adcast: the increase in the productivity of British industry.
Where has this "productivity' come from? At source it arises from an increase in the level of exploitation of workers - from a speed-up on the shop floor, affecting almost every sector, but most savagely hitting workers in manufacturing indusry.
With manufacturing output of the supposedly "booming" 1987 economy still well below 1979 levels, increased productivity comes from producing less with workers: hence the total loss
JOB LOSSES Lawson. By JOHN LISTER 750,000 jobs since 1979, TV - at around 4 million. substantial attack has been British Leyland blows from Michael Edwardes and his and hived off to leave essentially only the volume car production units of the Austin Rover Group. repeated waves redundancies to help weaken demoralise the once-powerful shop the stewards movement, and aided and abetted at each stage by full-time even fewer union officials who readily sign away of the jobs, pay and conditions of their Socialist Viewpoint No. 16 April 1987 p5
members, and unemployment - open and hidden surpassed levels. One obvious case of this kind of which, under a succession of hammer successors, has been hacked back "foreign" A brutal mangement regime, using more voluntary of and Ford
Thas dramatically speeded up production workers in BL
Nor has the pressure been relaxed as the company has equalled and
European productivity
Management continue to exploit the national chauvinism of union officials and convenors in order to pressurise them into concessions in the quest for "viability" • seeking to make the firm "competitive" against
competitors (while BL management itself becomes more and
entwined with Honda, the Tories flog off Leyland trucks to the Dutch, and offer other prime cuts to
Tor any other multinational with ready cashl)
Fearful of "rocking the boat", BL union leaders pushed through a pay deal last November which gives only
MOTLEY'S CREW BOY, THERE'S NOTHIN LIKE A STRIKE TO MAKE A GUY EAGER TO GET BACK TO WORK... 5% with strings — over 2 years!
Encouraged by these retreats, the company has become so arrogant that the bonus in all the main plants has dropped to wipe out almost the whole pay increase: in Cowley, wages are now only 50p above the Swindon are down ES! This was the deal about which TGWU negotiator Mick Murphy said he was "over the
The company is also trying to force in a new shift system involving four 9 hour shifts, with no payments.
With conditions under there is also tremendous speed up management have tried skillec workers onto production work.
The shop floor response has been different from their official leaders. A 5-1 vote for strike action by skilled workers al Cowley management to retreat. meeting at Swindon voted against acceptance of the new shift system.
At Cowley Body Plant, 800(XX) workers have been baning overtime for 6 weeks over the bonus cuts. Others have promised to join the action if their bonuses sink below
militancy despite a decision from a full meeting of Body Plant shop stewards to urge the overtime ban be called off.
At Longbridge, been strikes over bonus payments. Two hundred stopped work recently when mangemenet sacked a worker without going through procedure: persuaded them to return to work.
The BL management drive for "flexible" working lines up with the full-scale offensive of Engineering Employers' iederation. They are seeking to opportunities for speed-up arising from proposals for the phased introduction (over a period of years) of a 37½ hour week.
With the willing assistance of the right wing leaders of the AEU, other bureaucrats from the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Unions (Confed), the EEF has set its
BACK ON THE JOB, PULLIN' TOGETHER WITH FELLOW WORKERS TO DO THE BEST JOB POSSIBLE... working throughout the industry. - among other things "variations in working hours", premium attack, dotty-but-dangerous the present 40 or 39-hour week. did not agree, forced A in mass these measures Rover agreements, premium rates. "The main proposal was demarcation lines where be commensurate capabilities and training." production tracks. the precisely the imposed in Austin over. exploit eventual working time. Engineering wording in the thousands of SOGAT
•ON THE OTHER HAND we sights on a major intensification of
covered
A scandalous joint report drawn up Industries by the EEF and the Confed proposes cheque for employers to increase the working week at will, without paying overtime rates. Under the heading proposais to encourage a "flexible" pattern of weekly hours to meet "seasonal" and other fluctuations in workers would be transformed into profitability.*
Othe EEF/Confed overlaps with the campaign of the
Othe Graham) for a specified number of hours of a "working year" to replace
The EEF/Confed scheme also spells out that where unions and employers
management would have the "right" to impose variations
the working week. If adopted, The
would effectively destroy the guaranteed week, lay off
overtime, and SOGAT
