to the problem of restrictive practices, a problem that is as serious
as strikes or threats of strikes.
The _Daily Mirror_ of London, that brash, vigorous tabloid which is
the favorite newspaper of the industrial working class, published an
inquiry into the trade unions in 1956. Its authors, Sydney Jacobson and
William Connor, who conducts the column signed "Cassandra," traced the
origin of restrictive practices back to 1811, when bands of workers
known as the Luddites broke into lace and stocking factories and
smashed the machinery. "The suspicion toward new methods has never
entirely died out in this country," they wrote, "and although sabotage
of machinery is rare (but not unknown) the protests have taken a new
direction--the slowing down of output by the men themselves and the
development of a whole series of practices that cut down the production
of goods and services."
Any reader of the British press can recall dozens of instances of
restrictive practices by labor. One famous one concerned the floating
grain elevator at Hull, an east-coast seaport. This elevator, which
cost £200,000 ($560,000), was kept idle for two months because the
Transport and General Workers Union insisted that it should be worked
by twice as many men as the Transport Commission thought necessary. The
Transport Commission, incidentally, represented a nationalized industry.
And there was the union that fined a milkman £2 for delivering milk
before 7:30 a.m.
The unions are quick and brutal in their punishment of those who break
their rules. Indeed, today, when there is full employment and the
unions generally enjoy a prosperity and power undreamed of by their
founders, they are more malicious than in the old days when they were
fighting for their rights. The principal weapon against an offending
worker is to "send him to Coventry." No one speaks to him; he eats
and walks home alone. Ronald Hewitt, a crane-driver, endured this for
a year. He had remained at work, obeying his union's rules, when his
fellow workers, who belonged to another union, went out on strike.
Hewitt was a person of unusual mental toughness. Another worker sent to
Coventry committed suicide.
Many of these punishments are the outcome of situations in which
unofficial strikes send out the workers. Those who remain and who are
punished are accused of being "scabs" because they obey the union's
rules.
All union leaders publicly acknowledge the great importance of
increased productivity in British industry. But the methods of
boosting productivity often seem to some union leaders to strike at
the principles for which they have fought so long. For instance, an
increase in output is regarded by the veterans solely as a traditional
means of increasing the profits of the employers. Moreover, increases
in productivity often involve the introduction of new machines and
layoffs for some workers. To the short-sighted, appeals for greater
productivity thus seem calls to smash the job security that is the
fetish of the industrial working class. This sort of union leader
just does not seem to grasp, or to want to grasp, the principle that
increased productivity is a general good benefiting workers, employers,
and unions.
Efficiency is not the sole god of British industry, as is evident when
one studies the weird system known as "demarcation" in the shipbuilding
industry. To install a port light under this system requires the
labor of a shipwright to mark the position of the light, a caulker to
indicate and make the hole for the light, another driller to make the
surrounding holes, and another caulker to fix the bolts and chain. In
addition, a foreman for each of the trades supervises the operation.
Interunion disputes arising out of such unnecessarily complicated
operations frequently result in a stoppage of work and a delay in the
filling of export contracts.
The most alarming example occurred at Cammell Laird's, a shipbuilding
company, in 1955 and lasted until well into 1956. New ships were being
built--for dollars--and the strike began over a difference between
woodworkers and sheet-metal workers. The new vessels were to have
aluminum facing in the insulation. Formerly the woodworkers had done
this sort of work, and they claimed rights over the new job. But the
sheet-metal workers said that, as aluminum was metal, the job was
theirs. The two groups and management finally reached an agreement.
Then the drillers of the Shipwrights' Union entered the affair and a
new strike developed.
The construction of the ships was delayed for six months and more. The
ability of Cammell Laird's or other British shipyards to offer foreign
buyers a firm date for completion of ships became a matter of doubt.
About 400 workers were dismissed as redundant. About 200 strikers found
work elsewhere. Thousands of other jobs were jeopardized. There was not
the slightest indication that those who inspired the strike took much
account of its effects on their country's future.
As a result of the application of the demarcation principle in
shipyards--you drill holes in wood, we drill holes in aluminum--wage
costs are often as much as 6 per cent higher than normal.
The innate conservatism of union leaders and the rank and file in
shipyards, industrial plants, and factories has been proof against the
missionary work of critics extolling the far different approach of
American labor. The leaders are often unmoved by figures which show
that increased productivity by the American labor force has resulted
in a far greater national consumption. In many cases neither the union
leader nor the union member will accept the idea that new machines and
new methods mean more efficient production, lower costs, and higher
wages.
British union leaders often counter that the American worker has no
memory of unemployment and depression. This is, of course, untrue.
