THE SKY'S THE LIMIT
IT is, or should be, obvious that the dockers should earn more and have a higher standard of living. That state- ment arises from the very nature of the problem of production and applies to all other workers as well as the dockers. That is what reduces the recent chain of dock strikes to final absurdity. •For the dockers have been themselves reducing their own earnings and seem likely to go on doing so. Nobodsi knows what are the ultimate objectives of their unofficial leaders but they certainly do not include higher Productivity. In an article on a later page, in which Mr. Peter Wiles opens a new Spectator series on the problem of getting more work Out of trade unionists, he says that 'At all times and in all societies trade unionism has stood for less work, a slower rate of technical change and higher wages.' Translated into the terms of the recent dock strikes this might read—' Less Work, unless the dockers happen to want more; a slower rate of technical change, unless change can be so arranged that output per man is not increased; higher wages always, but Particularly when labour is scarce, so that it is not necessary to offer more work in order to get more money.' It is the reductio ad absurdum of blinkered one-sided trade unionism. But there is no point in allowing it to produce a state of apoplectic fury among those members of the ordinary public Who suffer as a result of the dockers' behaviour. The object of the exercise is to correct that behaviour, and for that cool heads . Will be required.
Realism requires that the proper aims of trade unionism be recognised. The unions came into existence to frustrate the unjust exploitation of their members, to raise wages and to iMprove conditions of work. Those aims remain in existence and there is no reason why they should not so remain, as long as the trade unions themselves continue to exist. They are Perfectly respectable aims. It is far more sensible to recognise them than to expect unions to operate, say, a policy of wage restraint. That does not come naturally to them, although at times some of them have tried to operate such a policy. But the real point is that collective bargaining is a two-sided, or three-sided, business, with the unions pursuing their traditional aims, the employers taking their own point of view, and the Public at large doing its best to make sure that the result achieved is the best, result for all—including the consumers. 111 any one case the unions' point of view may well appear absurd. Quite often it will be an overstatement of the workers' .case. Similarly the points of view of the em'ployers or the consumers may be absurd in isolation. The desired result is a reasonable accommodation among the three. Such an accommodation clearly includes the possibility of higher wages. It would be fatal, from all points of view, to try to exclude that possibility. It must be possible for wages to rise. The sky is the limit. All that is necessary is to make it clear that the wages must• be earned through a larger output Of goods and services. It is good for wage earners to seek a higher consumption of goods and services, always provided !hat they are willing to work harder and so put more labour into the pool from which they wish to draw houses, cars, television sets, food, clothing and welfare benefits. This is, of course. a crude statement. From that same pool must also come the capital equipment which is not being built up sufficiently rapidly at the moment but which must be built up if the flow of consumer goods is to be ultimately expanded.
Yet there is no getting round the fact that the labour force will never be reconciled to greater effort unless it can see at the end of it an improvement in its own standard of life. Pie in the sky was never a popular, working-class slogan. Money in the wage packet is what the workers understand. And there is no reason whatever why there should not be more money in the wage packet—always provided that it does not outrun the supply of goods and so produce inflation. The sky is the limit for wages. But productivity is the solid earth.
The trouble with the dock strikes is that they have nothing whatever to do with productivity. The question of overtime has been argued in the abstract, on moral and metaphysical grounds. The question whether overtime is necessary or desirable in order to achieve a higher output of goods and services per head has not come into it. What is worse, behind the strike has lain the same self-defeating fallacy that inspired the recent London bus strike—that at a time of increasing labour shortage all workers can obtain more pay for less work. But at the same time it should not be assumed that the question of the right attitude to overtime has been settled. It is very far from a balanced and practical settlement in Britain at this time, and it should certainly not be assumed that all those who dislike the working of overtime are necessarily wrong. In the long run there should be no overtime. On the contrary working hours should be reduced. For the term 'a higher standard of living' must include the reduction of time spent in irksome labour. But again, this will never be achieved without the improvement, by other means than the simple working of long hours by all, of the level of productivity. And until we reach some kind of industrial millennium the chances are that there will be a continuing need for overtime working, if only in the course of the transition from less to more efficient methods of production. What must be reduced Is unnecessary overtime working—of which the two principal kinds are those brought about by insufficient effort by the workers during ordinary working hours and insufficient enter- prise by employers in the installation of more efficient equip- ment. If overtime is to be a mere smoke-screen, behind which dishonest workers and second-rate employers cover up their defects, then overtime is bad and wrong. But if it is a device temporarily resorted to in the pursuit of more efficient pro. duction and a higher standard of living, then it is good and right. For the dockers to argue about it (or pretend to argue about it) as a matter of abstract justice, or for the Labour Correspondent of The Times to call overtime a ' canker ', ii to confuse the issue.
Nobody, on either side of industry, can have it both ways. For unions to complain of the prevalence of overtime while resisting the introduction of shift-working is quite illogical.. If hours are to be reduced machines must be more efficient, up to date, and labour-saving. And fe.w machines can fully achieve all these ends unless they are fully used, if possible all round the clock. If any employer is afraid of introducing new machinery because he cannot face the prospect of having to persuade workers to work at unaccustomed hours he is simply failing to solve a crucial problem of management. That is to say he is a bad manager: There will always be labour resistance to change, and in particular to changes in the conventional working day. But that resistance can be overcome, particularly when the workers can be convinced that the advantages of shorter hours, higher earnings and a better standard of life outweigh the inconvenience of breaking down old habits. They have been so convinced in the United States, in Germany, in Japan, and even in the USSR. In at least two of those cases—the United States and Germany— rational persuasion was the instrument by which they were convinced. It could happen here.
In short, provided the plain advantages of high productivity are always borne in mind, there is no reason why the British economy should not be strengthened through a joint effort of the workers, the employers and the public. The workers in particular have nothing to lose but the chains of habit, muddled-thinking, Communist mischief-making within the unions, and the old fears of poverty and unemployment. The employers have to devote themselves to the managerial prob- lem of convincing the workers that high productivity is in theit own interest. The consumers, who are in large part the workers themselves, have everything to gain from a higher standard of living. The problem can be solved if only the workers and their unions will run the risk of being prosperous.
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