John Walters in order vo discuss and assess the perspectives for the workers" control movement, and to indicate the role that cadres phy watt 3 it, il is necessary to make a brict survey of the main i if the development of the campaign since 1964 - when iid. nya. igri Lega: - upto ihe present lime. This is not to say serse that the ideas of workers' control only started in
put i¢ was in that year that a serious campaign began to >more inject the whole concept back into the living Labour iyement,
Ge
i. is possible to distinguish three phases, so tar, in the development of the preseul rnovement.
‘Vin: imitial stage ran from 19€4 ta 1966, during which the
ment sought io define its central strategy, and during
1 Gt attracted the supper: and active participalion of some ii groups of workers, and several key individual worker tants. Sponsorship and org:nisation of conferences plus inations were at this siage carried out by the group around
: Nottingham, together with the editurs of Union
ris Voice in London and Mauchester res-_
ue was usually involved as a sponsor, though
varticipation in the practical work, The
erative Sociery was invelved as a sponser in the satiant second conference it 1963, wnich was held in London. : iwadeney journals participated in the early
. erable e.tort was expended in debaling
“he groups, particularly beiween the IS and The Week.
Ler econiroversy centred between possibilist oppositional
ancy and activity, advocated by IS, and the transitional demand for opening the books of the bosses, advocated by The
Tendency, This was an important clarifying debate for
thes participants. IL is now possible to characterise
¢ that period as represeniing the a-political, or
rowal sponleneity of the slewards’ groups of the
lst Lhe programmatic approach which was advanced
F ipailon of the politicised trade
ue
AW Aue
unionism which has emerged under the impact of the Labour Government with its "incomes policy' and productivity bargaining, anti-union drive generally which has been thrust upon the Government and Employers by the sharper economic crisis of the mid and late sixties. In this sense the period since 1964 - with its enormous balance of payments deficit - can be viewed as a turning point in post-war history in this country. In this phase too, the practice of organising conferences and
activities along seminar lines, which at first sight might have appeared somewhat ‘academic’, forged the continuing alliance between socialist cadres and workers - ai first in small numbers - which has given the movement its resonance and living quality. There was also the conscious atiempt to pick up the thread of the historical tradition in the British labour movement, reaching back to the 1910-26 period, when a
genuinely hegemonic ambition prevailed among large sections of the British working class in its industrial polilies and to reestablish the authenticity of that tradition, However, this tradition was never more that the expression of a minorily, albeit a large one. Critics somelimes saw this as a rather academic or nostalgic exercise, yet no movement which aims at hegemony can neglect the historical roots of consciousness, if it hopes lo build upon and in the mass labour movement. Even without any conscious stimulus, it was inevitable that anarchism, syndicalism, guild socialism, utopianism and participationist reformism would emerge and struggle with revolutionary Marxism within the movement, aS soon as a class based stralegy for the transition to socialism was reopened, Soit proved. And therefore the necessity of establishing and preserying an open movement, in which the debate between all tendencies and views could continue, This meant that there should be no premature search for a formal closing of the debate on issues, For il is of fundamental importance that this debate engages workers and revolutionary cadres together. A didactic and consciousness-i/orming process is generated by such a debate, both for the worker- militants and for the revolutionary cadres who are formed and developed as the movement grows. (And this will be a continuing process just as long as the movement draws to il new and wider layers of workers). Indeed, in the process, the gulf fixed by the capitalist division of labour between the intellectual and the worker is narrowed, The problem of overcoming that gulf must be high on the agenda of any discussion about the future development of cadres in the workers‘ control movement, It should be obvious that after live years of development and expansion, that it cannot be overcome by any narrowing of the debate on the issues themselves, or by establishing a rigid orthodoxy for the cadres.
At the end of lhe first phase then, a general strategy of transitional demands existed, alongside other lendencies, and an important start had been made in specific research and programme building in one or two industries, Notably steel, docks and road transport. The deniand for opening of the books had been taken up by the seamen during their national strike in a genuinely mass campaign.
