THERE are two things the TUC says that everyone can agree Jobs must come first; and the economy needs plan.
The report proves beyond any doubt that controlling the money supply won't stop inflation; profit isn't the key to efficiency; and holding down wages doesn't growth.
EOLALOPPORTON forward an alternative?
La ficient to have four million with no work to do.
improve How can we begin to put Thatcher says Britain needs effi- sense. cient and well-organised industry Well, so do we. But we have a different idea of efficiency. Along with nearly everyone except Mickey Mouse and the Tories, we don't think it is efpeople The starting point of any government policy has to be the idea that everyone should be allowed to work. ment' and special government agencies, but doesn't say how to organise one special government agency which could implement a serious plan to save jobs and living standards -One glaring conclusion leaps from La conclusion the TUC If the bosses won't in- Item jobs then workers themselves must take over their factories and banks, so that they can themselves plan for their own needs and for the needs of everyone in Bri- except the rich whose crazy IS O more and more urgent demand for those whose lobs are daily sacrificed to the god oj Total "'s proposals risk being little more than another burnt offerThis isn't just a basic right — it's the only thing that makes economic Why isn't this happening? It is because of the crazy logic of profit and the market economy. Only such a stupid system could SaCK worKers because it can't sell goods that the because they haven't got any work.
Investment decisions — including - are in private hands.
A handful of investors, commanding TUC proposals for public sector investment Cost (fm)
House construction and renovation Nationalised industries Energy conservation Road building Education capital spending Health capital spending Urban programme billions of pounds, squandered investment resources in pursuit of quick profits to create this crisis. They do not have the right to own or control the wealth that we produce.
Even the nationalised industries are being forced to adopt this logic. 'Commercial' decisions have thrown 30,000 British Leyland workers on the dole and forced the GLC to drop the first half-sensible London transport system since the horse.
d.d. GALLAGHER W The proper way economy's resources is to plan — not with bureaucrats, but by letting working people themselves decide how to use the factories they work in and the wealth they produce Can it be done? Using the government's computer, the TUC has proved the obvious: that the resources are there if we want to use them.
So aly proposal limited resources and get them out of private hands should be welcomed A plan should scheme the Workers facing the sack need to show how their jobs could benefit society, expose the criminal waste of closures and put forward serious alternatives in order to win support.
like Aerospace alternative plan.
The limitation of most 'alternative plans', however, is that they deal with one sector of the 1,000 either give in to the argument that 'there is no demand', or fail to link up with workers in other What is needed from a plan is an account of how production and use in different industries fits together.
For example, 2,100 how many buses would be needed in a proper system of subsidised port; how much steel is needed for the buses, how much electricity and coa have wilfully on.
job benefits.
Conversely resources steel, back on import a proper plan?
workers from factory that use the Clearly for a struggle?
however to take control of these not be a wild future.
exactly This is the the Lucas economy. They parts of the should know transSocialist Challenge for the extra steel and buses — and so If this was known there could be a proper campaign for transport subsidies in which workers in all these industries could be made aware of the Leyland workers now fighting for jobs need an alternative that shows not just where their product could be used, but what other work would need to be done elsewhere to make proper use of their But this is just where the TUC plan falls down. It doesn't set out to give this kind of lead. For example although it calls for 1,200,000 new houses, it doesn't explain how much concrete, glass or paint this would use. Indeed, it is forced to fall controls precisely because it doesn't foresee taking any detailed control over the economy.
But this kind of information can be obtained. During the 1974 miners' strike, for example, the Labour Party set up a special monitoring service to gather information about stock levels and refute Tory lies about the fuel crisis. Why not do the same thing on a much wider scale as part of preparing No-one knows better what is hap If the Labour Party were to get shop-floor different industries together to help draw up detailed proposals, even for the implementation of their own plans, , it would have a tremendous impact in building a campaign for the right to work because it would prove, in every industry and was affected, just jobs should be preserved.
campaign like this, which would have to mobilise the resources of the Labour Party and unions at every level, would need a simultaneous fight over information But what better context The problem is that this is clearly not what the TUC has in mind. The whole idea of a 'new relation between government, unions and employers' rules out the idea that the labour movement should fight. In 1974-79 the employers simply refused to cooperate with the government until it dropped its industry proposals This is why the danger in the TUC proposal is that it will open the way to the same sel-outs we saw Wilson the 'National Economic Assessment' will become another incomes policy, 'saving the pound' will be the excuse for cuts and unemployment without end; and the plan will go back on the shelf it came The TUC wants to use its plan just as the New Statesman claims save capitalism. The labour movement should demand that the TUC and Labour Party take steps towards a real plan by bringing together shop floor workers in all the affected industries, not to arrange discussions with the government, but to discuss action to save jobs and the production of a detailed plan as the spearhead of 11 February 1982 pages