SWP expulsions and squabbles

[Lo Siento.]

For various reasons you're not going to get much more from me I'm afraid, I've run out of time, but I'll respond to this before I go.

Really? I'm not so sure. Obviously I don't dissent from the general point about strong unions. But closed shops institutionalised differentials, ie cemented the hierarchy within the workforce. Leapfrog disputes sprang from that and, let's face it, rewarded those with the strongest grip on the levers of production, the skilled workers with the best jobs. The presence of closed shops did not reward those who would like to have had the opportunity to do the best jobs but were instead stuck doing something more monotonous and less well paid, nor did they reward those without any job at all.

I could never quite understand how it was in the interests of the working class for an entire factory workforce to lose a days pay when a small closed shop fought to maintain their differential advantage, and I don't think I was alone in that.

If it's in their own interests as against those less well off than themselves then I'm not predisposed to automatic support. Each case on its merits though.

A lot of this isn't really born out by the wage statistics for that period, which show differentials between skilled and unskilled workers in heavily-unionised sectors contracting in the 1960s and 1970s rather than expanding/stabilising. One of the reasons for that is because "leapfrog" actually more often involved lower-paid workers using the rates received by better-paid workers as an argument to improve their own wages. Also, one of the reasons that many workers were often accepting of closing whole factories to support the claims of a particular section was that lots recognised that if the small group won then they'd be in the office asking for the same thing the day after. Finally, the thing about having whole factories as closed shops, rather than just particular sections of them, is that they de facto ended up helping the lowest-paid and most precariously-placed workers to organise, with the result that they often enabled groups of workers stuck in low-skilled work to (a) improve their pay and conditions and (b) started getting groups of well-organised unskilled workers demanding to be given access to better work through progression schemes.

That's the general picture anyway (not saying your particular experience isn't different, btw). IMO, if you're looking for the real culprit when it comes to people being stuck in the same mundane work for years on end, I'd point the finger as British firms' general reluctance to provide in-house training, especially to adults.

 

[newbie]

Interesting, tvm. I did look for some (unbiased) stats along those lines but couldn't really find anything that distilled wages, inflation, industrial disputes and so on into something digestible. I'd also want to compare differentials against those who were not in unionised industries- which only covered part of the workforce.

 

[Lo Siento.]

Interesting, tvm. I did look for some (unbiased) stats along those lines but couldn't really find anything that distilled wages, inflation, industrial disputes and so on into something digestible. I'd also want to compare differentials against those who were not in unionised industries- which only covered part of the workforce.

The stats I have to hand are for the motor industry (from an article in a peer-reviewed journal) & are as follows:

Skilled toolmaker as percentage of semi-skilled storekeeper: 1967 to 1978 162.1% to 1978 123%
Skilled production to semi-skilled storekeeper: 139.5% to 121.6%
Skilled toolmaker to unskilled labourer 179.2% to 132.9%
Skilled toolmaker to skilled production 105.1% to 101.1%
Semi-skilled storekeeper to unskilled labourer: 122.3% to 108.1%

So basically the less skill you had, the more the "high tide" of trade unionism pushed up your wages, at least in the motor industry.

Elsewhere, the differential between unionised and non-unionised goes from +28% in 1964 to +36% in 1975 (haven't got the figures for the 5 years after that to hand, sorry).
There's a slight compression of wage inequality between industries overall, with some unionised groups rectifying slipping wages (Miners get a huge bump via their strikes in 1972 and 1974, up 34% on other male manuals) and others losing a bit of their differential (car workers wages drop 8% compared to the average male manual in this period). There's also a general decline in the difference between non-manual men to manual men with the former dropping from 134% of the latter down to 122% between 1970 and 1979.
Finally, women's pay relative to men is basically stagnant at sub-50% until the spike in strike levels late 1960s, at which point it jumps to 58% in the mid-1970s (part related to the Sex Discrimination Act, but also related to the example set by various groups of women strikers in this period. Many of them in closed shops).

 

[cesare]

Part related to the Equal Pay Act too, probably more so because that was 1970 whilst the SDA wasn't until 1975

 

[Lo Siento.]

Part related to the Equal Pay Act too, probably more so because that was 1970 whilst the SDA wasn't until 1975

Sorry yeah, I meant the Equal Pay Act (although even that's phased in. I think the beginnings of a shift happen because of a cultural change... of which Dagenham '68 is both a symptom and a catalyst).

Glad you're not on my viva panel.

 

[cesare]

Sorry yeah, I meant the Equal Pay Act (although even that's phased in. I think the beginnings of a shift happen because of a cultural change... of which Dagenham '68 is both a symptom and a catalyst).

Glad you're not on my viva panel.

I'd be interested in reading your thesis, mind.

 

[Lo Siento.]

