LONDON-The central plank of the British Labour government's anti-workingclass policies-the 5% limit on wage increases-is on its last legs. It has been mortally wounded by the determined strike action of 57,000 Ford workers and the overwhelming sympathy the strike has received inside the working class. On October 2, the Labour Party Conference decided by a 2-to-1 margin to throw out the 5% "and any wage restraint by whatever method."
The context of this vote showed how the Labour bureaucracy had been thoroughly shaken up by the action of the Ford workers. Despite threats by Prime Minister Callaghan that he would resign, and typical phony appeals to "unity" by the likes of "left" Cabinet Minister Michael Foot, the bloc votes of the large unions centrally involved in Ford and the overwhelming sentiment of the rank-and-file delegates carried the day.
Callaghan's immediate response was the typically insulting declaration that the 5% limit remains, plus threats to further slash public spending and increase taxation on the working class.
The union bureaucrats, frightened by what they have done and totally lacking in any serious alternative, are now trying to save Callaghan's bacon by arranging to meet to fudge up some "more acceptable" austerity package. What's more, instead of fighting for the removal of Callaghan and all the "five percenters" from their positions of responsibility, or insisting that a Labour government implements Conference decisions, the trade union tops will undoubtedly be looking for some scheme to sell out the Ford workers.
Callaghan's Bluff Called
Callaghan received a body blow by the Labour Party decision. On September 7 he had surprised all the pundits by declaring that there was not to be a general election this autumn after all. This postponement, however, staked everything on imposing a fourth round of wage controls on the working class. Ford's were to be the first group of workers forced to swallow the 5% limit, followed by the public-sector workers, and then everyone else.
The Ford rank and file upset all these carefully prepared plans. As soon as they heard of the management's derisory offer, workers in the militant plants immediately downed tools and within twenty-four hours 57,000 workers were out and all twentythree plants closed.
The union's claim is for £20 across the board and an hour off the day. In addition it demands a guaranteed week's pay, even if layoffs occur, as frequently happens. Also included are clauses on improving pensions, length of holidays, holiday bonuses, and demands to improve pay and conditions of shift and line workers.
The claim amounts to a 25% increase. If they win the claim in full, they should just about be able to make up for the decline in their living standards since Labour's pay policy was introduced in mid-1975. A victory would also open a breach through which other workers could follow, particularly other car workers and low-paid public-sector manual workers, who are both in the process of submitting claims.
Ford is clearly in a position to meet the union claim. Its profits last fiscal year were a whopping £300 million-up on the very good £246.1 million for 1977. Moreover, the Ford share of the British market is increasing.
On the surface, it would appear that Ford has a lot to lose. The sanctions that
• in the government threatens to bring against them if they succumb-orders to government departments for 25,000 carsare hardly the biggest pressure on them. Rather, the Ford management, alongside other big capitalists, sees the holding of the government's guidelines as a necessary step to further depressing the living standards of the working class, sapping their morale and eventually defeating the organized strength of the unions.
Ford workers are therefore fighting the government-despite the ostrich-like stance of the union leadership, who insist that the battle is just with Ford.
The Labour Party Conference decision massively enhances the chances of a victory by the Ford workers. Especially as this was only the most highly publicized of a whole series of moves by the broader Labor movement. Right away, dockers in the Liverpool docks, next to the important Halewood Ford plant, decided not to touch any Ford products. This was quickly followed by boycotts at the Southampton, Hull, and London docks and by the National Union of Seamen. Now, no Ford products are being moved into or out of Britain.
The leadership of the National Union of Public Employees (NUPE), which represents the majority of the public-sector manual workers, has instructed its area and divisional committees to prepare contingency plans for strike action in pursuit of the NUPE claim, which calls for a £60 minimum wage and a 35-hour week-a massive 40%. This claim would have remained no more than demagogy for fading left leaders if it had not been for the Ford workers' action.
The miners' leaders have also been making threatening noises. They are even threatening to bring their claim forward by four months from next March to coincide with the Ford struggle. Workers in British Leyland have also been given a boost.
These developments signify an important boost of confidence for the British workers movement. This poses the very real possibility of reversing the setbacks of the past three years. It creates the best possible conditions for fighting for a socialist alternative to Callaghan and the right wing and halting the drift to the right in a number of unions (most clearly expressed in the recent victory of the right wing in the Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers [AUEW], the second largest industrial union).
If the left can seize the time, force out the five percenters, and fight for a socialist alternative, they would give the lie to Callaghan's claim that a consistent fight for workers interests will only let in a right-wing Tory government.
Socialist Alternative Needed
In the absence of a credible socialist alternative, this potential could be frittered away. The working class has certainly suffered setbacks in the past period. But its organizational strength-including the integrity of the rank-and-file leadershipremains intact. The setbacks were suffered because of the failure of the left to win the argument for an alternative political course to that of Callaghan and to polarize the base of the mass organizations against the right wing. This would best have been done in the fight for united front action against the Labour government's offensive on the working class.
But instead there was no real fight against the first three phases of the government's austerity measures. Although the firefighters did go into struggle, the right-wing leaders of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) refused to launch classwide action behind them and the lefts refused to organize to fight this betrayal. This sealed the national blockage on classwide struggles.
