OVER THE PAST few months, as the Government-appointed Bullock Commission has been quietly mulling over the array of evidence before it, 'industrial democracy' has erupted as the latest dogma in British politics, winning converts all the way from the TUC and the Labour Party, through the CBI and the Institute of Directors, to Maggie Thatcher and the right-wing Tory One Nation Group.
How can this sudden discovery and avowal of industrial democracy by such a wide range of political forces be explained?
And what lies behind the sharp split in the Bullock Commission, and the bitter fight that seems to be shaping up between the Government and the main British capitalists over its proposals?
The concern with 'industrial democracy" stems from a simple source: the deep crisis of British capitalism, on the one hand, and the tremendous power of the British working class other.
Making up the vast majority of society, with its own powerful, united organisations formed UNCL CHU IC. and with the rank-and-file exerting much more influence over these organisations (despite their often undemocratic nature than esewhere in the capitalist world, the working class can effectively block any proposed solution to Britain's economic problems if it mounts determined opposition EROSION Thus far this problem tras been resolved by the combination of the Labour Government's readiness to carry out the necessary measures of expenditure cuts and pay restraint, and the agreement of the union bureaucrats to go along with the steady erosion of working class living standards they entail. But this scheme is wearing thin: it has only been sold to the workers as a 'temporary' belt-tightening, and they're getting pretty fed up with forking over hard-won gains to fill the coffers of capitalism.
It is generally accepted that the next round of pay talks must conccae al icast a parnal return to "free collective bargaining'.
How, then, to ensure that this does not lead to a big working class offensive that undoes all the work of the past few years on behalf of the capitalists?
"Industrial democracy' is seen as providing the answer — but in different forms and for different purposes for at least two broad groups of its supporters. For its strongest advocates in the left of the Labour Government and the TUC, it is a method of associating the trade union movement with all the decisions that are going to have to be made to bail out British capitalism.
ACCEPT It thus serves three functions: as a means or convincing the workers to accept further cuts in exchange for "participation'; as a means of undercutting opposition to measures which the bureaucracy supports, by involving workers' representatives in them; and as a means of ensuring that the capitalists do not use the big concessions the bureaucrats are giving them to undermine the power of the workers organisations and grab everything they can get.
The capitalists' approach is well represented in the minority report of the three industrialists served on Bullock Commission. They seek to confine workers' representatives to upper-level "supervisory board'; the management board beneath it can thus, if need be, modify or even sabotage its decisions in working out "concrete implementation' of policy.
Workers" representatives will only make up one-third of the board, with one third representing shareholders, and other third chosen jointly by the two groups. The worker, representatives will come from newlycreated participation councils, independent of the union structures and elected by all company employees - shop floor workers (including non-union members), staff and managers.
The industrialists are also insistent that even this plan would HOL extend to the powerful banking and financial institutions, so aware are they of the possible dangers of unveiling explosive facts and figures about capitalist dealings.
COMPROMISE The proposals of the Bullock Report are a compromise between these two positions. On the one hand they accept the idea of the worker and shareholder representatives being "balanced' by jointly-chosen third (their 2X + Y formula), albeit not as large as the one-third the industrialists call for. other hand they accept the trade union view that worker representatives should be selected through trade union machinery. (And they also include the banking and financial sector.)
Given the intentions of the union bureaucrats in the first place, and the likelihood that the Labour Government will water the Bullock proposals down even further in the face of the industrialists' opposition, any scheme that comes forward for legislation is therefore likely to pose a serious challenge to the working class.
Thus far, opposition to these proposals inside labour MOVCHICHE has taken LWU forms. Part of the right wing, such as the General & Municipal Workers Union, hold the view that WOrKeT should be negotiated "flexibly" between unions and management. This is just a formula for avoiding a fight on the question and selectively capitulating to the bosses schemes.
VIEW More widespread is the view that rather than getting involved in management structures, LENG unions should, in the words of the Communist Party's submission to the Bullock Commission, work for industrial democracy *through the further development of collective bargaining' This is now the official view of the Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers - and also electricans" union EETPU.
The first thing to say is that this, coming from the leaderships of unions who haven't WHEN THE education system is being massively attacked by Labour Government, you might expect inar a 1,300-word article in The Times by an executive member of the National Union of Teachers would mention the fact. But not when the author is Max Morris Max contented himself with a passionate exposure - not of the cuts, nor of teacher unemployment, nor of the alacks on progressive education -but of the way in which *Trotskyist wreckers bend democracy. An odd set of priorities,you might think, for the chairperson of the NUT's action committee?
