Black machine operators at the Standard Telephone Company (STC) in Southgate, London, are still on strike for the reinstatement of a black trainee setter, suspended by management when white workers refused to continue training him.
STC has a long history of racial tension among its workforce. This latest action by the white setters represents a last ditch stand against the understanding, reached after a strike in 1971, that black machine operators would have equal opportunities along with whites to be trained for skilled grades. The management decision to suspend the black trainee reveals the tacit alliance that exists between a section of skilled workers with the management, against their black fellow workers.
TO The Race Relations Board is at present coning an inquiry into STC. But this will not be the first inquiry. The Runnymede Trust produced a report in 1971, at the request of the West Indian Standing Conference. report was prepared by a black sociologist, Cecil Gutzmore. The report showed that the official management policy of 'complete equality of opportunity was a fable. In the words of a white STC employee, 'blacks started at the bottom irrespective of qualifications, background or intelligence' Seven shops were believed to operate a whites only' policy. Four of these shops had no "skilled entry' regulations, so the excuse of "skilled workers only' could not conceal the colour bar.
Although blacks are the majority in some shops, they are only employed in unskilled and semi-skilled work, and for many years flourished. These, arrangements created a situation where white supervisors reserved the best paying and easiest jobs tor whites, and where cases of arbitrary dismissal of blacks often took place.
OPENING ROUNDS The report also documents the opening rounds of the present struggle. In 1970 management had a vacancy for a trainee setter in the machine shop. A white worker from another shop was given the post, even though black machine operators had applied. This led to a threat of strike action by the black workers.
The white setters struck for an hour in reply. One AUEW steward had his credentials removed by the union for attempting to bar the promotion of the black worker. Finally the black workers succeeded in getting one black accepted for training. A second black trainee, who is at the centre of the dispute today, started training in late 1972. The Personnel Manager claimed the Gutzmore report was "based on gossip and on biased information from disgruntled employees. The Managing Director challenged the Board of Trustees of Runnymede to support the report. (The Board includes figures like Lord Campbell and Lord Seebohm who have interests in corporations exploiting black labour abroad.) The Runnymede Trust promised further investigations into STC, but after a discussion between Lord Campbell (a sugar magnate) and STC management the case was closed. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the main effect of the Runnymede investigation was to divert the black workers at STC away from the real struggle against discrimination, despite the good intentions of their researcher.
OFFICIAL STRIKE The present strike has been made official by the AUEW, and a promise of sympathetic blacking has come from the STC plant in East Kilbride. But the majority of workers at the Southgate plant continue to cross the picket lines, with the full backing of many stewards (including some AUEW stewards). The Enfield District Committee of the AUEW recently decided against disciplining stewards who fail to respect the picket line.
CAll members of the AUEW and the ETU (which represents the setters) should demand that their fellow trade unionists support the STC strikers. They should insist upon the removal of credentials from all stewards who cross the picket line, and approach the STC strikers with a view to organising a mass picket of trade unionists outside the factory. This is the way to defeat racism at STC and unify the entire workforce against their real enemy - the bosses. As Cecil Gutzmore wrote in 1971, '... workers have common problems and only through united action can these problems be solved in the interests of working people. It is the job of the trade union movement to forge this unity and this can only be done by tackling racial discrimination in industry in a principled way, and by waging a campaign against racist ideology? Almost all the world capitalist economies have been recently experiencing a sudden upsurge in the growth of their output and trade. This rapid, short-term, growth was possible only as a follow-up to the preceding two years of econo mic depression. The years from 1969-1971 sav the most generalised and widespread depression of the post-war period, resulting in a serious under utilisation of existing capitalist productive forces - idle machines and unemployed workers.
Hence it has been possible for production to ex pand very rapidly over the last 18 months, not on the basis of a new wave of investment and renewed accumulation of capital, but simply by putting existing, unused capital to work and 'mopping up' unemployment. Even this except lonally rapid growth of output has left unemployment in Britain very high, and has actually been accompanied by a rise in German unemployment over the last year.
BALLOON DEFLATING It was inevitable that such a shakily based expansion could not last very long. In the last two weeks a number of official economic reports have shown that the balloon is rapidly deflating.
By far the most important of these is the latest report on the United States gross national product. According to the official statisties this was growing in the first quarter of this year at an annual rate of nearly 9 per cent and had beel rising at close to that rate over the previous year as well. Last week's figures show a very dramatic decline for the second quarter of 1973 to an annual rate of about 2½ per cent. This is the lowest quarterly figure since the big recession of the last quarter of 1970. Given the importance of the American economy in the capitalist world (accounting for more than 50 per cent of its total production) such a sudden about turn cannot be long in producing results for other capitalist economies, and for world trade as a whole. It is the effects of this sudden downturn, and not any resolution of the mone tary crisis, which has improved the US balance of trade.
OTHER COUNTRIES The same movement is already visible in other countries as well. The latest British figures show a slowing down from 6½ per cent growth rate in the first quarter of this year, to less than half that in the second. The type of spending which has most decreased, of course, is consumers expenditure, on which the boom was largely based and which is now sharply curtailer as the wage laws keep down workers' spending WOWIDE INFLATION In West Germany the signs are less dramtic but point in the same direction. The influential research institute, IFO, in its latest business survey, indicates a sharp turn towards pessimisn about the state of the economy. This is largely a response to the Brandt government's recent series of restrictive measures (including higher taxes and higher interest rates) which are designed to curb the menace of inflation.
CREDIT RESTRICTIONS Other countries have also tried to attack the worldwide inflation by using traditional measures of credit restrictions. This, along with the world monetary crisis, has pushed interest rates to their highest levels ever in the last few weeks. These high rates of interest are another nail in the coffin of the capitalist boom A new recession is building up in a much worse environment for capitalism than the last. Output will be falling (or growing more slowly) and unemployment rising during a period of rapid inflation. This inflation will be due much more to speculation, the monetary crisis and the drive for higher profits, than a rising level of demand. As a result, the social tensions which broke out during the last period of stagnation and inflation will now recur with even greater force.
Michael Price