Nonetheless, given the continuing underlying strength of the class, big defensive struggles have been possible and workers have even gone onto the offensive through local and sectoral struggles. Examples in the past year have been numerous: the Post Office Engineering Union's fight for thirty-five hours, the Leyland toolroom workers and Chrysler lorry plants' strikes for parity, the strikes for local agreements by the social workers, and a whole series of plant-based fights to win phony productivity agreements allowed under the last round of pay laws. Hence the over-15% average wage increase won during the life of the "third phase which was meant to hold the line at 10%.
At present the action of the Ford workers does not break out of this sectoralism. Union leaders argue that this dispute is a special case because of Ford's high profits. This argument is undoubtedly the main factor behind the determination of the rank and file. The main danger is that the demand could be taken to imply that where low profits are made-as at British Leyland-the workers should get a commensurately low rise in wages. This is in fact what those union leaders opposed to the 5% limit mean by "responsible collective bargaining." But worse is the cover this gives to union leaders in their failure to chart a real alternative to that of Callaghan.
There has been no real reply in face of Callaghan's charge that breaking the 5% will ruin Labour's electoral chances. There is similar silence to Callaghan's appeals to "national interest," saving the British car industry, keeping out the Japanese, and so on. This barrage of ideological arguments is being thrown at Ford workers and those taking solidarity action.
Ford workers demonstrate in front of Transport and General Workers
The utter bankruptcy of the left reformists was revealed for everyone to see at the Labour Party Conference debate. The best that was offered was the nationalistic rhetoric of Clive Jenkins, the "left" leader of the Association of Scientific, Technical and Managerial Staffs: "We need higher wages to boost home demand" and "bring in import controls" was his only answer. But the argumentation of Moss Evans, newly elected leader of the nearly twomillion-strong Transport & General Workers Union (T&GWU), was even worse. Dubbed by the press as the main architect behind the defeat of the 5%, he nonetheless conceded Callaghan's case.
"Yes," Evans said, "the fight against inflation [read wage controls] is vital, but it's not the only battle. We also need to fight the scourge of unemployment."
Following the vote, one after the other, the union leaders declared that the part of the resolution committing them to actually "campaign against" wage restraint was not seriously meant. They were all in favor of "responsible" collective bargaining. All of them welcomed Callaghan's invitation to more talks to try to concretize what "responsible" actually means in terms of holding down the standard of living of the working class and boosting profits.
Laurence Sparham/IFL
Union headquarters in London.
Faced with opposition from a ruthless multinational firm and from the Labour government itself, the Ford workers can only be guaranteed victory if they mobilize the support of the rest of the working class. Unifying and class-wide demands are essential. The Ford claim itself is a good basis from which to start.
The £20 increase to make up for the decline in living standards must be linked with a call for a cost-of-living clause which rises with the rise in inflation. This type of demand is often called the sliding scale and would link the Ford claim to that submitted by the Cowley plant of British Leyland.
The demand for an hour off the day should be coupled with the call to hire more workers so that the problem of unemployment can begin to be tackled now. This would link the Ford claim with that of the public-sector workers and offer a real answer to the demands for productivity strings so bandied about by the Ford management and union leaders as a solution to the dispute.
Ford's high profits should be brought in front of all Ford workers. Such a situation clearly shows who gains from wage controls-the bosses. However, it is not fundamentally because of high profits that workers should get a raise. Whatever the profit situation, workers should get increases which keep living standards up beyond the rate of inflation.
The fight for these alternative policies is part and parcel of a fight to build an alternative leadership of the Labour movement capable of taking up class-struggle demands and hostile to appeals for class collaboration. In the first place this means a serious fight to remove all the five percenters from their positions of trust and responsibility in the Labor movementstarting with the removal of Callaghan as Labour leader.
Democratic Self-Organization
Ford workers are now in a tremendously favorable situation. Their action and the sympathy and solidarity they have aroused has put victory within reach. But new dangers now face them.
The course of the strike is in the hands of the full-time officials and their hangerson. Systematic mass meetings have not been held, mass picketing has been discouraged, and no strike committee has been elected. This leaves it open to the officials to sell massive speed-up, redundancies, and line discipline for a small increase over 5%. Other demands the Ford management is raising center on closer discipline of the work force-including penalty clauses for lateness, absenteeism, and the like.
The lessons of the 1971 Ford strike need to be kept in mind. The lack of control over the negotiators led to a sellout after nine weeks of strike, despite the equally militant rank-and-file walkout. Then the workers were tied to a two-year no-strike deal, far below their original demands. The traditional mass meetings where workers collectively discussed what to do and whether it was possible to win more, and where opponents of the deal could argue it should be rejected, was replaced by the then-unprecedented postal ballot. Nineteen-seventy-one went down as the "big stay-at-home strike."
There is another lesson of the 1971 strike. In that dispute, the Ford management made good use of the multinational character of their operation. Work was transferred to plants in Germany and
Canada. Moreover, the president of the U.S. United Auto Workers union was flown into Britain to help sell the deal to the rank and file. Henry Ford Il made his usual threats to withdraw the Ford operation from Britain altogether if the workers didn't show more "reasonableness." Solidarity actions from Ford workers in Europe and North America-which has already been promised through the top officials-could stymie similar moves this time around.
Messages of solidarity should be sent to: Ford(UK) Workers Combine Committee, 25 Dearmer House, London SW2, England.