Indeed, in many instances political and economic it seems that British
labor has made too much of its experiences, admittedly terrible, in the
depression of two decades ago. American labor, by eagerly accepting
new processes and machines, has attempted to insure itself against the
recurrence of a depression. British labor has not.
Industrial disputes affect the British economy's ability to meet the
challenge of the new industrial revolution. Disputes between union
and union are especially important. In 1955 there were three national
strikes. All were complicated by interunion friction.
Another complicating factor in industrial relations is the slow
disappearance, under the pressure of increased mechanization, of the
system of wage differentials in British industry. These differentials
represented a reasonable difference between the wages of skilled and
unskilled workers. With their disappearance, skilled workers in one
industry have found themselves earning less money than unskilled
workers in another. One cause is the ability of the big "general"
unions to win wage increases. Another is the practice of demanding wage
increases solely on the basis of the rising cost of living.
Naturally the disappearance of differentials has led to hot disputes
among workers and unions. In this atmosphere it is difficult for either
the union leaders or the employers to urge increased productivity
and harder work. "Everyone is furious with everyone else," an
industrialist in the Midlands said. "They start with me, but they are
pretty mad at each other, too."
In this interminable war between labor and management, the former
wields a weapon of enormous potency--the strike. Labor acknowledges
its disadvantages, but the right to strike is fiercely guarded. The
whispered suggestion that strikes might be made illegal unites the
labor movement as does nothing else. Labor needs the strike as its
ultimate weapon: the hydrogen bomb of British industrial relations. And
because of the peculiar economic conditions in Britain, the employer
finds himself almost weaponless. He can still dismiss an unsatisfactory
employee, if he has a good reason and can convince the employee's union
that it _is_ a good reason. But dismissal does not mean much in an era
of full employment.
Right-wing critics on both sides of the Atlantic have contended for a
decade that British economic difficulties are rooted in strikes and
other industrial disturbances. There is something in this, but, as H.L.
Mencken would have said, not much.
From 1946 through 1954 the days lost through strikes in Britain ranged
from a low of 1,389,000 in 1950 to a high of 2,457,000 in 1954. Due
to strikes in the newspaper and railroad industries and on the docks,
1955 was an exceptionally bad year: 3,794,000 working days were lost.
The figures look big, and of course it would have been much better
for Britain if they were half as large. But let's put them into
perspective. The figure for 1955, admittedly high, represents a loss of
less than one day's work per man in every five years' employment. The
loss to production through industrial accidents is eight times as high.
Both sides know that a strike is a costly business: costly to labor, to
management, to the union, to the nation. In many cases the threat of a
strike has been enough to force the employers to give way. Inevitably,
the higher cost of production resulting from the new wage rates is
passed on to the consumer. The merry-go-round of rising prices, rising
wages, and rising costs spins dizzily onward. Overseas the buyer who is
choosing between a Jaguar or a Mercedes finds that the price of the
former has suddenly risen, so he buys the German car rather than the
British one. This is what the economists mean when they warn British
labor and industry about pricing themselves out of the export market.
As we have seen, the industrial worker is doing pretty well in Britain,
even if the rise in prices is taken into consideration. The average
weekly earnings for all male adult workers, according to the records
kept by the Ministry of Labor, show a rise from £3 9_s._ 0_d._ in
1938 to £10 17_s._ 5_d._ in 1955--an increase of 215 per cent. The
coal-miners who were earning £3 2_s._ 10_d._ in 1938 are now earning a
weekly wage of £13 18_s._ 6_d._ The figure does not represent wealth
by American standards, for it amounts to approximately $38.99. But it
is high pay by British standards, and when the low cost of subsidized
housing and the comparatively low cost of food are taken into account
it will be seen that the British miner is living very well.
The miner's view is that he does a dirty, dangerous job, that he has
never been well paid before, and that if a union does not exist to win
pay rises for its members, what good is it? The miners and the union
members in the engineering industry belong to strong unions able to
win wage increases by threats of a strike. Once these increases are
granted, other smaller unions clamor for their share of wage rises. The
merry-go-round takes another turn.
Government attempts to urge restraint, through the TUC, upon the unions
customarily fall afoul of the snag that each union believes that it
is a special case and that although other unions can postpone their
demands for higher wages until next year, it cannot. So one union
makes a move and the whole business begins again. If the increase is
not granted, there is a strike or a threat of a strike. The national
economy suffers, class antagonism increases, and export production is
delayed. For such is the interdependence of the British industrial
machine and so great is the drive for exports that any industrial
dispute that reaches the strike stage inevitably affects exports.
A modern strike is like a modern war. No one wins and everyone loses.