Another section of the document focusses on Demarcation, declaring:
purpose of this to remove these existed purely because of union membership (1). (...) Tasks would
required to be undertaken with individual
The net effect could be a wholesale loss of skilled jobs - and skilled
anto
It is clear from this text that union leaders are working hand in glove
kind of attack on conditions that is being
But the employers' offensive goes much wider than engineering. One clause stands out in the EEF/Confed
— a mutual commitment to better utilisation of resources and
This is closely echoed by the
Anew pay offer to members Socialist Viewpoint No. 16 April 1987 pб
working in the general print industry, by the British Printing The agreement - strongly recommended for acceptance by SOGAT leaders - "Both endorsement of speed-up. sides" agree that: "costs must be recovered through increased efficiency: and that the industry's manpower (sic!), plant and equipment must be deployed fully and effectively ... to improve In case an printworker might miss the message - which is one of total, abject surrender to the employers by SOGAT leadership after the Wapping betrayal - the agreement makes clear that: "Increases in productivity and the reduction of unit costs can only be achieved through efforts being made at individual company level. including the introduction of new technology to its full potential (!) parties regular encourage discussion on means of improving all aspects of performance. members' noses are further rubbed into this mess by the additional insistence that "It is agreed that management Mirror Group Guardian [Editorial stad Future move Express Newspapers Staying put for now Fle CENTRAL LONDON Mail Newspapers [Editorial S Kensington Observer Editorial (printing 2 Co Battersea PANewsFeatures
Police at Vapping help press home new techhology and speed-up
Wiard PHOTO and chapel representatives will co- fully operate in discussing and implementing changes, necessary Increased output and lower costs through the most effective use of people, machines. This is nothing more or less than an invitation for the employers to force home whatever speed-up proposals or job-slashing new technology they may feel like. All in exchange for a inancial Times News International ditorial to stay? Editorial & Printing et Street Wapping wer Bridge - Mail Newspapers Printing (Printing uthwark Printing tract houses
POLICE pathetic identifying. any to achieve has stated that: unit materials and this Agreement concerned employees. the involved." Daily/Sunday Telegraph Editorial Newham DOCKLANDS Financial Times Thames Printing Barrier Daily/Sunday Telegraph 3 miles
£6 increase which employers have already said they will not pay if they don't want to: the BPIF "Where a critical situation exists (in a member firm) as a result of the companies should notify their unions and the regional office of the BPIF ... so that direct discussion can take place on means of alleviating the problems Rupert Murdoch Society journalists Socialist Viewpoint No. 16 April 1987 p7
A similar clause proposed to the NUJ by the bosses of the Newspaper
was sufficient to persuade to withdraw from the charade of a national agreement in provincial papers: but SOGAT leaders just grin while their members are left to bear it.
Elsewhere, too, management are now looking to smash up national negotiating machinery and national agreements in order to play off one section of workers against another.
The most obvious example is the Coal Board's cynical move to force in 6-day working, 9½ hour shifts, and further speed-up, picking off the rightward moving South Wales NUM
(Report OUR INION NEEDS KOAR SUPPORT NUM Cagnoni ONE DAY LOU MAT NEEL as a means of breaching the 40-year old five day week agreement.
The issues involved in this offensive affect every mineworker, as the excellent leaflet produced by Dearne Valley NUM (box) shows.
But speed-up and attacks on national agreements are not restricted to heavy industry and manufacturing. The recent British Telecom dispute and struggles on the rail have cenTHE Coal Board are piling on the pressure.
So far the Board's approach has been furtive to force in drastic changes in working practices colliery by colliery. they are showing their hand forcefully on Margam, by demanding acceptance of continental shifts
What's at stake?
• Productivity
"A productivity target of 10% yearly increase abould be within our reach.
- Sir Robert Haslam to Industry Society, March 2, 1987.
The Board want an overall Output per Man Shift (OMS) of 6 tonnes, up from an average of 3.25 tonnes at present! Thin productivity increase is to be delivered by lorcing through The Wheeler heavy - duty lace equipment, craftsmen, deputies and other grades, new 8 or 9 hour shifts, incentive schemes and deregulation of health and safety.
•Jobs
"The natural wastage on that (the total workforce/ is something like, guess, 12,000 a year, maybe more:
-Sir Robert Hasmiam to the Commons energey Committee, November 5 1987.
