Strikes and Workers Control: Ivan Dixon on the need for revolutionary industrial tactic

Whatever a worker's level of political consciousness, historically the strike has been his most natural weapon. The obvious, and some would say the only, thing to do in a conflict situation with the boss is to withdraw your labour, and it has been argued by many trade union leaders that the penal clauses of the Arbitration Act have deprived the worker of his only weapon in industrial disputes. The fact that the strike is something of a working class reflex, and that there is a strong tradition against scabbery, makes it possible for union officials to call short strikes with a guarantee that they will occur, even though in many cases they do not result in any gains.

The new situation produced by the long overdue breakdown of the arbitration system, the shift towards collective bargaining, and the growing interest in workers' control as a transitional demand makes it necessary for Australian revolutionaries to develop a theory of industrial tactics. This article is intended as one contribution. For these purposes, we can classify strikes as being of two main kinds: a. Those which do not have an immediate effect on the masses' routine of life. Examples: strikes in manufacturing of consumer durables, where daily purchases are not made - cars, electrical appliances, furniture, building materials etc. b. Those which immediately affect the masses. Examples: strikes in service industries - transport, gas, power, communications, bread, milk, meat.

A strike in either of these two categories can be either limited in duration - 24 hours, 48 hours, 5 days, etc., or it can be open ended - to be called off when the demands are met. This makes a lot of difference, naturally, to the effects of the strike on the employees, the bosses and the masses outside. The principle which Australian communist trade union leaders have tried to follow in their militant periods in the past has been to act in such a way as to unite the workers as much as possible and to divide the class enemy. Strikes they have led sometimes achieved this (as in the Victorian and Queensland transport strikes of 1948) and sometimes the reverse (as in the 1949 coal strike).

This principle is still valid of itself, but should be restated as follows: wherever possible, industrial action should be organised in such a way as to make life easier than usual for both the workers engaged in it and the masses outside, and as hard as possible for the enemy against whom the action is taken - whether it be one lone employer, a number of them, or the State. Industrial action should be such that it raises the level of political consciousness of the workers, gives them an understanding of their own real strength, and above all, keeps raising their morale.

Let us consider some recent examples. The Mt Isa Mines strike is a classic example of an isolated strike in category a. The miners went on strike (in fact were locked out until they agreed to the company's terms, but the distinction does not matter much here) as a result of company attacks on their wages. While they were out the value of the ore in the ground did not fall, the mine did not deteriorate - the miners themselves saw to that by keeping in maintenance crews to prevent flooding – and the international boss, the American Smelting and Refining Company, suffered no great loss as the international price of copper rose, to the advantage of its mines elsewhere. While there was no pressure on it to give in, there was pressure on the workers. As their money ran out they either left town or became defeatist. The strike ended in a victory for the company.

One way this situation could have been reversed would have been to internationalise the strike, to tie up as many of ASARCO's operations around the world as possible. International trade union solidarity is rare but not unknown - maritime unions around the world often back one another up, and the recent action of the Amalgamated Postal Workers Union in declaring black any American mail handled by troops during the American postal strike is another example. Another way would have been to extend the strike to cause trouble to another capitalist concern which could not afford it, and get them thereby to put pressure on ASARCO. On the NSW South Coast at the moment, BHP steelworkers are after more money, and BHP couldn't care if they walked out, as they have high steel stocks unsold. At the same time, Conzinc Riotinto has a contract to supply coal to Japan, with contract penalties of $50,000 per day for default. The coal miners of the South Coast, on behalf of mine and steelworks employees of BHP, are talking to that organization's board of directors, using the directors of Conzinc Riotinto as their messenger boys.

At the time, it was freely predicted in the left outside the Communist Party that the strike would fail unless extended to something like the Queensland electricity supply by the Queensland Trades and Labour Council, in order to bring pressure upon more capitalists and their state machine. But for factional reasons the QnC refused. A further way would have been to keep the mine running – or forcing entry to break the lockout - and taking advantage of the fact that it produced something of high value - silver sulphide. The workers could have begun paying themselves in kind with the product of the mine to the extent that they felt it compensated them for their exploited labour. Of course, this is a very serious action: highly illegal, but then again, no more so really than going on strike. If it was possible to organise, it would raise the whole question of surplus value, and in fact would be in the eyes of most workers less like stealing than the petty pilfering that goes on in factories all the time.

Most workers find nothing morally repugnant in pinching stuff belonging to a big employer, as the guard houses and bag inspections at factory gates testify. This action is not advocated lightly. I believe it is possible to initiate in the new industrial and social climate we are entering, provided careful attention is paid to the exact conditions at the time. If an international outfit like ASARCO cannot be singled OUT and hit alone, causing it real trouble, then the only thing which will regulate wages in a place like Mt Isa is supply and demand, and the high turnover of the Mt Isa work force proves this. Strikes will be doomed to fail from the outset.

