BEFORE discussing further any of the problems before the Trade Unions, it is necessary to devote some attention to their structure and how they work.
The unit of the Trade Union organization is, of course, the branch. It is of importance to recognize that in the great majority of cases the Trade Union branch is based more on where the workers live than on where they work. There are a few cases where the branch is based on the industrial principle, but only a few, for example the tin-plate workers, busmen, and tramwaymen, form their branches with the workshop, the garage, and depot as the unit of organization.
The question of the relation of the branch to the factory is a very important factor in the life of the workers and their Trade Unions. The unions in some industries approximate more closely to the structure of the industry than in others, even though the residential principle of organization is maintained in relation to the branch. The miners’ lodge, for example, approximates very closely to the pit membership. In some cases, all the workers of one pit are members of the same lodge. This, of course, is a considerable advantage from the standpoint of the familiarity of the members with each other and their direct acquaintance with the local problems.
But the average Trade Union branch is of the other kind. Hence it may have members scattered about in a score of factories, but because they live in a particular district they are members of a particular branch, all other factors of qualification being equal.
Many Trade Unionists believe that the residential branch has special advantages in that the members feel “safer”, i.e. farther away from the influence of the employers. At the same time it is considered more convenient because many live a considerable distance from their place of employment and do not want either to delay going home after work on the night of the branch meeting, or to have to travel home and then back again to the meeting.
There is considerable force in these arguments. But it must be admitted that such a unit of organization is only workable just so long as the branch has very limited functions. It can deal fairly adequately with unemployment benefit, sick benefit, and superannuation, collect contributions and report industrial grievances to a higher authority. But even with regard to these matters, the inadequacy of the present structure has been felt for many years.
This sense of inadequacy is clearly shown in the spread of the “shop steward” principle in the unions. The shop steward is a representative of the union “on the job”. In many cases he collects contributions, acts as spokesman of the workers with regard to grievances, keeps a watchful eye on the newcomers into the shop, examines the members’ contribution cards, looks out for any violation of the customs and practices of the trade, and is an ever-present recruiting agent of the union.
The more active the Trade Unionists in the factories, the greater the difficulties of the residential branch become, and the greater the advantages of the industrial unit.
Let us see the average Trade Union branch at work. It meets, say, once a fortnight. It receives the contributions of its members, approves certain benefits being paid, listens to correspondence being read and discusses its contents, hears the reports of its representatives on the district committee and Trades Council and Labour Party. Members come along with proposition forms for new members. Others have “cases” to report concerning conditions in their factory, mill, or mine, etc. The complaints are sent forward to some higher authority in the organization. At best another fortnight must elapse before the branch learns of the result. It may be that there is delay owing to the district committee of the union having to call before it a deputation of the workers and the shop steward from the factory in which the grievance arose. It may then send the district secretary or organizer to interview the firm. Failing a settlement of the issue by such a visit, the matter must then pass to a local conference between the employers and the Trade Union representatives.
It is only necessary to multiply such incidents to realize how cumbersome and inadequate is the Trade Union machinery even with regard to its ordinary business arising from its bargaining position with the employers.
This was self-evident in the war-time experience of the shop stewards, who set the pace throughout the Trade Union movement towards the development of Trade Union factory organization. With the elimination of unemployment by means of the mass slaughter on the battlefields of Europe, the transformation of all industry into war industry, and the shattering of old customs and practices by means of the “dilution of labour”, the impetus was given to direct action in the factories. The countless reports to the Trade Union branches by their members simply overwhelmed them. The deluge of complaints concerning encroachments on old customs, violation of agreements, etc., was too much for the normal machinery of the unions. Nothing could cope with the situation other than direct action and organization inside the factory. The factory became the unit for action on all the issues of struggle although the old branches remained to deal with contributions and benefits of their social insurance.
The moment we consider the question of “workers’ control” of the productive process the complete inadequacy of the present unit of Trade Union organization must be at once apparent. It would be impossible for the workers of a factory, a mill, or a pit, to control their daily work by means of scattering themselves in a series of fortnightly meetings of two or three hours’ duration. For the workers to control industry in an administrative sense, whatever meetings are necessary must be meetings of the workers of each factory and the representatives of the workers must be available “on the job”, which is an everyday job and not merely a fortnightly incident. For example, the question of the distribution of work in a factory could not wait for a fortnightly branch meeting. Nor could the consideration of a plan of work for a particular factory be dealt with by a branch composed of workers of a variety of factories. The plan for a factory could only be effectively considered by the workers of that factory who manned the machines and all the phases of the production process dealt with in the factory.