The effect of the Wheeler Plan on jobs would be savage. Up to 50,000 jobs would be lost - 12,000 a year over four years. The deep mine output of 90 million tonnes
BADE BOUT Silenat The Telecom sell-out has ushered in new attacks tred on management drive for inten of sification workers in the health service have also been under the hammer. Government ganging health authorities into put- ting NHS ancillary competitive tender has not produced the vast once predicted: the vast majority of contracts have been awarded house" What's behind the Margam proposals? tra few miners. Now • Pits lower tech pits and merge others. • Working conditions and safety the Coal legislation - Sir Committee five day removed." Plan 6-day coal. changed role for Society: the 5-day Week Agreement. miners and their families. I would the 1954 replace regulations vague
working. 1.2 million action In press- services out to private takeover that was "in TUC are would be produed by only 70,000 men. Even if demand for coal picked up, the ex- production would be taken from hi- tech superpits like Selby, which require Increased output from hi-tech pits and mine complexes would be used to close Such "We realise that to bring about the kind of changes Mr Wheeler is outlining, ther to would have to be quite radical changes in bargaining 50,000 Robert Haslam to Energy • NEC "Outmoded restraints, such as the 1908 South the Hours of Work Act and the 40 year old, be week agreement, must -Sir Robert Haslam to Coal Industry for all miners. It took a century of bitter struggle to win Faced the 1908 Act and another 40 years to win These hard- won gains provide a very real protection to past The Board has been putting pressure on the Health and Safety Executive. It came as no surpise that the HSE is now trying to Mines and Quarries legislation. The HSE has drafted a series of and non-statutory Codes of Practice to replace our safety regulations. The NUM, NACODS and the Socialist Viewpoint No. 16 April 1987 p8
OKAY, MELL STOP ASKING FOR A SNORTER WORK WEEK HOW ABOUT A LONGER WEEK ENDO" attempt blocking this to downgrade safetyin the pits. • The first targets The Margam Drift Mine must be sunk. But it won't be producing for 5 years. The first targets for 6-day coaling and 8-9 hour shifts are the high investment pits in every coalfield and pits awaiting major investment. Hasiam bas already told Selby miners Miners in the they must work 6 days. coastal pits of the North East have been told to accept 9 hour shifts now. The Wheeler Plan makes it crystal clear • six day coaling and longer shifts must be introduced in all collieries. The Board are desperate to get the 1908 demanding a Act amended. They are commitment to a CONCEPT at Margam. commitment would make it possible for The Board to ask the Tories The Board are amend the Act. 780 Jobs at Margam for would be lost that in every coalfield, including South Wales, The National Executive Committee said Wales Area must organise Margam, It also agreed that the condition on houss and the working week must besubiect to national negotiations. One Area Union cannot negotaite these issues with these tremendous pressures, we must: • Maintain our unity hard-won gains of the • Defend the • Demand national negotiations • Demand that real benefits come to miners from the new technology - a shorter working week - a shorter working life - better conditions - improved salety.
PHOTO: Andrew
- now health comes
But the exercise has achieved its objective: in the tendering process upwards of 40,000 jobs have been axed, bonus payments have been slashthousands of part-timers have been cut below the 16 hours which give pension and sick pay entitlement and national union agreements and dismembered up into a multitude of local contracts. In almost every case
Thousands of hospital cillary workers employed by antithemselves outside the health unions - thousands more NHS employees are isolated from fellow workers who may be employed by private firms in the same hospitals. And every three years these workers have to compete again for their own
The impact of this shake-up is not only a massive intensification working for most ancillary staff -and effective casualisation of many ancillary posts, with a rapid turnover of demoralised and poverty-stricken staff - but also an increased burden forced onto nurses.
Now NHS mangement are looking at further ways of exploiting the traditionally poor unionisation and lack of militancy among nurses. Among their schemes are revised shift patterns of up to 10 hours at a time, eliminating "changeover" shifts
under the hammer of speed-up where student nurses are trained — and possibly tearing up national pay agreements and instead looking for
While nurses are in desperately short supply in London - where NHS pay of £87 per week for a staff nurse is less than the newest office secretary could expect - there are less shottages outside the South East of England. The employers want to exploit this difference and only offer extra cash where nurses are short in
Meanwhile the crazy logic of Tory public spending limits means that the more efficient the hospital, and the more patients it treats in the beds available, the more likely it is (as in the case of Rochdale and districts) to run into cash problems.
