One of the most heartening aspects of our Union's Annual Conference this year was the manner in which delegates were no longer content to formally adopt motions supporting industrial democracy before moving hurriedly on to the next business, but felt the need to make contributions concerning the practical problems of any meaningful developments in this field. Much of this interest has, of course, been heightened by the proximity of legislation providing for worker directors in semi-state enterprises. It is not, however, sufficient to have a merely responsive approach to such developments. Trade unionists must articulate their own demands if in fact industrial democracy is to have any vitality.

It is in this respect, therefore, members of the ITGWU and other unions in Aer Lingus are to be congratulated for having established a study group last November which has now come out with the demand that worker representatives should constitute 50% of the board of the airline as well as the chairman of the board.

The lead of the Aer Lingus workers must now be followed in other companies if a coherent trade union policy is to develop in Ireland, particularly with regard to the controversial question of worker directors in the private sector. This has proved to be an issue which has not so far resulted in any unanimity in the British trade union movement. The interesting point to note is that the division of opinion has not been along traditional left-right lines in that movement.

The major advocate of the worker director policy of the TUC has been Jack Jones of the Transport and General Workers' Union and he has been opposed as much by Frank Chapple of the Electrical Trade Union on the right as by Hugh Scanlon of the Amalgamated Engineering Union on the left. The division has rather been between those who feel that current economic problems demand a new dimension to trade unionism and those who, for whatever reason, regard traditional trade unionism as sacrosanct.

Since it is highly unlikely that any meaningful developments in industrial democracy can take place without first coming to grips with debating these controversial issues in the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, it might be of interest to readers to take a look at how the argument has progressed to date in Britain. We might also learn something from the fact that the limited extent and inconclusive outcome of this British debate has now resulted in the TUC itself and some of its important affiliated unions currently pursuing policies on the question of worker directors which are in direct contradiction with one another.

In a report on Industrial Democracy which was presented to the 1974 Trade Union Congress, the following limitations of a purely traditional approach were pointed out by the TUC General Council:—

"…Improvements in industrial democracy based on the strengthening of trade union organisation and the widening of the scope of collective bargaining…will continue to be the main way forward in extending collective control at local level. However, it is clear that this leaves a wide range of fundamental managerial decisions affecting work people that are beyond the control—and very largely beyond the influence—of work people and their trade unions."

"Major decisions on investment, location, closures, takeovers and mergers, and product specialisation of the organisation are generally taken at levels where collective bargaining does not take place, and indeed are subject matter not readily covered by collective bargaining. New forms of control are needed. This problem is particularly acute in the private sector, where on the one hand local and plant bargaining do not affect planning and investment decisions and, on the other, national agreements are not concerned with the management decisions of individual firms. Company or combine level bargaining has more potential for extension into these areas, but ultimately the decisions are taken quite unilaterally by the owners of capital or by managements and planners who in an increasing number of cases take their decisions in a global context unfettered by national level collective bargaining.

"In the extreme circumstances of closure resulting from such decisions, where local level bargaining or withdrawal of labour is almost totally ineffective, less traditional local level tactics such as the sit-in and the work-in may impose a limitation on the otherwise absolute right of shareholders to dispose of their own property.

"These local level actions are essentially defensive, temporary and 'ex post-facto' reactions to crisis situations. As such, they may in many circumstances be desirable and legitimate trade union tactics. But such seizures do not lead to control over future decisions. There therefore needs to be an examination of how workers' organisations could exert a degree of control over planning and policy-making."

The TUC report accordingly concluded that, in addition to demanding the election of trade union representatives to fill half the seats on the policy-making boards of nationalised industries, there should also be provision for workers directors in the private sector on the following basis:—

"(a) There should be a new Companies Act, to be introduced by stages, at first in enterprises employing more than 2,000 workers; such companies would have a two-tier board structure with Supervisory Boards, responsible for determining company objectives, which would appoint Management Boards;

"(b) This change should be reflected by a statutory obligation of companies to have regard to the interests of work people as well as shareholders;

"(c) One half of the Supervisory Board should be elected through trade union machinery, normally at company or combine level;

"(d) Provisions about supervisory boards in the new Companies Act would only become operative where there is trade union recognition, and representation of workers could only be through bona fide unions choosing to exercise this right;

"(e) The Minister should have the power in this legislation to extend its application by order at a later stage to enterprises employing over 2000 workers."

In introducing this Report to its 1974 Congress, the TUC General Secretary, Len Murray, stated:—

"…Greater democracy and greater equality are now on the agenda in all walks of life in this country. Trade unionists are increasingly demanding the right to share in the major decisions in industry, because these decisions determine how they are going to spend their working lives, and indeed the whole pattern of their lives and those of their families."

"The issue is how we can bring all major policies in industry within the area of joint regulation. The report certainly does not see a gulf between collective bargaining and newer types of organisation which have this same end in view…There certainly is, however, a great gulf between our proposals and what has been known as joint consultation. That to us, is of a piece with the paternalistic limiting approach of the advocates of co-partnership and profit-sharing. That alternative is on offer to anybody who wants it, we do not."

"We are not going to allow the essential functions of trade unions to be compromised. It may be said that trade unions cannot satisfy all of the members all of the time if they are party to decisions on the location of plants and matters of that kind. I can understand these arguments and I do not deny that there can be problems, but if we keep our heads under the parapet and do not go anywhere near the planning operation, that does not solve our members' problems. We are just stuck with somebody else's decision. Whether we call it joint regulation or joint decision-taking, none of this precludes negotiations about the consequences of investment decisions."

