"It would be very easy for you to get into the frame of mind that nothing's happening, because on the surface nothing seems to be happening.
"And that's just it-nothing seems to be happening, but it is! Under the surface this strike them by the intransigence of the Post Office in is biting, and it's biting deep. -UPW Strike Bulletin, Day 21, Feb. 9th. This particular bulletin goes on to describe the particular effects of the strike such as the failure of the Bank of England to pay out dividends on matured loans and interest payments on other stocks. Tax collections are affected, there is a backlog problem with debits piling up in the clearing banks, money is not circulating properly and of course mail order firms are really feeling the pinch. All this is excellent as far as it goes.
But this bulletin also warns the membership of the UPW that it's obvious that the Confederation of British Industries (CBI) has worked closely with the government to see that as little disruption is dramatised in the press as possible. Now this, coming from the UPW leadership, is something new. How often did we hear again and again that this was not a political strike, the categorically refusing to politicise the struggles government was not involved; no, this was a strike parely against the Post Office Corporation. Thus do simpletons or charlatans, or both, deceive the workers-or try to.
Now, after over three weeks of strike, they suddenly see that business is connected with government and both with the Post Office. But if this has only just dawned on them, it's been common knowledge amongst the rank and file for some time, All that the leadership says is "happening" is what is taking place as a resuit of the strike. Certainly this is a small morale booster, but what they don't say, what they cannot say, in what they, the executive, is doing about it all. For on their side "nothing seems to be happening", and moreover, nothing is.
The only thing they've been doing is reiterating their determination not to budge which, in a 97%-solid strike, is about the only thing they could dare to do, and even here, bulldog solidity sometimes gives way to plaintive whimperings urging Ryland to come and "sit round a table and negotiate." Of course when a Union Executive heads a 97% solid strike, this sort of stuff isn't difficult at ull; indeed any other course of action would be suicidal.
The problem for the executive 1s that they are caught in a vice. Strike action was forced on not being "decent enough (as in the balmy classdenying days of Lord Hall) to offer a reasonable wage settlement; this on the one hand, and on the other the loss of prestige, and perhaps (horroe of horrors for all bureaucruts) of position too if they had just sat on their hands and done nothing. Up till now, British capitalism though weakened, has been at least able to play ball with such stalwarts as Jackson. "You keep the issues to a minimum and we won't let you down-we'll throw a sop or two'. They may be forced to do it yet, but their present refusal puts Jackson, Chappel etc, up against the wall. The only way these bureaucrats, and generallous of them, have existed is not by fighting the no argument. The demand to remove the increbosses, not by leading the workers except by a few phrases, and not also by outright betrayal in an obvious way, they exist by negotiation, by diass collaboration hound the table by bringing home not the bacon but the crumbs.
And the most insidious way they exist is by they find themselves at the head of. We have already seen how Jackson & Co. denied the strike was about anything other than wages between the P.O. workers and the P.O. Corporation. But even their belated recognition that the government was colluding with the CBI carried with it not a single change in their policy. Week after week, these complacent sureaucrats have spoken from platforms and stages around the country to assembled ranks of P.O. workers who have expected a lead from them. Living on god knows what, with thous ands of them denied social security, they have been cheered by the blithe statement that "we" these arch-splitters of the working class who will stay out till our demand is met.And that is all. To be fair, Jackson has attacked the Bill, has even brought in the government on this articular strike, but what he hasn't done, wha ve is incapable of doing is to concretise his words into a real programme of mass action. Even the money collected by the trade unions chen though he'd come all the way from and rank and file workers was forced on them. (See last issue of The Red Mole where we described how a London Executive member had refused aid from the Railwaymen. The most effective aid was collected by rank and filers and went directly to local strike conmittees. Of course, the UPW leadership ure not solely to blame for the comparative lack of trade union cooperation. 110,000 sounds a lot to an individual worker, but it's just not serious coming from a union with a strike fund of E14 millions.
Then there's the question of the demand itself. Firstly, 15% is no great shakes-this is not at all to advocate that revolutionaries show their revolutionary ability by simply upping the demand made by the union. What is true is that many P.O. rank find filers express the opinion that each day they were out the demand should be increased. The whole nub of the UPW argument has centred around the tact (true cough, of course) that the Post Office workers will fall behind other workers if they don't get the 15% What they fail to add is that P.O. workers are already behind other workers. And even this is mental scales is a good one. But the most Important thing is not to use the capitalists way of thinking workers in competition with each other-but to talk firstly about what is a real living wage toduy and secondly, in the context of the Post Office, to point out what a massive layer of loafers in the middle and upper echelons of the Tories strategy against the British of the Corporation the workers are having to support anyway.
At a strike meeting in Oxford, Mr. Meaney. an Executive member, was told that if the Supervisory Staft's Union give the call, the supervisors would be out. Mr. Meaney was dead scared. He tried to scoff at the idea but when one woman said, "Well, why haven't you asked them to call their members our?", he just didn't reply. You see, they are a separate untion and will themselves decide whether to come out in solidarity. The idea that one can give them a good kick in that direction is very scary to only cry "Unity at all costs" when their own position is in danger, or when they are jostling each other for the seat "round the negotiating table". This same Mr. Meaney refused to allow a rank and filer from the International Telephone the strike will give Jackson and Co. some good Complex to state his case to the Oxford strikers, London especially to do su.