Nevertheless the NHS (and local government will come under similar fire if the Tories get back in) offers a stark warning that no section workers is safe from the employers'
Union leaders — like Bill Sirs of the steelworkers — who have run from confronting these attacks, and sought to collaborate with the employers have presided over the decimation of their membership and the run-down of the industry.
The AEU, too, is now facing a major cash crisis arising from its fall in membership as thousands of redundancies have gone through Socialist Viewpoint No. 16 April 1987 p9
Weneed 12%! COHE uncontested.
SOGAT and the NGA are already finding this to be the case in national newspapers, where every major employer encouraged by Rupert Murdoch's success, is now looking to relocate and to ditch hundreds or thousands of printworkers. Some local papers are even hoping to get rid of all their unionised typesetters and replace them with direct input and casual workers off the dole using
The fight for an independent working class line of defending jobs, wages and living standards, rejecting towards a socialist solution to the crisis may seem utopian and "over
Tin today's climate of collaboration and "new realism"
But it is the only coherent alternative to a wholesale loss of jobs and the sacrifice of pay conditions painfully won over decades of struggle.
The task facing Marxists is fighting
class struggle perspective in the unions is far from easy. Yet without the development of a core of political militants in every industry and workplace able to combat the manoeuvres of right wing and amount of resolution- mongering and electoral politics in the unions or the Labour Party will prove ineffectual in the fight against the ruling class.
When is a "Broad Left" not a Broad Left?
THE BALLOT for the Vice Presidency of the NUM took place at pit heads on March 18th. As this magazine goes to press, it has just been announced that Yorkshire candidate Sammy Thompson has held off a challenge from Scotland's Eric Clarke. Scargill, while Clarke has been closely identified with Communist Party attempts to oust him from the Presidency, our special cor- respondent WILLIAM HEAD argues that there is little to choose bet- ween the two candidates. Though there were four can- didates, it was clearly always a two horse race between Eric and Sam, both presented as left con- tenders: Eric Clarke comes from the peripheral Scottish coalfield while Sammy Thompson is based in the central Yorkshire coalfield Clarke is a star pupil of the old "Stalinist State School of Scotland", coached personally by headmaster - a post formerly Mick McGahey held by Mick's dad. Previous pupils on the same roil of honour have included Lawrence Da- ly: but there have been Stalinist star turns in Yorkshire, too, including Davey Miller, who sold his job and his "left" credentials when he quit Kellingly at the end of the strike (he is now rumoured to be managing some sort of NCB enterprise project on a former pit site). Another old time Stalinist is Yorkshire's Morning Star circulation officer Frank Watters (not a member of the NUM, but ap- pearances can be deceptive); though he was retired from his post during the CP split, Watters has for some recently made been an reason Honorary Member of the NUM - a he with Nelson status shares Mandela! There are five or six other Stalinists at Yorkshire lesser-known pits such as Shariston; and there is a newly-launched group of "Selby Star Readers" in the super-pit complex. Mick Appleyard, from Shariston, writing in the Morning Star last September, pointed out regretfully Eric Clarke that unless won McGahey's job it would be the first time a leading Communist or CPGB not been part of the member had NUM leadership. The "Selby readers" are part of an inside club the NUM, exclusive misleadingly called the "Broad Left"
NUM Vice President election Though Thompson clearly enjoyed the support of Arthur Sammy Thompson at David Jones memorial march Remembered for ever! Colliery. was prepared to march. were up on previous industry. Socialist Viewpoint No. 16 April 1987 p10
McGahey, Daly, Clarke and Ap- Kim pleyard are members; so is Howells, the research officer who helped orchestrate the South Wales moves to end the Strike. Frank Wat- ters is a member, even though not a member of the NUM. Membership of this "Broad Left" is only offered to those who can deliver branch card votes, or to prevent someone making waves. It is nothing more or less than PHOTO: Wayne Edginton DAVID GARETH JONES DAVID Jones died on March 15, 1984, on picket duty at Ollerton David was the first victim of the 1984/5 miners' strike: but the death of Joe Green, who died 15.6.84 outside Ferrybridge Power Station, was fur- ther indication of how far down the road of repression Thatcher's Britain Saturday March 14 1987 saw another memorial march to show that David, killed in the class struggle of the miners' strike, may be dead but he will never be forgotten. The march was well attended and numbers The speakers from Yorkshire, Jack Taylor and Sammy Thompson, spoke strongly and were supported by the National President Arthur Scargill. Scargill spelt out National Union opposition to the S. Wales decision to endorse 6 day production at Margam. National negotiations must be re- tained as it is an essential ingredient of solidarity that uniform conditions and terms of employment are maintained for all grades of miners in the
Right wing gain in Yorkshire area NEC
Edginton PHOTOS: Wayne
Scargill - under fire an electoral machine. thing is that in this election it has put up two rival candidates for the same post - Clarke, and Sammy Thompson, who is also a member!
