Another voice
Voice of the People
A uberon Waugh T ike most people, I never examined the ..1—d detailed proposals put forward by Times journalists during their last crisis, by which they would secure the title and good will of their newspaper and run it as a sort of journalists' cooperative with suitable backers who would demand no say what- ever in journalistic policy and no control over the way the company was run. The scheme seemed hopelessly utopian to me. Even if enough lunatics could be found to put up the money, I had no doubt that any scheme of that sort run by journalists would sink into a hundred bickering fac- tions before any of the'six committees on editorial policy could hold a first meeting.
The scheme had been revived again, I hear, before Mr Murdoch's showdown with the workers this week. Never mind that it does not, prima facie, seem to take any account of the newspapers' main problem, which is the stranglehold of its printing and clerical unions, whose greed, idleness and insistence on paying three men to do the job of one are backed by a readiness to stop all newspaper production at a moment's notice. Perhaps it would be feasible to pro- duce a newspaper for the south of England in modern, non-unionised plant at some- where like Milton Keynes and deliver it by road, or even to print it by remote control systems in a score of cities, but I can't see the journalists of The Times agreeing to engage in such union-busting activities even if they could find the huge amounts of capital required. Somebody like Sir James Goldsmith might have tried it when he had the money, but he didn't. Generally speak- ing, capital is terrified of confrontation, as one sees from the extraordinarily craven reaction of the CBI in the face of any government attempt to strengthen its bargaining position.
On the other hand, with the example of the National Freight Corporation in mind, I suppose we must agree that miracles can happen. There, as I understand it, 26,000 employees put up £6.8 million between them and now control the denationalised company. I do not quite understand the mechanics of this operation, since the total price was £53 million and the balance was found by Barclays Merchaht Bank on an equity (as opposed to fixed-interest) basis. No doubt some well-groomed young fellow in a pin-stripe suit could explain to me exactly how 12.8 per cent of the shares gives 82 per cent ownership of the company, but that is what I was assured. No doubt the 26,000 employees of Times Newspapers could raise between them a similar propor- tion of the realisable value of the company's surviving assets. Perhaps a stake in the company would make the printers and office-boys more cooperative and less bloody-minded. Shop stewards, chapel fathers and grand wizards might even turn their attentions to making their members work more efficiently for the common good, instead of the opposite. I don't know. I certainly would not be prepared to bet on it.
The ancient and, I would have thought, irremovable tradition within the British labour movement for bargaining — grab- bing whatever can be grabbed and giving as little as possible in return — could never adjust to Workers' Control. If the tiny disciplines which still survive within the conflicting interests of labour and manage- ment — Us and Them — were removed, I strongly suspect that the 'workers' would go mad and end up paying themselves £1 million a week each for a half-hour week until the men in white coats arrived. This may seem an unduly pessimistic, even cynical, view to take of the British worker, with his vaunted sense of responsibility, moderation and fairness, but I have often observed how all these judicious qualities generally point to the mature conclusion that he and everybody else should be paid more money for less work. It is a moral decision rather than an economic one, but no more budgeable for that reason.
Perhaps I am wrong, but at any rate it is the intellectual equipment which I take with me to examine another proposal, from Mr Joe Ashton, for a solution to the railway dispute. Mr Ashton, I should explain, is Labour MP for Bassetlaw but is much more famous as the Daily.Star's commentator on public affairs. His column appears under the heading 'Voice of the People'. He starts:
'All that's needed to solve the railway dispute is a bit of good old extreme left- wing socialism. It is called Workers' Con- trol.
'The Government should simply hand over the railways to Ray Buckton and Sid Weighell and the other unions, lock, stock and signals. They should say: "Pay yourselves what you like, work what hours you will, charge what fares you think the customers can afford, and share out the profits among yourselves ... " ' There is no suggestion here, you will observe, that the nation's 276,000-odd railwaymen might like to take a share in the equity, or even that their pension funds might be employed in this way. There is no proposal for servicing the enormous loans which BR has raised in the past. The sug- gestion is simply that the entire operation with its assets worth thousands of millions of pounds, built up over nearly 100 years, should be handed over as a present to the
workforce. On the face of it, this might seem a promising way to start up in ariY business: no overdraft, no mortgage, no rent or hire-purchase commitments, no shareholders, shareholders, no death duties or capital transfer tax, just a huge asset on which enormous sums have recently been spent for modernisation and renewal. This is how Mr Ashton sees its future:
`Know what? Inside six months the trains would be running on time, the guards would be coming down the carriage asking if you were warm enough, and the buffet would be selling lovely hot pies and peas at prices the passengers could afford. `Don't believe me? ... The peoples railways would run like clockwork. And strikes would be abolished from Day One.
It is a delightful prospect, we must agree. Lovely hot pies and peas. A few doubts re- main. Would the workers be prepared to adjust their wages and profit expectations! to take account of capital replacement, modernisation programmes and even loll: term maintenance costs? If the People s Railway had to borrow money, would it be prepared to pay interest? 1 have a different and slightly gloomier projection for the People's Railway. First, its workers would decide they were not so much interested in profits as in a larger wage packet, and award themselves wage increases based — if on anything — onan extraordinarily optimistic forecast of future profits. Where hours were concerned they would reasonably decide that first prionty should go to whatever was best for the workers. They would sell off railway assets like hotels in order to pay themselves more. Overmanning would be tackled by paying each other to stay at home. Fare structures would be on a crazy, discriminatory basis whereby old age pensioners, young people and other favoured sections of society would travel practically free, anybody who actually needed to get anywhere would PO penal rates. Fewer and fewer trains would run as drivers found it less and less conve- nient to be away from home. Train buffets would serve ever more revolting food at ever more extortionate prices, with more and more money disappearing into the pocket of the surly attendant. When, in the normal course of events, the Government showed reluctance to bale the Peoples i Railway out from the enormous deficit it had run up, it would simply go on strike. Many people will decide this is an absurd- ly extravagant projection. Waugh has gone over the top, they will say. He needs a holi- day. Let him take one of these Moneysaver Rail tickets — only £9 return from Taunton to London for those able to travel in the late morning, against the £25 return rate for those who need to be in central London before noon. My point, 1 hope, has been taken. The People's Railway has been with, us since 1976 when Sir Peter People arrival to usher it in. We have looked into the future and it doesn't work. And as for those lovely hot Pies, I shall spread one all over Mr Ashton's honest face if ever I see him on the 5.25 from Paddington.
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