The growth of the piecework syster plus the elaborate pay difTerentials gave rise to the joint wages board. The joine wages boards were organised on a regional basis and determined wages on the basis of the tonnage produced and the price of steel. It was out of the wages boards that the arbitration and conciliation tachinery grew up. This method effectively took the power away from the shop Noor and located it in the bands of management and the union burenucracy.
FRAGMENTED
The fragmented growth of the privately owned steel industry strengthened this method of agreeing what wages should be paid. No tra dition of national bargaining in stcel was developed-particularly over wages--and the shop stewards" movement had little or no power The massive technological changes and the sweeping rationalisations which have begun to transform IK.
the industry have made the methods of organisation and the ideas of the BISAKTA leadersbip even more inadequate The growth in the number of craftsmen, the break-up of the "seniority' system by technical change, the erosion of skill conteus and the extension of closures all undermine the privileges of the past. But these do not automatically lead to a breakdown of conservatism Although the material basis on which the past privileges rested and from which the bureaucracy drew its strength & being rapidiy under mined the old ideas lie like a deadweight on the union.
It is around fights against redundaricies which raise the issues of workers control, the extension of muss democracy and an unremitting fight uguinst the bureaucracy that militants can begin to challenge the right-wing ideas and organisation that dominates the linich.
Red Weekly 20 February 1975 Page 1