The TUC is proposing a mass rally in London on 18th June, to demand higher pay for workers. Rallies have a part to play in the right conditions, for raising spirits, engendering a sense of class solidarity and so on. However, rallies are not going to lead the government or employers to change positions or to concede higher wages, and better conditions. In fact, given the actual conditions now existing, with labour in short supply, forcing many employers to have to voluntarily offer much higher wages to get the workers they need, with large numbers of workers unionising for the first time, and taking action for higher pay, and with the cost of living for workers already rising by double digits, simply calling for a rally rather than organising more effective action, can be seen as the TUC, being behind the curve, and its lack of leadership, then, having a demoralising rather than stimulating effect.
In the 1980's, the defeat of one group of workers after another, culminating in the defeat of the Miners in 1984-5, and similar defeats were experienced by workers across the globe, such as with the defeat of the US Air Traffic Controllers, was testament to the fact that a qualitative shift in class power between labour and capital had occurred. It was not just that workers in Britain and the US faced hard nosed governments in the shape of Thatcher and Reagan, but industrial and economic power had moved decisively against workers, as new labour saving-technologies, introduced in response to labour shortages in the 1970's, which squeezed profits, now meant that unemployment rose, as the demand for labour grew at a slower pace than the expansion of labour supply, creating a relative surplus population. Output grew faster than employment, as these new technologies replaced labour, and also, thereby, caused wages to fall, and profits to rise. Gross output grew more slowly than net output, and the rate of profit increased significantly.
In those conditions, no amount of strikes or labour militancy could counteract these new material conditions. Indeed, the fact that the miners had to endure a strike of more than a year, and still lost, was proof that simply more militancy was never a sufficient response. Such responses were limited to bargaining within the system, and, now, labour had less power to bargain with. Only a solution outside the system was sufficient, a solution that required workers to demand control of their socialised capital, and to organise social production on an entirely different basis, but as the trades unions and the political leadership of the labour movement continued to simply bargain in the old way, that was never an option.
So, it was inevitable that workers would see their economic position deteriorate, and wages, or at least, their real wages/living standards would be squeezed, though of course, not uniformly, as some bore more of the burden than others. As Engels had put it,
“The history of these Unions is a long series of defeats of the working-men, interrupted by a few isolated victories. All these efforts naturally cannot alter the economic law according to which wages are determined by the relation between supply and demand in the labour market. Hence the Unions remain powerless against all great forces which influence this relation. In a commercial crisis the Union itself must reduce wages or dissolve wholly; and in a time of considerable increase in the demand for labour, it cannot fix the rate of wages higher than would be reached spontaneously by the competition of the capitalists among themselves.”
But, this is not the 1980's, or 1990's any more. Rather we have the other conditions, described by Engels, here. Already, in the early 2000's, we had wages starting to rise, as the effects of the new long wave upswing began to be felt. That always manifests itself with labour shortages in particular spheres, before it translates into a broader labour shortage, and wage rises. In 2008, it saw UK lorry drivers get a 14% pay rise, after just a 2 day strike, defying all the media talk about the demand being preposterous and unrealistic, and unachievable. It saw Chancellor Andrew Darling asking workers not to demand higher wage rises to catch up with sharply rising prices, because to do so would lead to inflation! The Governor of the Bank of England has made similar pleas today, as it and other central banks have caused inflation to again go to 1970's levels, as a result of their policy of QE, designed to inflate asset prices, and the policies of government over the last two years to pick the fruit of the Magic Money Tree, to pay wages to workers who they prevented from working as a result of lockdowns!
Indeed, after 2008, or more specifically after 2010, when the global economy had been stabilised, following the financial meltdown, governments acted specifically to try to prevent those conditions of the early 2000's reappearing. They imposed fiscal austerity so as to deliberately slow economic growth, and the consequent demand for labour and capital. They engaged in even more QE, so as to divert available money and money-capital out of the real economy and capital accumulation, into even greater speculation in financial and property assets. When that ran its course, they engaged in global trade wars to limit global economic growth, and then they resorted to the direct closing down of economic activity via a two year period of lockouts and lockdowns, under the spurious excuse of COVID19.
But, despite all of those measures to try to limit economic growth, the demand for labour, and so rising wages as the position of labour strengthens as against capital, they have failed. The demand for labour has continued to rise, and, as in the past, in several sectors there are now labour shortages pushing up wages, not even as a result of workers having to take action to demand them, but simply, as Engels states above, as a result of the demand and supply for labour, as employers are forced to pay higher wages to get the workers they require. Under those conditions, the last thing we need is a timid TUC, and trades union negotiators. Rather we want leaders who will seize the day, and the opportunities for workers that now present themselves.