A classic case is the Rolls-Royce strike of 1955, which involved not
only employers and union labor but, eventually, the Roman Catholic
Church and the Communist Party. The cause of the strike was a conflict
between restrictive practices and a stubborn workman named Joseph
McLernon, who worked at the Rolls-Royce factory at Blantyre in Scotland
as a polisher of connecting rods.
The workers in Joe's shop feared that, in view of reduced work, some of
their number might be let out. So they agreed to share their work by
limiting bonus earnings to 127 per cent of the basic rate. McLernon,
however, refused to limit his overtime. He polished as long and as
hard as ever and refused the assistance of another worker. For this,
McLernon was reprimanded by his union, the General Iron Fitter's
Association.
Joe had been working for Rolls-Royce for twelve years. The firm is
considered a good employer. But its managers were men of conviction.
They objected to the union picking on Joe and said so. Three months
later the union expelled McLernon.
Enter the Communists with many an agonizing cry about the solidarity
of labor. They demanded that Rolls-Royce fire McLernon on the grounds
that he no longer belonged to the union. The employers refused, and
immediately all the other polishers stopped work. Joe kept right on. By
the end of the day the entire factory labor force of 600 men was out on
strike.
The Amalgamated Engineering Union's local branch then entered the
picture. After a few days another 7,500 workers at the Hillington and
East Kilbride factories had struck.
Was it a strike? Certainly, said the General Iron Fitter's Association.
The Electrical Trades Union, dominated by Communists, recognized
the strike as official in accordance with its rule of recognizing
all strikes involving electricians as official until they are
declared otherwise. The Amalgamated Engineering Union, after much
soul-searching, decided to back the strike and approved strike pay
for its members. Negotiations between the Employers' Federation and a
committee representing the various unions got nowhere.
The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Glasgow then issued a pastoral letter
warning the workers against Communism. McLernon is a Catholic. But so
were many of the workers who wanted him fired.
The strike dragged on for seven weeks. The strikers lost over £700,000
($1,960,000) in wages. By the time the strike was over, no one on
the strikers' side could disentangle the objectives of the various
groups that had called it. Rolls-Royce export contracts were delayed.
The Royal Air Force failed to get delivery on time of some important
machines. Other industries also involved in the export trade and in
national defense were slowed down. The unions had maintained solidarity
at a tremendous cost. But when the strike collapsed, Joe McLernon was
still at his job, polishing away. He alone could be termed a winner.
Rolls-Royce, the unions, industry, and the nations were losers.
The Communist intervention in the Rolls-Royce strike symbolized its
current role in Britain. This is to win control of key positions in the
British unions so that the Communist Party will be able to paralyze
British industry in the event of an international crisis or a war. To
achieve this ultimate objective, the Communists obviously intend to
establish a stranglehold on the communications and defense industries.
This is the real Communist danger in Britain. Active political
campaigning by the Communist Party has been fumbling, misdirected,
and notably unsuccessful. Neither the old colonel from Cheltenham
who classes the sprightly dons of the Labor Party with "those damned
Bolshies" nor the Bible Belt Congressman who confuses British Socialist
politicians with Russian Communists is on the right track. The danger
of Communism in Britain lies in the unions. So does the defense against
the danger.
The pattern of Communist success is uneven. Communists lead the
Electrical Trades Union, ninth-largest in the country, with a
membership of about 215,000. Because electricity is everywhere in
modern industry the union's members are everywhere. And although
probably not more than one in every sixty members of the ETU is a
member of the Communist Party, the party completely runs the union.
Here is a curious sidelight on Communist methods. The ETU is weak
financially, perhaps the poorest of the ten largest unions. But it
spends money freely on "education." The ETU has its own Training
College at Esher, where its more ambitious members can be trained to
further the interests of the Communist Party and to silence the voices
of critics and doubters. Although the non-Communist members of the ETU
consider the college as a valuable device for the advancement of the
worker, the institution plainly is a training school for Communists and
their creatures in their prolonged war against the British economy.
One of the basic concepts of British Socialism is the solidarity of
the working class. Acceptance of this concept makes it difficult for
the industrial worker to think of the Communist, who comes from the
same town, speaks with the same accent, wears the same clothes, as an
enemy. There is a pathetic ingenuousness about workers who try to tell
the visitor that the Communists "are just the same sort of blokes as us
except they've got a different political idea."
The _Daily Mirror_ team in its portrayal of the trade unions devoted a
chapter to "The Communist Challenge." Significantly, a large part of
the chapter provided an incisive and illuminating illustration of just
how the Communists move to gain control of a union.
Where else are the Communists strong? They are in control in some areas
of the National Union of Mineworkers. Arthur Horner, the Secretary of
the Union, is a Communist. But they are being fought hard in the NUM by
men like Sam Watson, who heads its Durham region.