On policies, Eric Clarke has been making the running against Scargill. Like South Wales, he opposes forming a regional organisation of the Justice for Mineworkers campaign; Scotland and Wales are the only two NUM Areas not to build regional campaigns.
During the Strike, Clarke ported the calling of a ballot; though seats on the NUM's National Executive took place on the same day as the Vice Presidency ballot.
Twelve candidates put their names down to contest four seats - but large numbers of spoiled papers could be seen, with miners throwing their papers away in disgust or writing in the above".
The four elected we Area President Jack Taylor, Financial Secretary Ken Homer, sitting NEC member Brian Daking and Area Agent Johnny Walsh the most vociferously anti-Scargill those elected.
Walsh's win is a disappointment to the militant who campaigns vigorously against his right wing ticket. Except for sections within the local NUM. he had already been discredited in the labour and trade union movement.
The tour elected were Area President Jack Taylor, Financial Secretary Homer, sitting NEC member Brian Dak-
The strange of course he did not say so until after- wards! He worked Wales leadership to sell out the strike in March 1985. Now he supports the UDM rejoining the NUM, complete with leading Prendergast. despite the adamant opposition of the Notts NUM rank and file who insist they should not and would not put up with such a move. retrograde regional policies adopted by South Wales in relation to the six- day week and the nine hour day. How ELECTIONS for Yorkshire Area elections By H.M. GREENAWAY ing and Area Agent Johnny Walsh those elected. the militants "none of vigorously against his right wing ticket. Except for sections within the NUM. he had already been discredited In the labour movement. His right wing of Glasshoughton Sir Jack Smart (knighted by Thatcher) and Bill O'Brien MP. has since closed without opposition from Waish - but he is now turning his attentions to the Selby coalfield. Hatfield Main to win election to the NEC Is another setback Ken Yorkshire, though Douglass himself is a maverick figure. Socialist Viewpoint No. 16 April 1987 p11
Yorkshire President Jack Taylor many with the South still Lynk scabs and He holds this view So politically. Broad the most vociferously anti-Scargill of Stalinist Walsh's win is a disappointment to who campaigned rank and local nominate and trade union base was the same Involvement Colliery that spawned Glasshoughton The failure of Dave Douglass from Armthorpe for the left in
years is it since Eric Clarke spent four hours down a pit - let alone nine hours on a shovel?
(Yes, we do still have shovels, and
Ano toilets or basic washing facilities; we still only get a 20 minute meal break; even members on the surface only get the same 20 minute snap break: and what other heavy industrial workers only get an extra 25p per hour on night shift?)
what, then, of Sam, the "bread and butter" man?
He's our man, or so he's have us belive! He is supported by Scargill, Formerly the British leader of the bizarre Posadas current. Douglass still doesn't seem to know where he stands
He has worked with the Militant and SWP-dominated "Miners'
Left" (as distinct from the "Broad Left"). Recently he wrote in Workers Press supporting Sammy Thompson for Vice President - yet at the same time arguing the need for a
file candidate like Terry French: so why didn't he get Hatfield to
Terry for election? Even worse. Douglass also did the left a real disservice by writing an attack on left
Tin the Strike. entitled "Bores under the Floor".
Walsh's victory strengthens the right wing and Stalinist-led block ganging up against Scargill on the NEC, and brings the danger of demands for a reelection of the national President.
An NUM rank and file bulletin, the
Tannoy characterised Walsh as "a rat in our midst". Scargill will soon become even more painfully aware of his "enemies within" the NEC.
CAM