Last November, the Labour Party NEC decided by a significant majority to back the November 17 demonstration (called by over 12 unions) against the government's latest round of 'cuts'. Reports in the press stressed the personal friction at the NEC meeting in which - it is rumoured - Callaghan tore up his notes and stormed out.
The fact that the NEC should have been pushed so far as to back a demonstration directly opposing government policy is a clear indication of the growing antagonism building up in the labour movement to the Social Contract which was equally in evidence at the Labour Party conference only a month or so before.
Defeated on numerous points, the Times described Callaghan's reception at the conference as that of "an insulted king in the middle of a revolution". If no doubt exagerated - the Tribunites intend leading no 'revolution! - the Times accurately describes the growing hostility of the delegates to the ernment's pro-capitalist policies as the party base swings ever more to the left.
Such hostility could be seen in the voting down of the government's key 'cuts' proposals in favour of a NUPE resolution calling "..unity in trade union and labour movement in resistence to the cuts". It was also reflected in the resolution by COHSE demanding a "massive hospital building programme" and one, supported by a massive majority, calling for the nationalisation of the largest banks and insurance companies...
Concretely, of course, as the Guardian hastened to point out, such resolutions will not affect government policy since Callaghan had already, weeks before conference, indicated that he would refuse to implement any resolutions running counter government economic Tory press is that such opposition will grow in the period ahead, as the social crisis 'deepens!, throwing the party into a crisis that ".. will find a reflection inside the Parliamentary Labour Party Social Contract It is no accident, of course, that this shift should begin to occur now. The Labour Party conference took place under the shadow of the Social Contract whose concrete results had been dramatically confirmed only a few days earlier in the latest jobless statistics. The figure of 1.5m, pressing particularly heavily on women, Blacks and young. leavers, is the highest at any time since the last The Social Contract was originally sold to union members on the promise of keeping unemployment down in exchange for 'voluntary' pay curbs. acceptance of Phase 1 - and, more recently, Phase 2 - of the deal means, as the Times put it, that the average worker ".. Will have suffered a drop of at least 42% in real living standards" by next sumAfter all, as Healey explained, better a fall in living standards than that those "lucky enough to keep their jobs should scoop the pool while millions are living on the dole".
The chickens in that argument have rapidly .come home to roost. Despite the TUC's connivance in the wage freeze - at a time when inflation is raging at about 13% - the jobless total has continued to soar at the rate of almost 1000 a day. Even the 'official' figure of 1.5m is wildly innacurate since it hides the thousands of workers in textiles or cars on a shortened working-week & the thousands more, mainly women, who are not officially registered. (As the Guardian, August 25, noted: "women are now becoming unemployed at twice the rate of men...").
The savage round of social service cuts the government has implemented, while eating away at living standards, add to the mounting jobless total. The measures taken last November - when over £2 billion was lopped from the public sector - will create over 170, COC more unemployed, according to the Observer, What is not mentioned is that the money channelled oui of health and education into private enterprise to 'bail out' ailing firms will push the jobless total up still further. This money, far from. creating new jobs, is being used to 'rationalisel firms at the direct expense of the workforce, as at Chrysler where the government rescue operation led to the loss of over 9, 000 jobs.
NO NO CUTS IN SPENDINC CUTS IN PUBLIC SPENDING PUBUC SPENDin CUTS M PUBLIC ARVE Connivance The government has only been able to pursue these pro-capitalist policies, of course, because of the 'connivancel of the TUC leaders. have the latter sought to mobilise the labour movement in united action in defence of wages and jobs (despite the fact that the government has, itself, reneged on its side of the Social Contract). On the contrary, figures such as Scanlon and Jones have been the foremost defenders of government policy, hitting sharply out at its critics on the left of the Labour Party who dared - on one occasion - to abstain on the government's 'cuts' programme last July on its first reading in the House.
The extent of the TUC connivance can be measured by two facts immediately before the Labour Party conference. The first was their blanket acceptance of Phase Il of the Social Contract (by over 18 votes to 1)which places yet more stringent curbs on wage demands. The second was their treatment of the National Union of Seamen (NUS) which was threatening strike action in pursuance of a claim in excess of the norm. Even though the strike was endorsed by a democratic ballot of union members, the TUC took upon themselves the chief role of strike-breakers by actually threatening (it is reported) to expel the NUS from the TUC if it was to carry out its course of action.
