ple and their families.* ers' movement. But some things are changing.
Among the Labour Party lefts' today there is a new debate about the means of achieving Socialism. Superficially this might look like a re-run of the Labour Party debates in the 1950s when the Bevanite left-wing fought the right-wing union leaders and Gaitskell over the question of But the present de bate is taking place in a very different situation-one of unprecedented cconomic crisis facing both the ruiing class and the working class.
NOT IMPRESSED More umportant, it is happening in a very different way. The trade anion leaders are not just jostling around in the backrooms, but are full political participants in the debate. Furthermore, despite all the differences between the lefts and the "right", ail the political forces in the trade union bureaucracy and in the Labour Party have been able to close ranks around the magic formula of the social contract".
Since Labour came into Parliament in March they have waved their social contract around like a new toy: 'Here is the great scheme to solve the CrISES.
They are lighting the election on the same ground. Just as the Scottish Nationalists declare Scoftish oil can solve all problems, so Labour parades the social contract as a plan which can work miracles if only it i given the chance.
But the working class, in spite of the decision of the TUC to back the social contract to the hilt, has not been impressed, From April to August this year, almost exactly the per iod of the Labour Government, 3.5 million days have been lost in strikes. This is a 35% rise on the same period a year ago, under 'Stage Two of the Tories incones policy. The number of strikes has risen by 12% and the number of workers going on strike has risen by 22%, What these figures show is that while the resistance of the bosses has Any real workers" plan, would have to the wind fores or the state this that key querion Labour plans leave out, assuming the armed forces to be neutral.
Red Weekly 3 October 1974 Page 6 LABOUR PARTY LEADERS FROM ACROSS THE WHOLE spectrum of political views inside the party are fond of proclaiming their version of Socialism. Time and again, the same old goals and aims are chanted, whether it's weary old Clause 4, or the most recent stirring lines, enunciated by Tony Benn in 1973 and now safely inserted into the padding of Labour's Election Manifesto: ...our objective is to bring about a fundamental and irreversible shift in the balance of wealth and power in favour of working peo This sort of line has been trotted out so often it's become an addicting drug for ageing social democrats, and the occasion for a laugh from sceptics and battle-weary militants in the workmade strikes protracted and bitter, the trade union chiefs have not been able lo deter workers from militant struggle on the wages front. Faced with roaring inflation, workers have opted to defend their living standards with the strength of their own organsations against all the appeais of the The Ford workers have reduced Labour's credibility to shreds by deciding against any reliance on the social contract. (Predictably. Wilson's reply to the Ford workers was I want them to go back to work) The ruling class too, have lost any faith they may have had in the ability of Labour and the TUC to work in concern on hehalf of the employers: wages have been rising at a rate of 35% a year since Wilson came in.
For all this, the working class in this country, as it girds itself for the coming confrontations of the winler and spring, now has the lowest level of real income of any working class in the Common Market countries.
On average, their living standards have fallen 2%5h since Labour came in, and they are now falling at an annual rate of 5%36;
"Working class struggle for the reformists, was a battle fought out between the employers and the unions, and had nothing to do with politics and the strug gle for socialism.
Workers are going to face a rate of inflation of over 25% in the coming year, and unemployment will rise to nore than Js million, all this, any Government returned in this election will be forced to carry out sweeping spending cuts and thus add to the snowballing crisis in our social services.
What then, is this magical social contract that can crack such tough nuts!
The social contract results from the tremendous shake-up the old reJationship between the trade union leadership and the Labour Party politicians is underpoing as a result of ALL CLOUTLL COINS leaders exercised tremendous influence on the political make-up of the Labour Party leadership, Arthur Deakin and his allies intervened to save Gaitskell and the Labour right from the cheat of Bevan and the left", But the design behind these moves was to maintain the old division of the workers movement hetween the trade unions and the Labour Party, not to change il CLASSIC REFORMISM This division was based on the clasic reformist approach of Labour ist thinking.
lament and carried out through the ruling class state machinery. The trade unions limited themselves to the struggle over wages and working conditions, and were not to openly interfere in the political arena of Parliament, which was the preserve of the Labour Party.
of Labour representing the broad needs of the trade union bureaucracy, ing the working class vote for Labour. Working class struggle, for the reformists, was a battle fought out between the employers and the unions, and had nothing to do with politics and the struggle for socialism.
