POLITICS IN INDUSTRY
T0 understand the background of the bus strike—and, indeed, of the industrial scene in general today—it is necessary to study the tensions that have built up in the Labour movement during the past few years; and as good a starting point as any has been provided by Sir Tom O'Brien, MP, in an article for the Daily Mail. Sir Tom, who is General Secretary of the National Association of Theatrical and Cine Employees, is not normally noted for his tact; but on this occasion he has intervened as peacemaker in the dispute between the trade union and political wings of the Labour Party, arising out of some unkind things Mr. R. H. S. Crossman had to say about the feebleness of trade union MPs. Only four of them, he said, were of ministerial calibre; and as Sir Tom O'Brien was not among the four he might have been excused for joining in the hunt for Mr. Crossman's blood. Instead, he has put forward a thesis to account for the relative dearth of able trade union politicians; and the Labour movement would do well to study it.
Sir Tom points out that in the first general election formally contested by the Labour Party forty-nine out of the sixty successful candidates were from the trade unions; but since that time the proportion has steadily declined. During the depression, too, the tendency arose for a divorce between industrial and political activity. When 'spreading the work' was the rule in industry it began to be embarrassing for trade union leaders to have their parliamentary jobs as well. The result is that now there are only two members of the TUC General Council who are MPs; and both are from small unions.
The argument remains, of course, that a general secretary of a large union would not have time satisfactorily to carry out parliamentary duties. But as Sir Tom says, if trade union leaders are excluded from Westminster by convention, or by their union rules, the likelihood is that the trade union ele- ment there will continue to lose power and prestige; and that this will lead to a split in the Labour Party. The split, in fact, is already there : Mr. Crossman's strictures, and the trade unionists' reaction to them, are merely a recognition of its existence.
The trade union movement is today as nearly impotent Politically as it has ever been : of the four men Mr. Crossman named, one, Aneurin Bevan, is not strictly speaking a trade union member—he has long since crossed the divide and become a politician—and if the other three, Jim Griffiths, George Brown and Alfred Robens, are the best that trade unionism can do in Westminster, the talent must lie pretty thin on the ground. And at the same time the TUC has been losing power industrially. Built up on a Have Not basis, it has never been entirely happy adapting itself to a Have society, in which the emphasis is on expansion, not restric- tion. Its hold over the workers has gradually weakened—as was illustrated in the British Motor Corporation strike a year ago; and since that time the urge within the TUC, and more especially within the T & GWU, to find some issue on which unity and militancy can both be restored has become over- whelming. The engineering dispute was not a very good issue : had the employers' spokesmen been less silly it migat not have become a fight at all. The provincial bus dispute is probably the best opportunity that has offered itself so far. The busmen's case, as distinct from their resort to strike action, is basically reasonable enough; if the battle is won, so much the better for the union's reputation; if lost, defeat will not be catastrophic. The busmen are expendable in the T & GWU's cause.
How far these views are consciously held, and acted upon, by Mr. Frank Cousins it is impossible to determine; but there is reason to believe that he is well. aware of what he is doing —that he thinks of this strike as a long-term political opera- tion. And it may well be that he does so because he, like the other trade union leaders, has so far been excluded from political power at Westminster. Mr. Cousins has also, to some extent, been restricted as an industrial potentate because the TUC is still inclined to regard him as a rather bumptious new boy who ought to be kept in his place. This may account for his failure to react promptly to the news of strike violence. Neither he nor any other trade union leader approves of violence, but they strongly approve of the attendant publicity and they are therefore tempted—like Mr. Frank Coyle, the busmen's immediate leader—to employ a see-no-violence, hear-no-violence attitude; or to blame incidents on the Com- munists, a technique well learned from the Tory press.
In the circumstances, there is little that the Government can do except wait and see. The strike may not by national standards seem important, but the way it is handled will certainly be important, as a precedent. Any sign of a scuttle by the Transport Commission will be taken to reflect weak- ness on the Government's part; and other unions will be the readier for action on their own account. Not that there is any reason to suppose that the Government is weakening; but its pronouncements recently have been so erratic that little trust can be placed in its consistency. Hardly were the Chancellor's solemn warnings about inflation uttered than he had to echo the Prime Minister and insist that we have never had it so good. His reasons can easily be understood; although for home consumption a warning note may be necessary, it is also vital not to frighten opinion abroad about the prospects for the pound. Still, it must be embarrassing for Mr. Thorneycroft. Mr. Macmillan claims that-he has been reading Bunyan lately, and that he recognised how living many of the characters are; among them -Mr. Facing-Both- Ways. Can he have been thinking of his- Chancellor of the Exchequer?
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