STAMPS Not in the least, if you consider way the NUT bureaucracy stamps on any action against the cuts that oversteps the narrow limits it imposes. For example, when teach even been prepared to defend the present scope of collective bargaining, is just hypocritical talk. But that aside, it has a certain validity.
The idea of defending the integrity and unity of the existing trade union movement and building and extending on this base is a sound one he question 1s. if this is not just empty talk designed to sidetrack the issue, how is it to be achieved?
A correct response by the left to the issue of industrial democracy' is precisely the way of launching an effective fight to extend the field of workers' struggles. One of the original TUC proposals which everyone - including the TUC - seems to have conveniently forgotten was that in addition to 50-50 representation the board, decisions could only be made if there was a majority of worker representatives in agreement.
This provision would have stressed the unity of the worker representatives and prevented the bosses from getting their way through the manipulation of one or two workers. If coupled with free disclosure of company information to the workers movement (which the TUC originally advocated) and a proper system of democratic election, recallability and accountability through the trade unions (as advocated by bodies such as the Institute for Workers Control), this could create a situation in which regular collective bargaining would take place over overall company policy.
One of the lessons of the past period should be that collective bargaining' - or more exactly the struggles between workers and bosses - can only be waged effectively in the midst of an economic crisis if they are extended to cover the whole question of the way in which companies, and the economy as a whole, are being run.
STRUGGLES But in this, as in other ques tions, struggles are only as effective as the organisation which backs them up. A democratic collaboration with the Government.
They do so because he is a past master at borrowing from the 60year-old ruling class repertory of lies and smears against revolutionary socialists in order to avoid debating its political arguments. He is an expert at substituting hysterical bourgeois aemagogy for tree debate in tne workers movement, and so it was no surprise wace ne tonowca up m Times article with another in the News of the World last Sunday.
But amid all the hypocrisies of his articles -- such as the claim that the Trotskyites were in fact aiming to prevent any help being given to then (the Little ford teachers)' couple of arguments can be detected.
The first is that, whereas "Trotskyites' clamour for democracy in the labour movement, their own organisations are run by a method of 'near-terror', and in secrecy. This is breath-taking cynicism from one who has never made any criticism of the Communist Party's practice in and accountable system of workers representatives would be an important step. But as long as worker representatives are dependent managemen structures for their information and advice, and for the implementation of policy, they will remain the hostages of bosses.
A really effective representation of workers' interests can only arise if it is rooted in a fully-fledged system of workers control, in which workers are organised at all levels of the firm to collect information for their delegates, check on management claims, and supervise the imple mentation of policy decisions.
An effective. fighting prog ramme for the defence of living standards is thus a necessary pre-requisite for real 'industrial democracy. But the only way such a programme can be realised is if the workers movement is prepared to take the running of the economy out of the hands of the capitalists.
This would make the defence of living standards a real possibility and, equally, lay the ground for turning the defensive battles into a coordinated fight for socialism.
The left, then, should be working out and advancing its own long-term programme in response to the challenge of the Bullock Report and the CBI. It should include such measures as:
* For full implementation of the original TUC proposals;
* For free disclosure of all information to workers movement;
For the democratic election, recallability and accountability of all workers' tatives through the unions;
* For the organisation of an independent and effective system of workers control at all levels of the firm;
* For the preparation of a plan of action to defend workers' living standards;
for the coordination of workers' representatives to prepare a workers plan for the economy, and measures for its implementation workers they say to their organisations.
In this Morris's record is scandalous. In the case of William Tyndale desore me acmar the reachers mac the support of their local associa ton, and despure Ine tact tnal al tna time the NUT executive had discussed the case. Morris used his 'special relationship" with the media to go on television to altack the teachers.
Another of his arguments' is that Trotskyist policies are impossibilist', and therefore split the movement.
ATTACKS But with the attacks on al aspects of education, it is Morris's own poucies waica scem not Jus "impossibilist", but ludicrous. He manages lo vote for a resolution demanding "substantial' salary increases while at tne same ume ter sing to oppose the Social Contract. he claims to be detending ine cau cation system while devoting most of his energies to fuelling the witchhunt against progressive teachers sme co ourovine meda So what are the fruits thinks so highly of? Twenty thou sane teachers ouro work. arurner run-down in real salaries; a building is not so surprising that Morris is IrVInE to sweco Inese lacts under tau rue with i boisonous
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