This approach was reflected in fariner T&GWU leader Frank CousOn top of ins specch to the Labour Party conference in 1956, when he said: told you last year not to tell the unions how to do their job. Tam certainly not going to tell the Labour Party how to do its job."
This state of affairs could only work effectively as long as the capitalist system could more or less deliver the poods to the working class in the form of social reforms. In the 1950s, the period of the post-war boom, the trade unions could secure rising living standards on the wages front, and Pariament, along with the In the 1950s, certainly, trade union T&G boss Politics' was all about reforms which were to be won in ParlThe relationship between the trade unions and the Labour Party consisted in exchange for the latter's aid in secur big crisis.
And itself. time in the future.
next two yeurs. the working class.
LOBLE US ruling class state, could deliver full employment and a stream of such social reforins. This was the case even though the Tories held office uninterruptedly through the 50s. In this sit nation, the split between the job of the politican and that of the trade union chief in the bureacracy of the lab our movement could continue.
But now we are in a situation of The economy is not expand- want private enterprise to be profit ing at all, For the Labour Party lead- able. ers and the trade union bureaucrats, a crisis is never the occasion for an all-out assault on the root of the problem-the capitalist system, Such people can see no further than trying to screw a few concessions out of capitalism for the working class. They never question the capitalist system This means that if the cake of cap italism isn't growing, then the working class must tighten their belts. Only by poing on a diet can the working class ensure that the empioyers start petting fat again and revise the possibility of bigger cakes and bigger slices ali round at capitalism's table someThis is the idea that lies behind the social contract Wilson has said more than once that the working class can expect no rise in its living standards for the (It will not have es caped his notice that Jiving standards are, in fact, already follie for the first tinte since the last war,) In this situation, say Wilson and the TUC we must work together to ensure that the impact of the crisis is doled out as equally as possible amongst gle.
HEAT OFF
This means that the well-oreanised sections of the trade union novement should accept an inconses polcy to take the heat off the employers" profits and investment. In return, for the rest of the low paid and poorly organised, Labour promises a programme of social incasures and No one in the workers' movement should have any illusions thut this is anything other than a plan to hale out the bosses. Alter all. Len Murray, General Secretary of the TUC and Wilson have been openly vying with each other in making the sweetest overtures to the employers. Murray said at the Brighton TUC: We are on the side of enterprise. We want to work with management., himself said this week: We want to make industry more successful, we *Only the outright exprop ration - without compersation - of assets and prof its from capitalist employers could hope to bring an immediate surplus that could pay for a social plan in the interests of the working class.
Of course, the way in which the Labour and trade union leaders try to sell the social contract makes great play of social reforms that voluntary incomes policy can supposedly secure for the working class. Limited and unlikely though they are the social gains on low pay, discrimination against women, house-building and rents, food suhsidies, social ser vices and cuts in defence spending are a definite social pian for the working class, which atter the attirude of the working class towards the wages strug The social contract thus gives the trade union leaders a new and fur more directly politicai role. They now have to lead their members on the basis of a clear political platform with what claims to be a plan for working class social advance So militants in the trade unions who understand that the social contract is in reality a plan to extricate capitalism from the crisis at the expense of the working class cannot be
develop a wider programme for the struggle against the social contract. The fight must he developed for a comprehensive workers solution to the crisis, for a workers plan. Wilson's ploy of putting Fool, Benn and Heffer into the Labour Government has effectively shut them up. There is clearly an urgent need to
----- pull-quotes -----
Contract as a plan which can work miracles if it is only given a chance?