I'd be interested in reading your thesis, mind.

It's about a week from finished and then I'd be glad to send it to you!

 

[cesare]

It's about a week from finished and then I'd be glad to send it to you!

Oh good luck! Yes, that would be great, thank you

 

[cesare]

Also impending entry into the EU in 1973 and compliance with article 141 had an impact too

 

[The39thStep]

The stats I have to hand are for the motor industry (from an article in a peer-reviewed journal) & are as follows:

Skilled toolmaker as percentage of semi-skilled storekeeper: 1967 to 1978 162.1% to 1978 123%
Skilled production to semi-skilled storekeeper: 139.5% to 121.6%
Skilled toolmaker to unskilled labourer 179.2% to 132.9%
Skilled toolmaker to skilled production 105.1% to 101.1%
Semi-skilled storekeeper to unskilled labourer: 122.3% to 108.1%

So basically the less skill you had, the more the "high tide" of trade unionism pushed up your wages, at least in the motor industry.

Elsewhere, the differential between unionised and non-unionised goes from +28% in 1964 to +36% in 1975 (haven't got the figures for the 5 years after that to hand, sorry).
There's a slight compression of wage inequality between industries overall, with some unionised groups rectifying slipping wages (Miners get a huge bump via their strikes in 1972 and 1974, up 34% on other male manuals) and others losing a bit of their differential (car workers wages drop 8% compared to the average male manual in this period). There's also a general decline in the difference between non-manual men to manual men with the former dropping from 134% of the latter down to 122% between 1970 and 1979.
Finally, women's pay relative to men is basically stagnant at sub-50% until the spike in strike levels late 1960s, at which point it jumps to 58% in the mid-1970s (part related to the Sex Discrimination Act, but also related to the example set by various groups of women strikers in this period. Many of them in closed shops).

Excellent stats and summary mate

 

[discokermit]

Didn't realise you work in a care home discokermit fairplay.

i'm just unfortunate in being the class of person who has to work til they are sixty five and am surrounded by others of the same class.
what happens to the over fifty fives in your world? is it the villa in tuscany?

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

i'm just unfortunate in being the class of person who has to work til they are sixty five and am surrounded by others of the same class.
what happens to the over fifty fives in your world? is it the villa in tuscany?

Dead or on the sick

 

[discokermit]

being an alaskan crab fisherman must be tough. that is what you do?

 

[Blagsta]

i'm just unfortunate in being the class of person who has to work til they are sixty five and am surrounded by others of the same class.
what happens to the over fifty fives in your world? is it the villa in tuscany?

65? Lucky sod. I'm gonna have to work until I'm 68

 

[discokermit]

65? Lucky sod. I'm gonna have to work until I'm 68

that's not the rule now though. is it? i'll fucking starve before i work til sixty eight. cunts.

 

[The39thStep]

Dead or on the sick

Or on here lol

 

[Trappist]

Hmm. i missed this cryptic aside yesterday.

i've pondered upon it, and decided that it is friendly(ish).

Well it wasn't meant to be unfriendly, unless you're incredibly thin skinned .

Your remark that

Whenever i meet former cadres from my political past i am struck first of all by how old they are.

tickled me.

As someone who can remember 70s I am slightly perturbed that the age profiles in my particular niches seem to have kept pace with me. For instance trainspotters and organised lefties are now much older whereas MPs and the police are ever younger.

Also, I did wonder how long since you'd seen these comrades for them to have aged so.

 

[Lo Siento.]

Excellent stats and summary mate

Thanks, good to find an outlet for some of this info I've been accumulating for the last three and half years...

 

[belboid]

that's not the rule now though. is it? i'll fucking starve before i work til sixty eight. cunts.

depends just how old you are. I'm meant to work till 67 at the mo, tho the fuckers will probably change that. And I wont be able to afford to quit either

 

[redcogs]

Well it wasn't meant to be unfriendly, unless you're incredibly thin skinned .

Your remark that



tickled me.

As someone who can remember 70s I am slightly perturbed that the age profiles in my particular niches seem to have kept pace with me. For instance trainspotters and organised lefties are now much older whereas MPs and the police are ever younger.

Also, I did wonder how long since you'd seen these comrades for them to have aged so.

i hadn't seen the geezer who had represented TUSC in the election for almost a decade, which isn't a surprise given the 400 mile geographical distance that separates us

i was also alluding to an impression that i have about the age of yer average SWP cadre, and the extent to which new faces have failed to emerge since i was active - although i've no evidence for this, just my eyes.

At 64 i am a bit thin skinned, like parchment on the back of my hands. If the SWP could reverse the ageing process and improve ones general health i might consider rejoining

 

[phildwyer]

The far-left has nothing concrete to offer people. No real life examples of how it works in practise. Living memory no longer goes back far enough.