Strikes often fail because the employers can roll with the punch. The US automobile industry has in the past tried to arrange for a glut of unsold cars at around the time the United Auto Workers' contract expires – so that the inevitable strikes occurring around the negotiation of a new contract will coincide with a period when workers would have been laid off anyway. On the Australian waterfront the employers over the years have learnt how to allow for 24 hour stoppages, and are little affected by them. Even an extended stoppage, provided it ties up all shipping, will have little effect on the individual line which knows that all its competitors are being equally affected.

The blow which really hurts-is the one which singles out an individual, preferably national employer at a period when he really needs his work force. A classic example of this was the first strike led by the former US Teamsters' Union President, Jimmy Hoffa, who, whatever his other sins, knew what he was doing at the time. Hoffa was working for a trucking company as a driver. He joined all the other drivers up in the union, got them ready to follow him out, and then waited. The chance came when the operator won a contract to ship a large load of strawberries across the country. The drivers dutifully loaded them into the trucks, then presented their demands and walked out. Immediate victory.

This sort of strike has been rare in Australia, because the system of arbitration awards covers whole industries, and industry wide strikes have followed as a matter of course. All petrol tanker drivers, all meat workers, all wharfies tend to go out together. Of course, in an era of monopoly it is often hard to do otherwise - as in Australian steel, sugar, power generation, postal services, glass, and state owned transport. Employers can also muster enough class solidarity of their own at times to see the danger involved in the singling out of one of them. For example, Frank Packer's "Daily Telegraph" has been printed in at least one pinch on the presses of the "Sydney Morning Herald".

But at the same time it is not as easy for them as sitting back with the knowledge that their competitors are all in the same trouble. The price rigging cartels organised in the 1960's by North American capitalist giants frequently broke down because individual capitalists could not help succumbing to the tempting short term profits to be had in cheating on the deals made with the others and cutting prices. It would be just as sensible, if not moreso, for petrol tanker drivers to take on the oil companies one or two at a time, and to present the demands and a list of the companies whose trucks would stop progressively. For example, all Shell trucks might stop while the rest delivered as usual. Then all BP trucks, until that company met the demands. (No doubt the drivers, out of patriotism, would let the Australian owned one go to the last.)

Meanwhile, while the class solidarity of the oil companies was being put to the test, the drivers on strike would have a source of strike pay for those still at work, and the masses would still be getting their petrol. If the oil companies got together and locked everyone out, then we would simply be back to the sort of strike we are used to. But there are moral disadvantages for employers in lockouts, as will be discussed below.

Category b is different. Take for example, a strike by transport workers, say Sydney train and bus crews. A 24 hour stoppage by these workers is an occasional event in Sydney, arising from their poor pay, achieving nothing for them because of its limited nature and the capacity of the arbitration system not to be moved by it beyond (in days past) handing out a fine to the union. The capitalist press inevitably attacks it in terms of the hardship it causes to the public, holding the city to ransom, disrespect for arbitration etc. etc. From my own observations during these strikes, I doubt if this has much effect, simply because life in a modern Australian city like Sydney is so bloody dull that a one day transport stoppage provides some relief to the week's monotony. There is a sort of carnival atmosphere; the volume of traffic is simply staggering, people have a good excuse for being late to work and something exciting to talk about when they get back home.

Of course an extended transport strike would be another thing. The classic here was the 1949 coal strike. A similar strike today would have less effect because of alternative energy sources, but in June-August 1949, coal was the only energy source for power stations and industry, there was no coal at grass, and the winter was very severe. The seven weeks strike by 23,000 mine workers for improved pay and conditions reportedly cost £33 million in lost wages, £100 million in lost production, 127 million lost man hours. Layoffs in industries shut down as a result of the strike produced a peak unemployment figure of 630,000, for which relief payments were a mere £1.25 million. The miners themselves lost £1.5 million in wages,-and for the communist leadership of their union, as well as the whole CPA, the strike was a total disaster, despite efforts to portray it as a victory.

It was easily the biggest domestic factor leading to the downfall of the Chifley government and the rise of anti-communist hysteria in the subsequent Menzies period. The press of course had a ball. The miners and the Communist Party were holding the people and the nation to ransom in their defiance of arbitration; the miners were responsible, because of their laziness, for the slowness of the postwar economic recovery; Australia would only be free from this industrial blackmail when the CPA was kicked out of the unions and banned, and the open cut mines given over to the AWU, etc., etc. Detailed stories of how individual families were suffering kept copy coming in.