It is no wonder that, confronted with such loyal!; the Times should cynically remark that "the interesting thing about the whole affair has been the ease
which union leaders have been brought along. It has been a push-over". The surprise registered by leading Tory papers over the willingness of the TUC to police its own members is not false. It is Ruling class circles, after the defeat of the Heath government in 1974 by the miners! strike, were in a dilemma. Direct attempts to 'curb' the unions by wage freeze coupled with penalties against strikers had miserably failed. The problem. was: how to persuade the TUC leaders to get their own members to make the necessary sacrifices to Ibail out' a decaying syster.? While they hoped that a Labour government would be able to trade off the loyalty of the unions to go some way in this direction, they undoubtedly never expected them. to do the job so enthusiastically or so well. The Times on to observe, with ill-concealed joy, that strike figures had never been so low for years... Loyalty Confident of the loyalty of figures such as Scanlon and Jones ('architect" of the Social Contract), it is no wonder that Callaghan has felt reasonably secure since the Labour Party conference. Despite the antagonism of the majority of delegates there to policies of the government, he has been able to rest on the backing of the union block vote which; as Guardian states, "matters more to the government's survival".
such 'loyalty' by the union leaders is backed up with blackmail threats that any opposition to the government can only lead to its downfall and the return of a strong Tory ernment implementing still harsher anti- labour pol -icies. At last year's Scottish TUC, Jones far as to accuse left critics of the government's policies of being 'accomplices! of the Tories..... Such arguments have received their most apt condemnation in the recent by-elections in Newcastle, Workington With an overall swing of about 12% to the Tories, Labour lost two seats, reducing its majority in Parliament to a mere one seat.
It is not the struggle against the government! s policies which threatens a disaster for Labour precisely the pro-capitalist policies it is at present pursuing and which Callaghan expounded, with barefaced honesty, more recently. "The willingness of industry to invest in new plant and machinery, " he said, "requires not only that we overcome but that industry is left with sufficient funds to make new investment. When I say that they must have sufficient funds, ! mean they must be able to earn a surplus, which is a euphemism for a profit..".
It is this attempt to increase profit margins - at the direct expense of jobs and wages alienate the mass labour vote and lead, as happened in the recent by-elections, to large-scale abstention. The continuance of such policies years to come is the surest way of bringing back a strong Tory government which will throw aside like a squeezed lemon after its 'usefulness! has ended. our movement as thousands seek to find a clear solution to their problems.
Such discontent, while opposed to government strategy, is still at this stage hegemonised by the labour 'lefts' (Tribunites) who have so far offered no really coherent alternative to governmental policies. While uttering fiery speeches on the need for socialism' to unofficial meetings at the Labour Party conference, figures such as Benn or Mikardo • have refused to turn their eloquence into a fighting programme in defence of wages and jobs.
The refusal to lead a head-on struggle against the government was shown most dramatically at last year's Labour Party conference itself. While backing motions opposing the 'cuts' programme, these figures ended up supporting a resolution calling for 'unity! within the labour movement and the need to 'endorse the government's economic strategy', It is difficult, to say the least, to oppose the government while at the same time voting for a strategy which cynically aims to prop up capitalism by creating declining living standards and a mass jobless This is not, of course, new. Despite the 'radical' image such figures have received in the press - and from the Tory Ismearl campaign - on no over the past years have they really put forward a serious fight against the continuing rounds of wage freeze and social service cuts. Last June, for example, when Healey proposed his latest round of cuts taking over £1 billion out of the public sector, not one of the so-called 'lefts' voted against.
Such figures as Benr, and Mikardo, far from intending to lead an all-out fight against the Labour leaders, are in fact doing little more than reacting to the pressure building up in the ranks of the labour movement. While reacting to this pressure, however, they blunt its biting edge, confuse and divert it around policies which are, in no way, a realistic solution to the developing crisis. Tribunites The inadequacy of the Tribune MPs can be seen most glaringly in the programme they have advocated to date against the government strategy. Such a programme, far from offering a socialist solut -ion, aims to bolster up private enterprise nhile making slightly less demands on working people.. It is both utopian and dangerous.
One of the main thrusts of the Tribune group is to increase Isubsidies' to ailing firms ( partially to safeguard employment). Refusing to call for their nationalisation, they fail to grasp that pouring public money into ailing firms can only be at the direct expense of jobs as rationalisation schemes are implemented. Isn't this what happened at both Chrysler and British Leyland?
The call for limport controls!, equally designed to protect private enterprise, is equally unrealist ic. Such a call ignores not only the fact that keeping out cheaper goods will 'export! unemployment to other countries - hardly an 'international! outlook. It also ignores the fact that keeping out cheap goods, at a time of wage restraint, means