A few occupied university buldingp in Paris in 1968, a factory or two in Turin in 1977, some squatted houses in Berlin in 1981 a few villages in the Mexican jungle in 1994. That's all that I can draw on, what chance for everyone else?

The left is living (barely) on a memory of a memory and its practice is naturally therefore ritualised.

Hmm.

...but we've had this argument over and over in ever decreasing circles.

Oh well.

This is why the "Left" is best conceived as offering a critique of capitalism, rather than an alternative to it.

It's also why the entire concept of the "Left" is obsolete, along with that of the "Right."

 

[phildwyer]

Depends on the context really. At university I think what put a lot of people off of the left, even if they were sympathetic to various causes, was the fact that they (imo correctly) saw left wing students as part of an exclusive subculture with particular clothes, musical preferences and even diets. To a lot of people they just *looked* odd, even if you wanted to join in with them... what would your mates say? They might say that you were a bit weird as well.

Well then the solution is simple. The "Left" needs to dress better. Then it will attract lots of lovely new followers innit.

Jesus.

 

[Pickman's model]

This is why the "Left" is best conceived as offering a critique of capitalism, rather than an alternative to it.

It's also why the entire concept of the "Left" is obsolete, along with that of the "Right."

so what you're saying, being as you believe the entire concept of the left is obselete, is that the former left's critique of capitalism is obselete.

 

[phildwyer]

so what you're saying, being as you believe the entire concept of the left is obselete, is that the former left's critique of capitalism is obselete.

You catch on fast.

 

[DotCommunist]

 

[Flavour]

Is the rights support of capitalism also obsolete then? I seem to remember being able to trade cows for sheep and there being some abstract relative value to these concepts being the opening salve of a certain posters proof of the Diety.

 

[phildwyer]

Is the rights support of capitalism also obsolete then?

The idea that only the "Right" supports capitalism is certainly obsolete.

 

[Trappist]

The idea that only the "Right" supports capitalism is certainly obsolete.

And entirely ahistorical.

 

[newbie]

Thanks, good to find an outlet for some of this info I've been accumulating for the last three and half years...

I agree with them up there, very interesting. And I wish you all the best with your viva, whatever that is.

a couple of things I'd reflect on, though it's your specialist subject and I'm loathe to do more than try and learn.

First the context: British Leyland- 150,000+ workers, 40% of the British car market- went bust and was nationalised in 1975. 10 years later it had collapsed into ruin and many tens of thousands had lost their jobs. Is that a fair summary?

I don't know what period your detailed reading covers, but any brief googling about the later 70s will throw up histories pinning the blame on appalling management, on inept political leadership (ie Callaghan, who came from a TU background and led the attack on In Place of Strife), on particularly badly designed cars, on the energy crisis, worldwide inflation, etc etc. But they all seem to agree that industrial relations were a contributory factor, with iro a million or so days per year production affected by strike action.

This contemporary account says "For manual workers in the Cars division alone there are currently 58 bargaining units and 324 pay rates". How much of what happened really related to closed shop demarcation and differentials I don't know, but whilst the figures you gave are important, it's worth remembering that it all ended in tears.

We all know what happened in 1979, the almost entirely negative effects of which are still reverberating. It would be a bit hard to pretend that the events that kept the car industry in the news week after week, month after month for years didn't have some effect in prompting some w/c voters to swing to the Tories (eg both Oxford, including Cowley, and Brum Northfield, inc Longbridge, went from Lab to Tory between '74 and '79, the latter with a 13% swing).

You don't have to be an arch-capitalist to wonder whether, in retrospect, it was all such a great idea.

 

[Trappist]

First the context: British Leyland- 150,000+ workers, 40% of the British car market- went bust and was nationalised in 1975. 10 years later it had collapsed into ruin and many tens of thousands had lost their jobs. Is that a fair summary?

I don't know what period your detailed reading covers, but any brief googling about the later 70s will throw up histories pinning the blame on appalling management, on inept political leadership (ie Callaghan, who came from a TU background and led the attack on In Place of Strife), on particularly badly designed cars, on the energy crisis, worldwide inflation, etc etc. But they all seem to agree that industrial relations were a contributory factor, with iro a million or so days per year production affected by strike action.
...
You don't have to be an arch-capitalist to wonder whether, in retrospect, it was all such a great idea.

You do have to wonder, don't you.

Was BL any more strike prone than Ford or GM? Actually, I don't know the comparative figures*, but a comrade in Dagenham told me that in the 70s he put aside enough money each year to see him through at least a week's strike. So maybe not that different.

Another possibility is that BL were rumoured to have lost £30 on each Mini sold. Whose fault was that?

* Don't have time to check**

** Can't be arsed to either