The second phase of the movement, from 1966-68, was characterised by more intensive programme building, by res; ponsesfrom the official labour organisations, (e.g. The tubour Party's Report on Industrial Democracy) by the widening ’ the working class base, and by an attempt, (not wholly re- .sted to the needs of the workers' control movement) to buiid an réamsational structure to link the various activities together. 4t the end of this phase 500 delegates were assembled al the “+28 Nottingham conference, it was quile clear thal a more siructured organisation was necessary to continue the expansion ox’ the movement. This point had reailyy been indicated by the 1967 conference, when Bill Jones, a London Busman and lay member of the TUC General Council, took the chair, and there was the first appearance of Hugh Scanion - then campaigning for the AEF Presidency, - brought together significant forces from the left-wing of the trade union leadership, and also rank and file militants from transport, engineering and vehicle production, who recognised that {he mavement was serious, and was attempting to base itself on an appreciation of their problems. These problems were in themselves of course, becoming more acute in the period of wage freeze and compulsory incomes policy. The Labour Party response - policy document already referred to - was also debated at the 1967 conference, and partly as a result of this, the movement was involved in a debate that still continues on the distinction between participation and control. (The debate on definitions was indeed widened beyond these two terms, since the whole question of self-management in a socialised economy was and is a continuous pre-occupation fur us. <A cadre force in this field must study this issue in general, theoretical terms, must examine experiences in such countries as Yugoslavia, Algeria, etc,, and must use its expertise in its participation in such actual political situations as have developed in e.g.
Czechoslovakia). The protagonists of participation do not form, in this debate, a single ‘school’. There are at one extreme, the authors and practioners of a deliberately corporate
strategy to be found amongst employers, right-wing academics, and the Labour Government. But there are also genuine reformers, who are motivated by the idealistic version of industrial democracy, and who aim to refarm instilutions and
structures within the existing sociai framework. Judgement
on the latter category cannot be made a priori, since in certain circumstances they represent a crippling "institutionalisation" of workers’ control demands, whilst in olhers they do create embryonic situations of dual power. mn the lirst category, we might place some of the recently created "productivity committees" sel up by joint management-union agreement im factories; in the second, especially at the present time, we should certainly place the joint control exercised by dockers over the system of discipline, hiring and firing, in the Dock Labour Scheme. This example - in the context of a different country - oecurred to Ernest Mandel when he wrote;
“Where is the dividing line between "institutionalisation" and dual power? That is the real problem and the real difficulty. It is very hard to advance a foolproof formula. Tenlatively I would say that every form of “effective demand” whose realisation is compatible with a more or less "smooth" tunctioning of the capitalist system, which does not creale a Situation of explosive crisis... is a situation of ‘tinstitutionalisation" which should be avoided. Al ihe contrary, every effective demand whose realisation creates a
permanent crisis for the system, a situation of permanent conflict, is an embryonic element of dual power,
You might say that this doesn't give you a concrete answer in each and every case - especially where local industries are concerned {one should take into consideration however the great sensitiveness of the employers and the bourgeois slate to preblems of "principle" and of "bad examples" }. You can also say that it becomes 4 matter of subjective judgement - whether or not a given effective demand could be normally “assimilated" by the system or not. I agree. As in s0 many other questions, here applies this eternal truth of Marxist dialectics; the real test of knowledge is praxis; the "proof of the pudding is in lhe eating”. It is only in practice that you can find out whether you have campaigned for "dual power", or whether inadvertently you have permitted neo-capitalism to “integrate” a radical group of workers.
But this should not inhibit you in the least. If you don't risk anything and limit yourself to abstract preaching you won't get one inch forward to socialism, under the given conditions. So my advice would be: full speed ahead, while bearing in mind the dangers I tried to underline.
While writing this letler, a good example just comes to my mind, The Antwerp shipyard and dockworkers made a huge conquest some 20 years ago. A definite number of workers
would get a card as “stable workers" under union control, ana receive minimum pay, whether there was work for theni or not. This demand, born of the experiences of the years 1929-38, would have been revolutionary and "unassimilable' for capitalism under condition of crisis; under conditions of 20 years of nearly uninterrupted’boom' in the docks, it became undoubtedly a means ofcorruptinga radical sector of the workers, creating in addition a dangerous division between the “permanently employed" and privileged ones, and the "temporarily employed" who have to go back on the dole each time the jobs are slightly reduced.”
