Tory policy is developed in private, and handed down from the top ... The Labour Party does not work like this and has no wish to do so. We are the only political party which grew from the unions and constituencies into Parlament and our sturdy Party democracy has served the people of Britain well. Policy in the Labour Party is made by the members.
and ANDREW JENKINS This charming picture of life in the Labour Party comes from the opening paragraphs of "Labour's Programme for Britain, published last Friday as a special supplement to Labou Weekly.
The timing of this document's appearance was rather unfortunate: for carber that same week Harold Wilson, guardian of 'sturdy Party democracy, had been beard to scream at the Labour Left, The Shadow Cabinet would not hesitate to use its veto at the appropriate time. No matter the National Executive had. decided that the next Labour Government should buy shares in the top 25 companies, the Shadow Cabinet reserved the right to make policy, handed down from the top. In fact, Labour's political policies are never the outcome of the wishes of the working class on which the Party bases itseif. They are the product of deals made between one section of the bureaucracy of the working class movement - Labour's parliamentary leaders - and the other main section of this bureaucracy the leaders of the TUC, and the capitalist class. These policies always revolve within the framewark of the capitalist system.
The new programme of the Party is no exception. One of the major objects of this new programme is to repair the relationship between the Labour Party leadership and the trade union bureaucracy, a relationship that union policies followed in the last years of the Labour government, and which has not been improved by the Opposition's inability to movement from the onslaught of the Tory In ofder to heal the breach the Party is willing to make some definite promises. The Indastrial Relations Act and the Housing Fisance Act are both to be repealed. The redundancy programme in the steel industry is to be halted for the time being, and the coal out put stepped up. The Docks will be nationalized, and the "lump' outlawed in the building industry. Undoubtedly such proposals will be received enthusiastically by many trade unionists, and every trade union bureaucrat will doubtles rise to the occasion and jump on the Labour bandwagon.
This comes at a very opportune time for the trade union burcaucrats. For some time now their inability to lead a struggle against the Tories and defend the interests of the rank-and-file has been exposed for all to see. The tried and true escape hatch of wait for the next Labour government to solve all our problems has been rather difficult to use becuuse of the had taste the last Labour government left in the mouths of many workers. However, this latest statement of Labour policy will help to celieve some of the difficulties.
ARBITRATION COMMITTEE But the trade union leaders in return must help Labour to supply the bourgeoisie with an alternative to the Industrial Relations Act and the statutory Incomes Policy. Hence the Programme announces a new 'Conciliation and Arbitration Service,' to be set up with government money and run by a joint council of trade union officials, employers" representatives and "neutral' industrial relations experts. Unions could compel employers to appear before the Arbitration Committee. Together, the Government, the TUC and the employers. would work out an agreement euch year on prices and incomes. As in Sweden, the expected total national income will be carved up between capitalists and workers with the TUC Lixing pay noems for different categories of workers acoordingly.
This is a return to the capitalist strategy of protecting the profits of private business by "integrating" the trade union leadership into the running of the capitalist state machine Since the trade union leaders will be involved in the making of economic policy, they can hardly be in a position to lead struggles against that policy. This is what the Labour Party means by a new social contract - a sugar coated sell-out of the working class by the bureaucracy.
But such a strategy always involves one big problem. can the bureaucracy control the troublemakers who actually lead the struggles of the rank-and-file? It's this problem that gives the sugar coated pill a very bitter centre: the success of a policy of Integration depends upon the ability of the bureaucracy to crackdown effectively on the milltants and rob the rank-and-file of any independent leadership. They will have to carry out the dirty work that the Industrial Relations Act has thus far failed to accomplish. Thus a new Labour Govern ment, rather than ushering in an era of milk and honey for the working class, coulu well produce a wave of red-baiting and bureaucratic crackdown DEMOCRATIC MANAGEMENT In order to help out the trade union bureaucrats in this difficult tusk, the Labour Party's theoreticians' have taken a leaf from the book of Continental Social-Democratic parties. In the factories, Labour is calling for Supervisory Boards that would be responsible for overall company policy, hall of these places being filled by workers' representatives. The effect of such a reform would he twofold. On the one hand it would involve the mass of the workforce taking responsibility for the operation of a company still subject to the laws of capitalism and therefore pluce them in the position of democratically managing' the exploitation of their own labour. At the same time it would create a new infusion of blood into the trade union bureaucracy - in the form of the workers" representatives on management boards. This new bureaucratic group would be a very useful counterweight to the shop stewards movement, and would hav considerable influence because of its occas to information about company affairs and its connection with the management's 'levers of REDISTRIBUTION OF POWER This would amount to an attempt to redistribute power away from the organs of struggle forged by the working class in the fight against capitalist exploitation, in favour of new organs of ciss collaboration, set up by the state to bind the workers more firmly to their bosses. If succest ul, such a mose would deprive the trade union rank and-file of independent organisition, with disastrous consequences for their ability to resist the combined forces of the union bureaucracy, the capitalists state, and the employers.
This article has only concentrated on a few of the more important implications of the new Labour Progranime. Next week's Red Weekly will carry a full and detailed analysis of this important document.