that strikers" families will not be able to receive social security benefits. The capitalist press tells us that Sir Keith Joseph, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Security, is not at all happy with this idea. Why is this?
Are we to suppose that Sir Keith is a philanthropic friend of the working class? This is unlikely when one considers that he has his finger deep in the pie of Bovis, a building firm which draws heavily from lump labour.
In order to understand Joseph's position, it is necessary to understand precisely what is at ssue in this proposal, Supplementary benefits are essentially a subsistence income pard to those who, in the government's view, connot realise an income (temporarily or permanently) above what is considered a subsistence level.
It a man is on strike and not drawing sunke pay, and his family has no other source of income, then clearly his family will be living below this notional subsistence level. Even if strike pay is being received, this is usually below the subsistence level defined by the social security for the family.
Therefore, it has been argued in the past, his family should receive social security-equivalent to rent plus the rites for dependants. However, it was mainly due to the intervention of the Claimants" Unions that strikers became aware of this source of incone, Furthermore, the CUs pointed out that there was a ruling by which the individual striker would be eligible for social security.
This ruling, Section 13 of the 1971 Social at the discretion of the manager of the local social security office, anyone is allowed to obtain some income, regurdless of how that emergency arose. The SS is not supposed to let anyone starve, Thus, the CUs argued, even single strikers could obtain social security benefits.
During the 1972 miners' strike, and particul arly during the builders strike of 1972, the CUs and the trade unions launched a combined offensive on the social security offices, demanding money, including section 13 payments for single strikers.
This caught the DHSS by surprise, and led to a large number of payments being made which kept the building strike going for at least three weeks longer than woul otnerwise have been the case. It was the buildine strike which immediately led lo right-wing Tories demanding that social security payments be stopped to strikers and their families.
What Sir Keith Joseph understood, but not the CUs or the right-wine of the Tory Party. was that the DHSS machinery was an interal part of the bourgeois state in the sense that it would respood to directives from the top even if these contravened the rules. Thus the experience of the hospital strike was the reverse of that of the builders' strike.
The hospitul ancillary workers received no strike pay and many of them came to the CUs for help, This time the social security offices were prepared for the onslaught They presented the hospital workers witle an official leaflet coded SB2, containing a pack of lies. The offices refused to make any emereency of the henefits due to dependants, This was in complete breach of the 1965 and "7l Social Security Acts, but it was clear that this State agency had decided not to play according to its own rules.
Sir Keith Joseph does not care for the new ruling quite simply because he does not need it. His department is prepared to net as if this was the ruling any way.
For Joseph there is an added reason for not making the present situation legully explicit. If be is to take any action on the proposals of the Fisher Report on the 'abuse of the social security system, and bring in new legislation on social security in general, he does not want a movement growing up in the trade unions which be so intense. Thus the blockage of social is aware of the function of the DHSS.
But if the Tories succeed in winning over watering sections of society to the idea that it is right for strikers to he starved back to workeven if this is alrcady the setuality of the situation -it will be an extremely important idcolog ical victory for the ruling class.
It is crucial for the labour movement to take up this question. We must, however, he careful about the grounds on which opposition is based. The temptation to argue that the Tories are attacking the lamily must be resolutely resisted.
As it happens, the contrary is the case. The family acts as a fetter on the class struggle as u whoic, and the trade union struggle in particular The wife of the striker, oppressed and isolated in the home, has a tendency to oppose her husband's action as the going gets rough.
If she receives social security benefits, for herself and her children, this tendency will not secunty strikers and their families exacerbates the reactionary influence of the tamily on the development of the struggle.
SPIKE HENRY