Political Commentary

Band of brothers

John Grigg

Lloyd George said of the 'queer people' staying at the Metropole Hotel, Brighton, that he did not know where they came from but knew very well where they were going to. He was referring to plutocrats of doubtful origin and their other-worldly destination.

This week the Metropole is serving as headquarters to the TUC. Its office is in the Churchill Room—appropriately, for so traditional a body. Many of the Big Brothers are staying there, including Joseph Gormley, who walks through the foyer with his hat firmly planted on his head. It is easy enough to see where he and many other trade union leaders come from, but where, in this world, are they going to? Do they even know themselves?

The outstanding characteristic of British trade unions is their conservatism. To a greater extent than any other group or institution in the country they seem enslaved by obsolete theory and unwilling to think afresh.

The spectacle of the delegates assembled under the Dome, where the conference is being held, provides a .most piquant visual' symbol of the 'movement's' inertia. Though there are references to 'our brothers and sisters', the sisters are not much in evidence; only about a hundred of the delegates are women. And in spite of lip-service to multiracialism I could see only one black face.

Compared with the people he was welcoming on the first day the Mayor of Brighton seemed radical and open-minded. He at least promised to study the book on trade unionism that the TUC president gave him, and to learn from it. But the president of the Brighton. Hove and District Trades Council, who spoke after the Mayor, clearly had no intention of broadening his outlook. He said that 1976 was membrable for the release of Des Warren and as the fiftieth anniversary of the General Strike, and he called for a silent tribute to Left-wing martyrs in Chile.

There are progressive forces in the TUC, but as yet they hardly dare to show them

selves and even if they do are liable to receive inadequate notice. For instance. John Lyons's speech on the shortage of high-grade engineers was virtually unreported, though it deserved front-page treatment.

Mr Lyons is a new sort of trade union leader. An economist with a public-school and Cambridge background, he is general secretary of the Electrical Power Engineers' Association—the union which govern ments fear even more than the NUM, because it can cut the nation's supply of power at source. In his speech on 6 September Mr Lyons said that in contrast with other industrial nations we had a considerably lower proportion of engineers at graduate level and far fewer qualified engineers at the higher management levels. Among professions, engineering was less well regarded here than medicine, accountancy or the law.

The status of British chartered engineers, relative to their equivalents abroad, was reflected in their pay. Compared with average industrial earnings, or typical public service pay, or the pay of chief executives in the firms employing them, they came 'just about bottom of the league'. In Mr Lyons's view one major cause was that they had 'not organised themselves properly into any trade union'.

When I talked to him afterwards he said that his union had decided earlier this year to expand beyond the power industry, to which formerly its own rules confined it.. From now onwards it would be seeking recruits in other industries, and this would bring it into direct competition with Clive Jenkins's ASTMS.

Mr Lyons's speech was addressed to a half-empty hall and received with tepid applause. But his motion calling for a committee of inquiry was accepted and is now TUC policy. He wants a committee of inquiry because it can report more quickly than a royal commission, and he wants it to establish the facts about engineering manpower, making comparisons with other countries; to look into the attitude of industry towards the training, pay and advancement of engineers; and to examine 'the whole educational set-up' (why, for instance, there is no engineering '0' level, and other pertinent questions).

There was no mention of taxation in his speech, but he is well aware that professional incomes are overtaxed. If he had said so, however, he would probably have been shouted down. In fact, he believes that both the higher-paid and the low-paid are overtaxed, and he would give relief at both ends of the scale.

If such a view were supported—if it could even be uttered—at a TUC conference, there would be some hope of economic revival. But the opposite view still prevails.

Among seven deadly items proposed as a joint strategy for the Government and TUC, one is to 'increase taxation for those in the higher income brackets and on distributed profits'.

Other items in the same appalling list are 'strictly [to] enforce price controls and increase food subsidies', and 'an extension of public ownership, including the banks and key financial institutions'. This, and not as yet Mr Lyons, reflects the dominant philosophy of the TUC—a philosophy that has remained unchanged for more than half a century. Within political parties voices from time to time are raised against the traditional orthodoxies, so that gradual evolution occurs. But in the TUC the only respectable dissidence is that of the further Left.

Although at least two million trade unionists vote Conservative, and although there would be no place for free trade unions in a truly socialist system, the TUC maintains its blind commitment to socialism.

Paul Johnson has renewed his attack upon the trade unions, and Jack Jones. instead of replying to him, has announced that he will be taking legal action. But both men are socialists, and the conflict between them does not touch the real issues.

What is wrong with the trade unions is not that they spend too much money on administration, or that they pay too little out in benefits, or that too many of their members are being put on public boards, or even that they are being allowed by law 10 extend the principle of the closed shop. The calamity is that British trade unionism iS still tied ideologically to socialism and institutionally to the Labour Party.

To appreciate the full significance of the second point one has only to ask what would now be happening if Labour's policies over the past eighteen months had been carried out by a Tory government. Instead of unofficial 'Right-to-Work. protests there would be huge marches organised by the TUC and led by Messrs. Jones, Murray, Scanlon etc.

Of course the TUC is right to co-operate with an elected government which is trying to reduce inflation and save the pound. But everyone knows that if the government were now Tory—taking exactly the sarne measures—the TUC would have declared war on it long ago. It is in the TUC-Labour Party link, and in that alone, that the threat of corporatign lies; because if voters have reason to believe that in hard times the trade unions will onlY co-operate with one party, the vote is no,t really free and Britain is in danger 01 becoming a one-party state. Clive Jenkins told the conference that he favoured talks with the Tories on condition that they were willing to accept 'classic, independent trade unionism'. The Tory Party must certainly accept the reality 01 trade union power with all its implications. But are the trade unions willing, in return. to demonstrate their independence? An independent TUC would also be, impartial, and would welcome fraternal delegates from all democratic parties. 13°1 will it ever be the normal practice for a Tod fraternal delegate to appear on the platfornt at a TUC conference, when Labour is office? Next year the Tories should ask to be allowed to send one. If they do, it will be interesting to see how the TUC reacts to the suggest ion.