Jackson and his mates amongst whom incidentally are three C.P. members, are guilty of a twofold betrayal, a continuous betrayal which is applicable to the trade union leadership as a whole.
international Ford combine. In order to fiddle tax in the company of manufacture, internatio nal companies deal with colonial subsidiaries abroad (such as Dagenhaml at "transfer prices"
within the combine which alters costs and profits within particular companies in arbitrary fashion. Therefore it is impossible to identify accurately the actual true profitability of the British-based part of Fords' world-wide operations, In this connection, Fords have recently taken a contract for engines to be supplied to well ahead of those in the published figures which take no account of these hidden factors. thoroughly dishonest when their profit record It is worth pointing out here that the profit per is examined. In fact they are the most profitable vehicle exceeds the manual pay per vehicle. This means that the trading profit on a given car that vehicle of over 100% One of Fords biggest fiddles concerns investment. The USA parent gets its UK investment free. Not only does it cost them nothing to invest in this country, but they make a profit on the very act of pretending to invest, It works like this. Between 1967-9 the investment grants handed out by the Government and the tax free allowances for depreciation actually exceeded new capital spending. There was a surplus received in grants and allowances of EG million position is likely to get more so in the future as it is further aided by the doubling of initial allowanous for buildings from 15% to 30% outside development areas and from 15% to 40% inside development areas. In short the US capitalists have their capital provided by the British government out of taxes levied on UK investment in Britain is the cheap labour of its work force. Where wages are higher, investment is higher. The fact that the rates of investment They refuse to transcend the limits of sepa rate trade unions carrying out economic strugg es within their purticular field. They project every struggle as being a partial struggle, not important to other sectors, certainly not important enough for them to come and help, to crash through the artificial boundaries of craft and industry, to the reality of the working class acting as a class in defence of its own. The P.O. Engineers led by Lord Delacourt-Smith (F) are not P.O. workers. The fact that a strike by them could really paralyse the telephones and (incidentally) win the wage demand just liko that, is not important. They are engineers, sorry!
Thay rigidly separate politics from T.U. activity. Of course these people are not revolutionaries. If there were political unions in Britain as there are in France-the most we would see would be the politics of reformism. The C.P. too subscribes to this rigid division see for instance Maurice Styles, C.P. member and Chairman of the UPW in the Morning Star, Feb. 6th.
The defence of the trade union is the battle order of the day. But this cannot be done by abstracting dach strike from the generalised class struggle, by running away from the reality working class, and, most important of all, by shying away from the fact that the working class is more and more looking towards the trade union leadership for political guidance The UPW lenderstup when talking to the membership have concentrated on such thing: as how solid the strike is, how great they all are how nasty Bill Ryland is, how fair their demand is (was there ever a "fair deal" under capitalism?). It has in fact evaded its responsibility to the Post Office workers and to the working class as a whole One can go further. The postmen and women, historically one of the least militant sectors of the working class, have shown degrees of solidarity, determination, and self-activity on the picket lines such as no one could have predicted Least of all the UPW leadership. Any sucoess in standing but only for a very short time. Mili tancy gets into the blood and flourishes. A fight in the UPW is both inevitable and necessary. Too inany full-timers from the Union have welshed on too many picket lines for the rank and file to forget.
in Japan, Italy, France and Germany have been rising more rapidly than those of the UK is closely allied to the fact that camings in those countries have risen very much faster than here.
Of course, receipt of all those Government handouts does not only mean free investment capital, the corollary is less tax. Even here, Fords are on the fiddle. They manage to provide themselves with working capital by delaying payments of tax. Tax due in Jenuary 1970 had not been paid by the end of the accounting year, It was cheaper to delay tax payments than to increase borrowings.
Devaluation, in the case of Fords, benefited General Motors shareholders rather than the British capitalist economy. Not only did devaluation lead to an increase in the volume of export sales but the exploitation of the home market was increased. Because consumer demand was restricted by credit controls, HP regulations and wage freeze, Fords jacked up their prices and increased profits in that fashion whilst restricting the ability of the British worker to buy their shit hot cars Of course, even in the field of exports, the directive comes from Detroit. The parent company takes steps to reduce or eliminate competitive pressures between different Ford companies. It is in this way that the principal export market for UK Ford cars is South Africa. By contrast, the biggest export market for other UK car manufacturers is the USA. And on top of all this is the fact that the cars are not much fucking use when you buy them. As the TGWU pamphist points out, Ford are the back street boys, the Hong Kong of the British motor industry."
GT *The Ford Wage Claim. Case submitted by Moss Evans, Chairman of the Trade Union Side of the Ford National Joint Negotiating Committee. TGIVU, Transport House, Smith Square, S.W.1 Fi.