The connection in the Communist mind between the control of the NUM and
the ETU is obvious. Control of these two unions would enable Communists
to halt the flow of coal and electric power to Britain's factories. Not
much more is needed to cripple a nation's economy.
But the Communists press on. They establish cells in the aircraft
industry. They work industriously at fomenting trouble on the
docks, especially in the ports--such as London, Liverpool, and
Glasgow--through which most of the exports pass. Already the threat to
block coal and power can be augmented with a threat to halt defense
production and exports. It is improbable that the Communists are now
powerful enough to carry their program to a triumphant conclusion. But
they are on their way.
How do they work? Very much as they do elsewhere in Europe. In Britain,
as in Germany or Italy or France, the Communists care very little
about better pay or better working conditions for union members. Their
objective is power, power that will enable them to push the interests
of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. And, to repeat, they have
learned that for them power in Britain is obtainable only through
control of the unions and not through Parliament.
The Communists try to establish cells in every important factory in
Britain. These cells maintain contact with the district secretary of
the Communist Party, who knows from the cell exactly what sort of work
the factory is doing. Little wonder that Soviet visitors are incurious
about the details of British production when they are shown British
factories. The information obviously is safely filed in Moscow.
When an industrial dispute develops in a factory, the Communists seek
to widen the area of dispute and to involve as many unions as possible.
They also do their best to bring the recognized non-Communist leaders
of organized labor into disrepute. One method is to organize support
for demands that the Communists know the management cannot accept.
When a strike organized on this basis fails, the Communists point out
to the union members that the leadership is weak and hint that a more
"dynamic"--i.e., Communist--direction would benefit the union.
The Communist drive to break the power of the unions and thus to
spread industrial discontent is assisted by the character of some
union leaders. In many instances leaders are elected to hold their
jobs for life, and after years of power they become dictatorial. It
is a favorite Communist charge that the union bosses are "in" with the
employers, and that as long as their jobs are safe they will do nothing
to upset the present situation.
In the trade unions, as elsewhere in British society, the war alliance
with the Soviet Union inspired sympathy with the people of Russia
and admiration for their resistance to the Nazis. These sentiments
altered under the impact of the cold war, and they altered faster at
the top levels of the labor movement than anywhere else. The Trades
Union Congress in 1948 attacked Communist activities in the unions in
a pamphlet called _Defend Democracy_ and followed this with another
pamphlet, _Tactics of Disruption_. In 1949 the TUC quitted the World
Federation of Trade Unions, which is dominated by the Communists, and
helped establish the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions.
A year later the TUC barred Communists and fascists as delegates to the
annual conference of Trades Councils.
Meanwhile, the leaders of the TUC strove to explain the true nature of
the Communist challenge to free unions, and to emphasize the refusal
of the Communists to accept democratic principles in the unions or
anywhere else.
All this has had some effect, but not enough. The TUC has thus far
failed to shake the average industrial worker out of his lethargy. Safe
in the security arising from full employment and high wages, he does
not take the Communist challenge seriously. And now that many of the
basic objectives of the labor movement have been won, he does not work
so hard to protect them as he did to win them.
In this atmosphere Communist successes are inevitable. For it is the
members of a Communist cell in a union or a factory who are prepared
to talk all night at a meeting, to vote solidly as a bloc in support
of one Communist candidate while the non-Communists divide their votes
among three or four candidates. In many cases the non-Communists will
not even turn out to vote--it is too much trouble, especially when they
can watch the "telly" or go to the dog races.
The official leadership of the unions faces a formidable task. It
must first educate the rank and file on the true nature of Communism.
After that, it must organize anti-Communist action in the unions. Here
they encounter a real obstacle in the minds of the rank and file. In
the past, reaction in Britain and elsewhere has lumped Communists,
Socialists, and trade-unionists together. To many a unionist,
anti-Communism seems, at first inspection, to be an employers' trick to
break the solidarity of the working classes. Of course the Communists
do all they can to popularize and spread this erroneous idea.
The Communists in Britain seem to have been moderately successful in
establishing themselves as a national rather than an international
force. When Frank Foulkes, the General President of the Electrical
Trades Union and a member of the Communist Party, asserted: "This
country means more to me than Russia and all the rest of the world put
together," few challenged this obvious insincerity.
We must accept, then, that Communism within the trade unions is a
far more serious threat to the welfare of Britain than Communism as
a political party. It is on hand to exacerbate all the difficulties
in the field of industrial relations which have arisen and will arise
during a change from obsolete economic patterns to the new patterns by
which Britain must live.