsiders telling the heroic Vietnamese resistance what to do". My point was that we should not let U Thant's diplomacy serve as a substitute for a policy based on solidarity with the Vietnamese. This was the final point I tried to make in my article - "Socialists must respond by intensifying their own efforts in solidarity with the Vietnamese resistance". I would not have criticised Kosygin's visits to the City of London, the Carlton Club and. Buckingham Palace if he had made clear to the occupants of those institutions that their days were numbered. As for suggesting that Kosygin made some good socialist propaganda on his trip to Britain, I am still reeling from his uninspiring TV performance, With IO million viewers looking in, Kosygin made abundantly clear his lack of solidarity with the Vietnamese resistance. These things need saying. Ho Chi Minh has rightly rejected U Thant's proposals; President Johnson has accepted them. How can any socialists continue to carry banners saying "Support U Thant"? Tribune fell into the trap and has been supporting U Thant for months, That paper's contradictory policy on Vietnam was further confounded by the diplomatic piece it carried on page one last week under the excruciating title - "Should We Apologise to President Johnson?"
Workers’ control v wage freeze Cont /a
This conflict, he concludes, will only be resolved by the elimination of private ownership and private profit. The unions' long-term aims can only be realised in a political programe, Industrial and Political aims. If this is correct (and the British Labour movement has been historically based always on the political activity of the trade unions) then the trade unions need a political strategy. The industrial conflict over incomes, money, wages, must evolve towards, and include, a political conflict over power and authority. It is this need which provides the essential link between opposition to wage control, and the demand for workers' control of industry. Workers' control_is the key. Workers' control is slap bang on the centre of the movement's stage today, and it was socialist agitation, and its links with trade unionists, which put it there, In 1964, the first "Voice" conference on workers' control met in Nottingham. Within a year, and after further conferences in London and Manchester pamphlets and plans produced by the "Voice"papers, "The Week", and C.S.E., had put forward important demands for workers' control in the docks industry, the steel industry, and on the question of shop-steward powers to inspect secret accounts of business. Within months of their appearing, the Labour Farty had issued its own plan for the docks, which embodied vital elements of workers' participation, the craftsmen's co-ordinating committee for the steel industry (the official union negotiating body) had adopted the "Voice" programme completley, the T.& G.W.U. had called for the opening of the books, and the Labour Party election manifesto for I966 had called for more "industrial democracy." The seamen's strike pamphlet, "Not Wanted on Voyage," spearheaded the demands for the opening of the books, in one of the most significant events of last year. This year, the Labour movement organisations are dallying still more closely with ideas of workers' participation, and industrial democracy. The steelworkers' campaign achieved a limited victory in the concessions which they have wrung from Richard Marsh on the steel Bill. Having set his face originally against all "experiments" with workers' control in the nationalised steel industry, he has now introduced provisions for greater access by workers to the managerial processes and secrets. The T.U.C. devoted a great deal of attention to industrial democracy in its evidence to the iioyal Commission of Trade Unions. The Labour Farty Executive Committee produced a document, "Industrial Democracy," which was debated by the L.P. Young Socialists at Zaster. The Executive has appointed a study group to prepare a policy statement for submission to the Party Conference this autumn. Differences of opinion on that group have led to the announcement that the E.C. will convene an Hotel conference to discuss the whole matter, in the near future.
over/