Hence the present unit of Trade Union organization is not merely weak from the standpoint of organizing the most effective collective action in defence of conditions, but it is totally unfitted for the larger purpose of “workers’ control of industry”. Nevertheless, the massed power of the Trade Unions must not be underestimated. The consciousness that behind the individual unions there is the larger force of Trade Unionism as a whole, affects both employers and the non-organized mass of workers. It is this fact, supported by the experience of gigantic conflicts, that is the strength of the many agreements which exist to-day, governing the conditions of millions of workers.
The most important bodies above the branches are the district committees. These are composed of representatives of the branches of the district. As a rule they have little to do with the social insurance side of the work of the unions and deal more with the questions of policy in relation to wages, hours of labour, etc., and the observance of the local and national agreements established in conferences between the unions and the employers. A constant stream of communications pass to the district committees from the branches. Often in addition to the reports of the branch delegates they have before them the reports of the shop stewards.
The most important and authoritative body in the union is the executive council. Usually it is elected by ballot vote of the whole membership, sometimes by vote of the national conference of the union. Many executive councils are composed of full time members, but in a number of unions only one or two of the leading officials are so fully employed, while the executive members continue working at their trades. Upon this body depend all leading decisions of the unions, checked, of course, sometimes by ballot vote, sometimes by specially convened conferences, and sometimes by what is called a “final appeal court” composed of men “working at the trade” who are specially elected by ballot vote of the entire membership of the union.
Very few unions feel they can stand alone and so are linked together with other unions for various forms of combined action. For example, the Engineering and Shipbuilding Federation consists of forty-seven unions in the industry; the Miners’ Federation of Great Britain is a federation of county associations of miners, and so on. There are corresponding local federations which, under the general national scales, make local agreements with employers’ federations concerning local conditions of employment.
A most important local grouping is that of the Trades Councils. They had their origin very often in sympathetic strike action, in which the Trade Unions of varying industries rallied to the support of unions in local or national disputes. They have played an exceedingly important part in the history of all phases of the Labour Movement. They were in being long before the Trades Union Congress and were in part responsible for the formation of this national “Parliament of the Trade Unions”. At first they sent delegates to the Trades Union Congress but on the plea that they involved dual representation of union membership, the national controllers of the unions succeeded by means of their block votes in disaffiliating the Trades Councils. For many years after they led an existence independent of the Trades Union Congress and formed a National Federation of Trades Councils, but when in recent years they again became the centres of considerable militant activity, the Trades Union Congress General Council succeeded, partly through the antics of the Communist Party and partly through the operation of the Trade Union Act of 1927, in securing a very large measure of control over them.
In addition to being the means of increasing the solidarity of the unions, the Trades Councils were the pioneers of political representation. The famous “Junta” of the London Trades Council in the ’sixties played an enormous part in advancing the cause of independent labour representation in Parliament and thus paved the way to the formation of the Labour Party. So closely identified indeed were the Trades Councils with this political activity that, with the development of the Labour Party, many of them became Trades and Labour Councils, concerning themselves with both the industrial and political activity of the unions.
It was hoped by many that their political activity would supersede entirely their industrial activity. But these hopes were never really fulfilled. They did, however, contribute largely to a merging of industrial and political action, and often they became centres of great mass action on the part of the workers. They were, for example, the basis of the great convention of 1917 held in Leeds when Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, Lord Snowden, and the late W. C. Anderson, M.P., made speeches in favour of the formation of “Workers and Soldiers Councils” for Britain. They were the strength of the “Councils of Action” formed in 192o with a view to calling a general strike to stop the war on Russia. In the General Strike of 1926, the local unity of the strike was centred in the Trades Councils.
The 1927 Trade Union Act hit the Trades and Labour Councils very hard. First it forced the party and the unions apart by means of the “contracting-in” clause in place of the “contracting out” clause. This meant the separation of the Labour Party from the Trades Councils. Secondly, the act hit at the sympathetic strike and especially the general strike. It thus struck a heavy blow at the industrial activities of the Trades Councils which by virtue of their general class character tend to encourage working class unity as against the sectional interests.
The General Council of the Trades Union Congress were in the same period fearful of the influence of the Communist Party activities and put the Trade Unions into a straitjacket by subjecting the Trades Councils to the discipline of the Trade Union executives. The Trades Union Congress bound the Trades Councils by a famous document declaring loyalty of the councils to the Trades Union Congress in which they had no representation. In addition it took charge of the national conferences which had hitherto been independent and replaced the independent executive of the Federation of Trades Councils with a Joint Committee on which an equal number of the nationally elected representatives of the Trades Councils sit with representatives of the General Council of the Trades Union Congress.