"We spelt out some of the issues that need to be subject to joint control. In a two-tier board system those issues would be dealt with by supervisory boards—that is, the body which would be responsible for determining company objectives and the policies necessary for their achievement. The supervisory board would consider all major management decisions, including the formulation of planning agreements and the discussion of them with the Government."

"…The extension of joint regulation into new fields by new methods is quite compatible with trade union functions so lang as we insist on two key points. The first is that the people appointed to serve must get there through trade union machinery. The second is that they must be directly accountable to the membership through this machinery. It is through the organised strength of trade unions in this country that workers have secured the rights that they already enjoy and are able to reach out for new rights. We explicitly reject the idea of appointing worker-directors in an individual sense. We reject too any vague notions of employee representation or works Councils. Non-unionists are non-unionists because they have not shown any wish to be collectively represented. They will be represented when they join trade unions."

"…The arrangements for representation of workers (on supervisory boards) would operate only where there is trade union recognition, and only where bona fide trade unions chose to exercise this right. Where the unions in a company agreed that the provisions should be applied, the new arrangements would be mandatory on employees. If the unions involved in a particular enterprise did not wish to get involved in this way than nobody could compel them to do so, but if most of the unions in a multi-union situation wanted to become a party to such arrangements, a union with only a small interest could not reasonably expect to stand in the way of the others. These points are equally valid in private industry, in the nationalised industries and in the public services."

"I do not believe that a fifty-fifty approach to deciding the basic plans of industry will simply lead to stalemate. The trade union instinct is to look for agreement when there is a willingness on the other side to make an agreement. At the end of the road, of course, it is the members in the workplace who will decide what the attitude of the union representatives will be—just as they do now in the negotiating context…"

"…The General Council's proposals fit logically into the changing nature of the structure of industry. They also represent a development of the historical function of trade unions, which is to seek to influence decisions which affect their members. Their aim is precisely that—to involve workpeople in the decisions which affect them. There will be problems to be sorted out, this development will bring new and heavy responsibilities as well as rights, but it offers great opportunities. I move the Report."

As well as the TUC General Council's Report on Industrial Democracy the 1974 Congress also had before it a Composite Motion No. 17 which declared…—

"Recognising that the best way to strengthen and extend industrial democracy is to strengthen and extend the area of collective bargaining giving union representatives increasing control over elements of management including dismissals, discipline, introduction of new techniques, forward planning of manpower rationalisation etc., Congress rejects the mandatory imposition of supervisory boards with worker directors, and calls for a more flexible approach giving statutory backing to the right to negotiate on these major issues, but relating the control more directly to collective bargaining machinery."

In commenting on the above resolution, the TUC General Secretary, Len Murray, had stated:—

"The General Council sees nothing in the terms of the Composite Motion which is in opposition to their Report, and they are therefore content to see Congress give it support alongside the Report."

If the purpose of the Composite had merely been to amplify the provision already contained within the General Council's Report, that worker representation on the supervisory board of any company would only be implemented in line with the wishes of trade union members in that enterprise, there would indeed have been no need for any conflict. When proposing Composite 17, however, the late Eddy Marsden of the Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers (Constructional Section) made it quite clear that his union's purpose was to oppose right down the line any system of board representation by workers in industry. He argued:—

"The composite motion before Congress, despite some of the variations in the emphasis from unions supporting it, is in the basic opposition to the main recommendation in the Report, which recommends mandatory acceptance of supervisory boards and workers' directors in industry…Speaking for my union, I cannot understand and do not accept the reasoning that we should also accept, even in some British form, a supervisory board and worker directors as a necessary extension of our collective bargaining machinery. I certainly believe that the trade unions and workers at shop floor level are fully entitled to increasing control over all areas of management put forward in the document. All these demands, and much more, are attainable by our normal methods of activity, especially the strengthening of and the insistence upon great authority for our shop floor organisation…"

"…Capitalism is cannibal by nature, and we ought not to get involved with capital in any joint organisational form, because again it is possible to imagine worker directors of one company in conflict with worker directors in another…I think we are ignoring some of the fundamental and basic contradictions in our society in our understandable desire to defend working-class interests and are unfortunately falling for theories that, in my opinion, will tie the Movement, lock, stock and barrel, with the interests of capital and to the detriment of our Movement."

"The basic factor of our time is the growing political and economic crises of the system and the consequential new awakening of socialist understanding throughout the world, leading, as it was bound to do, to growing pressure for socialist solutions to our economic problems…"

"It is precisely how one approaches and understands this basic fact that determines one's attitude to the worker director…Any advance that can be made by supervisory boards, even with 50% trade union representatives, can take place only by joint agreement, and the extent of the advance will be limited by these considerations…"

"…Capitalism, the system of so-called private enterprise, is the architect of those crises and it is not our job to give it a blood transfusion, either by mixed economy methods or by the introduction of supervisory boards, and worker directors. Our motion, therefore, opposes the General Council Report on Industrial Democracy only in so far as it recommends to Congress mandatory participation schemes for supervisory boards with representation by worker directors…"

The TUC General Council's call for parity of representation for worker directors elected by trade union members, was to be supported by the TGWU and NUPE but opposed from the right by the EETPU and from the left by the AUEW. How the 1974 Congress debate further progressed will be examined next month.