Experienced readers of the daily press know that they never talk much of strikes costing a capitalist enterprise hardship. It is always the community. In the 1949 strike they definitely struck a chord with the masses. There was community hardship, and it was the main reason for the splits in militant trade union ranks over support for the strike. It does not take much to put the press attack into theoretical terms.

Karl Marx, a man one thousand times more concerned for humanity than any Australian press baron, discovered the basic contradiction in capitalist society, the greatest source of tension which will ultimately cause the overthrow of the system: production is an ongoing social process, but a private appropriation is made of the product. The press barons unwittingly pay homage to this distinction when they emphasise the loss of social or community production, and ignore or gloss over the plight of their fellow capitalists. (This is not from spite, but from a political sense. When the tanker drivers are out, the editorialists do not dwell on the plight of poor victimised Shell, Golden Fleece and the rest. It's the poor victimised motorists, millions of them, who wouldn't in their right mind piss on an oil company if it was on fire; not even Ampol. The same is true for beer drinkers and breweries, and so on.)
Granted that the papers are right, but for the wrong reason, we have to develop ways of hitting at the private appropriation, not the social production. The very logic of the situation as it develops in the future should make this increasingly clear to the workers, particularly in view of the new conditions arising from the demise of the deadening arbitration system. We have to find forms of action which make life easier if anything for the workers and the masses, and as difficult as possible for the enemy.

None of this is a case against all conventional strikes, but it is a case against those which have little hope of success, which in failing dampen workers' morale, which only cause loss of pay and inconvenience to workers, and which make the workers on strike passive. Some suggested forms of action in line with the theories outline here, all involving the workers taking some degree of control from the boss are:

1. On conditions. A good example was set by the workers of the Renault factory in Paris shortly after the May 1968 general strike. They decided that they could do with a morning coffee break. The established process for trying to win this would have been, according to past practice, for the union to approach the company with the demand, for the company to refuse, for the workers to walk out on strike, for union - management negotiations to then begin with a possible compromise solution being reached.

But the Renaultworkers shortcut all this. No doubt under the influence of the strength they felt in themselves in May 1968 and the bourgeois weakness prominently displayed at the same time, they simply started taking their coffee break. The management, sensing the situation, decided to go along with the switch rather than fight. Given the example set by the workers of the French city of Nantes, who ran the whole town during the general strike, such new proletarian attitudes are not surprising, and could be far more widely publicised than they are to Australian workers.

Such action could be suited to demands for many changes in conditions. For example, there is no reason why building workers, where safety and sanitary standards etc. do not meet their approval, should not fix the situation with the boss's materials and in his time, whether he likes it or not.

2. Transport workers. During the French May, and in Tokyo recently, and in Shanghai before the revolution, transport workers have found that an effective alternative to going on strike is to run the buses and trains but to refuse to collect fares. This cannot alienate the traveling masses, no matter how long it goes on. It does cost the transport authority real money however.

If such a strike were to go on in an Australian city, the usual press line about holding the public to ransom would be useless. If the 'authorities went ahead and locked the workers out it would be they who would be holding the public to ransom. In these circumstances, every bus driver letting people on without paying fares would automatically become a public relations man for the action, and he and his passengers would get an idea of the rationality of free public transport. This would be another barb for capitalism, as not only would it pose the question of free distribution of other goods and services; it would strike right at the basic ethics of capitalism, based on the idea that everything must have its price and be paid for.

The morale building activity of the workers in this situation contrasts very favourably with that other way of explaining a strike to the masses - of bringing out leaflets and handing them out in public, which was most unsuccessful in the 1949 coal strike. Similar actions could be organised in other industries. For example, postal workers could announce that in protest against their pay and conditions they would allow letters without stamps to go through the system. But individual workers know their jobs best and would be most qualified to decide how to adopt these tactics to their own job situations.

In general, refusal of workers, while carrying on normal duties, to do associated paperwork, could produce a similar effect.

3. Converting economic strikes into political ones. Where economic strikes are directed inwards, towards the exclusive interests of the workers in question, political strikes are directed outwards, with no necessary immediate benefit to the workers on strike, but with benefit to the long term interests of the community. For example, a few years ago railwaymen in NSW went on strike because signals at Liverpool railway station were unsafe; maritime workers in Melbourne refused to handle garbage destined to be dumped in Port Phillip Bay. Recently, teachers in certain schools in the NSW system have reacted to a situation of oversize classes by deciding at the individual school level to shorten the effective working week of all students who would otherwise be in over size classes by creating classes of suitable size and giving the surplus pupils some extra free time. This action violates Departmental regulations and the principle that teachers eat whatever is set in front of them. It would be more widespread were it not for the fact that the NSW Teachers' Federation, where it favours any action at all, favours the more spontaneist point blank refusal to teach oversize classes - i.e. simple strike action.