The ibove should in many respects be a key text for any Marxist cadre engaged in practical political work, especially in the field of workers’ control. The business of the workers' control campaign is the 'making of puddings, and the subsequent eating of them', in docks, cars, education,communications, etic, etc. However, there are obvious dangers here in two directicns, firstly adventurism, which could lead certain groups of workers into untenable positions. Secondly opportunism i.e. deluding onesel! into accepting certain situations as being victories, when in fact they are merely participationist assimilalien. The dividing line in each case can be very narrow, that is why itis the responsibility of Marxists to both givea lead andi. remusin with feet firmly planted on the ground of reality. Before leaving the question of participation, however, it is necessary to describe a third sense in which the term is used. Er:.e Roberts was quick to point out {al the 1967 Conference) ‘Lat workers thernselyes may demand ‘participation’; but they tay well mean by that ward something much closer to what we :.ean by control than what the employers and Government mean by participation.
An argument parallell to this question of control or participation arose in the context of the 1967 conference, and was resumed in a slightly different setting in 1968. This was the question of the efficacy of pursuing demands [or legislalive reform through parliament. Here again, it would be wrong to adapt a dogmatic anti-parliamentary position; gains which feed the appetite for, and consciousness of, control, may be adopted in certain critical circumstances by a bourgeois legislature. Just as the conscious revolutionary forces may make mistakes in the direction of ‘assimilation’ so may hard-pressed governments, looking for concessions err in the opposite direction. And we should bear in mind that reforms at one moment are on one side of the dividing line, yet fall on the other in different circumstances. Who, for inslance, would have called one man one vote a revolutionary demand before the
Se eR a mack RD ORR eee ee aes
events in Northern Ireland over the last eighteen months? ft would have been dismissed as a reformist demand. vet it iand other similar demards! sparked off a situation which had elements of a pre-revolutioniry situation within it. When the Derry workers drove the police out of Bogside, that was not a reformist move. However. it remains axiomatic thal the mayer break through will most probably occur in indusiriai strupgle, and our probiem here is to make the transition from: propagandist activity, or an educational role, to the work of
initiation. That problem is most intimately connected wilh an earlier point - that our cadre building must solve the division between workers and 'polilicos', Our cadre must contain the worker militant leaders al ihe very core of its structure or it will fail. When that is achieved the solution (o the propaganda action dichotomy will probably follow. Yet perhaps this is a little too mechanistic; we should recognise that action tor workers' control demands can and probably will oecur at any time, before any neat solution to this problem is found (GEC-EE Merseyside), We should not uiderestimate the degree to which workers’ control is already a part of the conscious programme in several key industries,
So much for the second stage of development and iis principle controversies, Of course we Should expect that newly recruited activists and whole sectors will continue to work their way through these phases anew: o one will come to the workers' contral movement fully appraised and conscious oj this development, However, as the process tukes place we may perhaps expect the transitions to be nore rapid, as the 1uovement learns to assimilate new groups o: workers,
The third stage of development was marked by the conferences of 1968 and 1969, and the Jormation and work of the Institule of Workers’ Control, It is not difficult to identity a qualitative change in the movement, as a resull of these events and developments. The numbers participating al the conferences, the increased representation of the industriat trade union rank and file, the greatly expanded range at publication, all point to this change.
As the movemeni has grown in size and significance, it has atlraected the altention of the lefl political groups. Some of them are wholly negative in their attitude, yel as organised forces, they may find it possible to achieve some presence and exercise a divisive influence, It is now necessary to vo-ordinate the thinking and the work of all those whose positive attitudes to the movement includes a determination iv protect it from such ultra-left forays, and also protect the movement from the place seekers who wish to have some ol the glamour
of 'leflism’ cast about them without in reality being committed. Neither of these tasks will be carried out by bans and proscriptions, but only by open and honest debate and discussion. But this debate must not be one sided. The Lawrence Daly's of this world must be iold that the workers' control campaign is not a vehicle for their own advancement,
No ready made group at present has lived through this whole huilding process. It is therefore necessary to construct a Alarxist cadre which is flexible enough, yet also committed
:, to carry {he movement beyond its propagandist role
§ activist one, This process must be a dialectical one, ‘he present workers' control movement will run into the sands 2 opportunism or ultra-leftism if no viable Marxist cadre is formed within it, conversely no Marxist cadre can be created unless it participates in the building of this movement.
Workers' Control is not just another campaign, it is central to the thinking of creative Marxists, those who are deeply commitied to a vision of society that is self-managed,
We are now about 'o enter a new phase of industrial struggles, as we have seen by tne wave of militancy over the last six months or so, One vt the big questions looming ahead (indeed ishere now: is that o: productivity bargaining, The left must have an answer thal is more than mere rejection, for at the heart of productivity barzauiuns is the question of power, and this is what the workers’ control campaign is also about. Radical America
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