What do Clive Jenkins, Jack Jones, the current chairmen of Williams & Glyn's Bank and Guest, Keen & Nettlefolds, and ex-ICI charman Jack Callard have in common? The polite answer is that. they're all members of Lord Bullock's government-appointed committee to examine 'a radical extension of industrial democracy in the control of companies" — a significant cog in the workings of Labour's "social contract' with the trade union bureaucracy. be coming to life - with the convenient side-effect of considerablv extending the formal influence of union bureaucrats within the economy. So what exactly does the TUC plan hold in store for the working class? Two-tier The policy conceived in Congress House proposes a two-tier board system for the management of private enterprises. Fach firm would have a Supervisory Board to determine general company policies, which would then appoint a management boara to nandie day-to-da) issues.
The Supervisory Board would consist 50 per cent of "workers representatives" elected via the unions (who 'should not De oonzea to relmausn union ounce and would be 'subject to recall and reciccuon ), wnerever umons are recognised. But there are certain fundamental flaws in this projected 'historic advance of democracy.
conscious "workers representative" on a company board will find him/herself trapby market forces, by the largely unplanned condition of the industry concerned, and the general ups and downs of the capitalist economy. This important feature of private industrial enterprise management means that every decision taken by the 'workers representatives" -on such vital issues as the size of the worktorce (ana possibie rea andancies) the level and scale of production, the choice of produts, etc - is swayed by these outside forces to a considerable degree.
Result representatives' to enjoy a clear majority The most well-intentioned and union ped within a structure bound hand-and-foot The result is that even were 'workers on the board of an enterprise, they would be forced by the nature of the capitalist economy itself to resort to the same anti-social practices as 'ordinary" managements - sackings of employees, resistance to justified wages and conditions claims, "divide and rule' wages systems, victimisations - when market forces so required. The mental and moral anguish some of them might genuinely sufter in this situation would not assuage the material pressures on them, though a few might grow disillusioned and resign.
On the contrary, the small privileges that would no doubt accompany membership of the board (time off work to attend meetings, make visits, etc; expenses and occasional company socials and diners; new status in the workplace,etc.) would prove attractive to large numbers. Thus a process of bureaucratisation of a new layer of workers would be born.
Of course, it will be argued that the system of election of these 'representatives' by their workmates, and their formal accountability to the shop floor via un ion machinery, will prove a counterweight to bureaucratisation. But experience else where shows that only a constant struggle for independence from the power and structures of privately-owned capital - as Jack Jones-also on Bullock Committee opposed to integration within its machinery - can guarantee real working class democracy The 'classic' West German model ('Mitbestimmung") shows that the shopfloor election of board representatives in West Germany - a leelal phenomenon - in no way hinders bureauc ratisation, nor, in itself, challenges capital with any serious extension of workers democratic influence. Participation re mains class-collaboration. How should the working class respond?
Social democrats, from the right to the very 'left', offer participation as a "natural' outgrowth of the union militancy of recent years and the growth of ShoD stewares uncions u me workplace. Borrowed from "left' unions and centrist parties in France and elsewhere. theories perceiving participation as "prac tical progress towards workers control' are neard anew, as are muddied concept: of participation as 'helpful' experience for tomorrow's worker-controlled Coates and Topham of the Institue for Workers Control have argued typically: While we have written extensively attacking the idea of participation. we favour a policy of setting down a number of key demands calculated to trans form "participation" schemes into "con trol" ones" (Workers" Control as a Strategy of Socialist Advance, 1970). Yet they confine their own ideas for such demands to the individual workplace level, whereas what is needed is a clear overal suatcw au me ever or wrote industries and of society.