Neither form of action solves the problem, but the first involves workers' control, the second does not. In the latter case, the only people hit are the students. A good example here is the black ban recently placed on oil drilling on the Great Barrier Reef by the Queensland Trades and Labour Council, and (to a lesser extent because it has unsavoury nationalist overtones) the ACTU embargo on the export of merino rams. The wharfies ban on loading of the Jeparit for Vietnam, which occurred at the same time, prompted the papers to depart from their usual stand.

The "Sydney Morning Herald" said that it had to agree that the Barrier Reef ban was worth supporting, but later had a grizzle to the effect that workers were taking economic (merino rams) and political (Vietnam war) decisions which were the proper preserve of the government. Militants have long maintained that the arbitration system is one sided because unions have to spend a lot of time and money in a parasitic legal system to get miserable awards, only to see them wiped out overnight by uncontrolled price rises. Obviously, it is just as valid for workers to stop work when their boss puts up his prices as it is when he cuts their wages.

But where the latter is inward directed, the former is outward directed and is more of a political strike. The rest of the working population could hardly be put off side. This would be preferable to the rather risky process advocated by Bob Hawke, of making capitalists submit price rises to their own courts. Because pollution promises to be a big issue in the seventies, and because it is pretty well insoluble within the framework of capitalism (being largely produced by the continuous consumption of three closely related big products, cars, oil, and steel), trade union action on the issue is going to be increasingly necessary, in outward directed, political action. This means that workers are going to be forced into taking more control over their environment.

Where they have been sluggish on issues far from their consciousness - Vietnam and Foreign policy, they will be more active as the pollution gets closer to home - when they can't get a decent lungful of fresh air, avoid traffic and aircraft noise, take a swim in the sea without coming out covered in shit, or find a decent spot for a barbecue in the bush. Moreover, governments both state and federal have done a very good job lately in proving that they can make great blunders, even within their own ideas of what is right and wrong - the F111, Vietnam war, Little Desert, Great Barrier Reef, police corruption, it is becoming increasingly valid, even within this system of capitalist values, for control of these matters and more to be taken away from them by the organised workers.

These are only some suggested forms of action. Everyone can no doubt think of others applicable to his or her own job. There are many that can be taken up at job level, without necessarily needing the support of trade union leaderships, which are often bureaucratic and routinist, and equate action with a 24 hours stoppage. As well, we need to make the masses, through propaganda, increasingly aware of the extent of existing workers' control under capitalism. For example, it is the custom on many ships for the crew to elect the bosun, a situation analogous to the election by industrial workers of leading hands, gangers, and foremen. This in some ways is the right of slaves to elect their overseer, but nonetheless, many workers would probably be interested in gaining this right and surprised that it exists in the merchant marine. It could be used as the first stage of a program of taking over control of management itself.

Even if such a campaign stops with the right of the job delegate to blow the whistle for smoko and lunch, even if it only raises the workers' consciousness of what things could be like by one inch, if it raises morale it is worthwhile. This country now has, for the first time in its history, a surplus of university graduates, and many with honours degrees and Ph. D's are finding that they cannot get university jobs, and have to join the 'professional' staff of the public service and private companies. This situation compares unfavourably with university staff jobs: academics run their own lives to a great extent, come and go as they please, decide the content of their own courses and the expected student standards, are int the top 5% of the country's income bracket (salaries range from $5,200 to $12,000 p.a. with a 20% rise due at any moment) and just for good measure, have one year off in seven on full pay. The scientific name for these conditions is academic freedom. It is probable in the future that graduates outside universities will demand similar conditions - the freedom to run their own working lives and say what they like about the government, the system and the boss wherever they like.

After all, why should academics be the only people with the right of round the clock free speech? Are they the only ones whose ideas matter? Why not academic freedom for public servants, and industrial workers of all kinds. The situation we find at present, where great difficulty is being had forming links between radical students and workers, will probably alter as increasing numbers of graduates join the alienated white collar workforce, clock on and off, and wistfully gaze back across the rows of office desks to the green pastures of their youth. We might in future expect more action of the type that won for Qantas pilots the right to decide safety conditions for the airline a few years ago - a development which the press described as a 'dangerous precedent'.

The 1970's are beginning well for revolutionary change all over the world, and a carefully thought out transitional approach to industrial tactics will be vital as our workers become increasingly restless.