In the 1950's, and 60's, as workers faced conditions similar to those we now see developing, workers swept past their existing leaderships, and took matters into their own hands. It was the time of a rapid development of grass roots trades unionism, of the development of the shop stewards movement, and wildcat industrial action. Bosses like to be able to deal via a tame trades union bureaucracy, as the entire mindset of the trades union official is to bargain within the system, which always entails never going beyond what the system itself will allow. But, with grass roots organisation, workers ignored the requirement to go through official procedures, and sensed their own economic power within the labour process. When they felt aggrieved, they simply downed tools, and adopted additional measures of workers self-government, such as the occupation, and restarting production under workers control. These are the tactics that workers need to adopt today, as the balance of power shifts decisively back in their favour as economic growth expands.
For one thing, workers should forget about the calendar when it comes to collective bargaining. Workers' living standards are being hit here and now as a result of inflation already above 10%, and other costs such as higher taxes and National Insurance. Why wait for a date on the calendar, set for annual pay negotiations? Strike now for higher pay, as well as for better conditions, shorter hours, more holidays, better pensions, and earlier retirement. Employers are short of labour in many sectors, and so such demands, in these sectors will be like pushing on an open door, as with the lorry drivers in 2008. In Britain, as it has fucked itself with Brexit, those labour shortages are even greater, in many sectors, and so there is even more reason to take such action, now. That of course, was the last thing on the minds of the Brexiters when they proposed it, as they expected instead even greater impositions on workers. The Tory Right as they seek to provoke a trade war with the EU, still harbour such thoughts, but its unlikely they and their DUP allies will succeed.
In the 1970's, even Ted Heath's Tory government introduced monthly, automatic cost of living increases on wages and benefits. They did so, because it attempted to keep control with them. They calculated the rise in prices, and determined the rise in wages from it, and in so doing attempted to remove the direct action of workers to determine how much their wages should rise. In Italy, the Scala Mobile played a similar role, and was only scrapped when capital saw that workers' power had been undermined. But, it does indicate that workers should reject the calls of those like Darling and Bailey, who plead with workers not to demand wage rises to compensate for price rises. Why on Earth would workers not seek to do so, especially after 30 years when they were not in a position to do so, but now are!
Of course, not all workers are in that position. The labour shortage is growing in general, as opposed to just specific sectors. As I wrote recently, in the US, there are two job vacancies for every unemployed worker, and a similar condition is developing in Britain. Under these conditions, the last thing required is timid leadership, simply calling rallies rather than effective strike action. For one thing, we have still around 1 million workers, in Britain, on zero hours contracts. These tend to be the worst paid jobs, and in those sectors where the demand for labour is not growing in response to rising monetary demand. So, not only are these workers not able to gain from the growing economy, and monetary demand, but they also tend to be in the worst conditions in which to be able to organise effectively. They need the support of workers in general, and of the TUC.
There is no point having even a wage of £50 an hour, if you only get to work 1 hour a week! We should scrap the idea of a minimum hourly wage, and insist on a minimum monthly wage of £2,000 for all workers. That way, workers can have some stability to plan their lives and the finances. It also means that employers would be forced to employ workers for a reasonable number of hours each month, whilst if they wanted to have flexibility by that consisting of more hours one day or week compared to another, that is possible. Of course, any such flexibility should be negotiated with appropriate unions in the workplace.
Rather than planning just protest rallies, the TUC should be planning a General Strike to demand such a minimum monthly wage of £2,000 per worker. That would have the benefit of protecting all such workers, and is far better than the suggestions of increasing in-work benefits and so on, which simply subsidise small, low paying employers, and do so by penalising bigger, higher paying firms. But, all such measures still amount to merely bargaining within the system. Workers are in a better position to do that, now, as a result of a resumption of the long wave uptrend, and that will last for maybe another 15 years, but, it will again end, just as it did in the 1980's, and workers will then find themselves on the back foot.
Instead of just bargaining within the system for better pay and conditions, workers need to demand control of their own collective property. As Marx put it, the corporations as much as the cooperatives are the collective property of workers, the transitional form between capitalism and socialism. Yet, its not workers and managers that exercise control over this their collective property, but shareholders, who are merely creditors of the company, people who lend money to it, in return for interest in the form of dividends. If we want to end the perpetual condition that workers find themselves in, we must demand an end to that unjust and indefensible condition in which non-owners of property exercise control over it, and the owners of that property are denied control. We need to elect a Workers Party committed to ending that situation, and changing company law to remove the right of shareholders to elect company boards, and so on. Democratic control of companies should reside with their collective owners, the workers and managers within them.
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