The change thus accomplished was due in part to the vacillations of the Communist Party which at first stood for the independence of the Trades Councils. The General Council of the Trades Union Congress issued a document which insisted that the Trades Councils should accept the overruling authority of the Trades Union Congress and refuse association with other bodies who were outside that discipline. Many Trades Councils refused, when suddenly the Communist Party and the Minority Movement changed their minds and supported the General Council of the Trades Union Congress. This demoralized the resistance and the fight was lost.
To-day there is a high degree of centralization in the Trades Union Movement. All the local organizations I have enumerated are subject in some form or other to the discipline of the Trades Union Congress and the Trade Union Executives. The Trades Union Congress is, on matters of general policy, the highest authority of the Trades Union Movement. It meets annually, but the General Council of the Congress has the power to call special congresses according to circumstance. The Congress is composed of delegates from the Trade Unions only. The number of delegates from each union is proportionate to membership. In the Congress each union votes as a unit, although minority views are usually permitted expression. This form of block voting is the source of much discontent and criticism, in that it is not always a true reflex of the opinion of the union delegation. Each union delegation has its own meeting at the Congress at which it decides how the union shall vote.
Hence an opinion in a delegation may be defeated by one vote and result in the total vote of the union, may be half a million votes, being given in the opposite direction in the Congress. A very false impression of the real state of opinion in the Congress is frequently given by the final votes cast on an issue.
The most important organ of the Congress is the General Council which has very wide powers. It consists of thirty-two members and is elected annually by the Congress. For purposes of election the unions are grouped into eighteen trade groups. For example, the unions in the railway group are entitled to a certain proportion of representatives on the Council. The nominations for these positions are restricted to these unions, but the whole Congress votes on the nominations if there are nominated more than the specified number of candidates required.
The General Council is a post-War development in British Trade Unionism. It was first formed in 1922, following on the failure of the triple alliance of the railway, transport, and miners’ unions. It was heralded as the “New General Staff” of the Trade Union Movement. Prior to its formation the Congress had been a very loose body indeed. Its central committee was nothing more than a Parliamentary Committee which made representation to Parliament on the matters discussed by Congress.
It was the absence of a centralized authority in Trade Unionism, when it was sorely needed in the big industrial disputes of 1911-12-13, that gave rise to such organizations as the triple alliance and projects for a quadruple alliance. The huge strikes and lock-outs of the early post-War years and the demand for greater working-class unity in the struggles forced the question of central leadership again into the foreground.
The great testing time for the new Council came in the General Strike of 1926, when it revealed both the limitations and the powers at its disposal. This is not the place to discuss the causes of the defeat of the General Strike. Such causes as there were must be sought in the policy pursued rather than in the mechanism of the unions.
The General Council has not the power to call a general strike, nor has the Trades Union Congress. Both may express themselves in favour of such but to give effect to any decision or view of the Congress, it must receive the authoritative backing of the Trade Union executives. The General Council of the Trades Union Congress may call a conference of the executives for such a purpose. Herein lies its power. This it did in 1926. Until there is a reorganization of the Trade Unions into industrial unions and a centralized body created to co-ordinate executive work, there is no other procedure open to the Trade Unions in such circumstances unless the unions voluntarily surrender their independence to the Trades Union Congress, a decision which would require an alteration in the constitution of each union. To secure such an alteration would be a long and tedious process.
Nevertheless, the General Council has great power to co-ordinate industrial action, to promote common action by the Trade Unions on general questions such as wages, hours of labour, to assist unions attacked on any vital question of Trade Union principle. It is under special instruction “in the event of there being a danger of an outbreak of war” to “call a special congress to decide on industrial action”. Besides these powers in relation to industrial action, it may initiate legislation as Congress may direct, levy the Trade Unions to pursue where necessary the legal interests of the Trade Unions with legal counsel in the House of Lords, interfere in inter-Trade Union disputes, maintain international Trade Union relations and conduct wide campaigns of propaganda in support of these objects.
It is this body with these wide powers which on behalf of the Trade Unions co-operates with the Executive of the Labour Party and the Central Council of the Co-operative Union in common political activities. How the whole Trade Union apparatus participates in the Labour Party, indeed provides the wide basis of the party, I will show later. Sufficient for the moment here to make clear the relationship of the central body of the Trade Unions to the Party as a separate organization. The General Council of the Congress, the Executive Committee of the Party and the leaders of the Parliamentary Labour Party hold joint sessions and issue from time to time agreed pronouncements on political questions affecting the whole Labour Movement.
Hence, although the Trade Union structure appears to be a mass of conflicting redundant bodies, it is really a highly centralized and disciplined body, exercising an enormous influence on the whole working-class movement.
Next: III. The Functions of the Trade Unions