Should
Unionists
Ssiton |
corporate
boards?

By Ernest DeMaio

UN representative, World Federation
of Trade Unions

Die appointment of Douglas Fraser,
president of the United Auto Workers, to
the board of directors of the Chrysler
Corporation stirred some old illusions.
The press briefly speculated whether
this was the first step towards the policy
of codetermination promoted by social
democrats and practiced in several

_ West European countries.

There is a lingering illusion. in cer-
tain circles of the world trade union
movement that if trade union leaders
are part of the top directorate of
capitalist corporations (codetermina-
tion), they will be able to protect the
jobs, improve the working conditions
and raise the wages and living stan-
dards of the workers. The employers
who control the economy use codeter-
mination as a means to maximize pro-
fits. In this obvious contradiction, who

benefits? Whose interests are best
served? :

Since World War II, the British
Labor Party has been voted in and out of
office several times. Each succeeding
Labor government received fewer
votes and members of parliament. As
the Labor Party and its social democra-
tic leadership moved to the right, its
base and support eroded. The British
unions were compelled by the sharp
drop in real wages to repudiate the
wage restraints of the Labor govern-
ment. me

The current Tory government is im-

posing additional austerity. It is pursu-

ing a policy of union- and strike-busting
by provoking strikes such as the steel

union, which has been on strike since

the beginning of the year.
In England, the steel industry is
nationalized. Theoretically it is publicly

Owned and run by the government. The

government, however, is controlled by
the great monopolies, which use the
power and majesty of government to
promote their interests at the expense
of the workers.

-The steelworkers’ reluctant leader-

_ Shipis being forced to move to the left by

the determination of the workers to de-

‘Businessmen? There's nobody here but us workers’

[Laon DEPARTMENT]

BELLAWDP ca eo.

fend their living standards and their
union against the blatant union-busting
tactics of the Tory government.

Sweden

In Sweden the Social Democrats,
with the support of the mass-based
trade union LO, ran the government for
44 years. They were swept out of office
by the conservatives in September 1976.
Living standards there surpassed the
U.S. years ago. Codetermination, plus
advanced experiments in reorganizing
the work place to reduce boredom and
humanize the job, might have worked,
but the real purpose was to create ideal
conditions for greater productivity and
profits.

The government, industry, and LO
entered into a social pact in 1928 which
banned strikes and restricted trade
union action. To combat inflation,
Prime Minister Olaf Palme introduced
an incomes policy that limited wage in-
creases. In the mid 1970s, capitalist
firms were increasing their profits 50%
annually. As inflation wiped out the al-
lowable wage increases, widespread
opposition to the no-strike pact de-
veloped among trade unionists. Appa-
rently many felt that the only way they
could register their resentment was in
the voting booths.

West Germany

The workers in West Germany by
law make up 50% of the boards of direc-
tors of corporations. However, the trade
unions have only 70% of the workers’
half; the remaining 30% comes from the
scientists, engineers and technicians
who are not represented by the unions.
The chairperson who casts the deciding
vote in case of a tie represents the
employers. This policy of sharing con-
trol — more accurately the illusion of
control — has enabled the capitalist
owners to consolidate while defusing
conflicts and retarding workingclass
consciousness and solidarity.

For the first time in 50 years, in the
late fall of 1978, the steelworkers of West
Germany, frustrated by the failure of
codetermination to protect their jobs,
went on strike. Over a period of five
years, 1,000 jobs a month were elimi-
nated by the steel trust. The workers
demanded a shorter workweek. After
several weeks, the workers, outmaneu-
vered by a weighted voting procedure,

returned to work. The leadership set-
tled for a few extra days off for those
workers with 15 and more years of ser-
vice.

United States

In the face of soaring inflation,
AFL-CIO president Lane Kirkland
ramrodded AFL-CIO executive council
support for President Carter’s tripar-
tite Pay Advisory Committee. The
practical effect is to scuttle the federa-
tion’s traditional wage policy of‘‘more”’
for ‘‘voluntary’’ wage restraints, thus
establishing for the first time the prin-

ciple that workers should not expect

wages to keep up with the cost of living.
Specifically, the new guildelines will
permit wage incrases in 1980 to rise 7.5
to 9.5% with an overall average of 8.5%

With inflation running twice the
guideline average and the allowed in-*
creases subject to income and social
security taxes, the net result will be
losses in real wages of at least 10%. This
sacrifice of the workers’ living stan-
dards is not matched by any. corporate
concessions to hold down prices. It is, as
one uneasy member of labor’s hierar-
chy remarked, ‘‘the kind of deal to be
expected from someone who never
negotiated a labor agreement.”

The tripartite arrangement is a
stacked deck, not to be confused with
the more sophisticated forms of class
collaboration practiced in Western
Europe. There, the triangular pacts are
among government, monopolies and
labor. Here it is the monopolies, labor
and ‘‘the public.”” The membership in
Europe if aroused, can strike the com-
panies, put the heat on their union offi-
cials and vote governments out of of-
fice. But how is pressure put on profes-
sors who have no constituency?

The role of the public members is to
provide a facade of impartiality and to
assure the corporations of the neces-
sary votes to defeat labor should a
show-down occur.

The Chrysler situation is a classical
example of the role of class collabora-
tion. Corporate greed speeds up the
workers and lays off those not needed.
By manipulating the monetary system
the real wages of those remaining is cut.
The price for this short term boost in
profits is a shrinking market and
economic base.

Fewer workers earning less curtail
their buying when they exhaust their
credit. The drop in sales means produc-
tion cuts and more layoffs. Maintaining
idle excess capacity is costly, whereas
closing plants and claiming huge losses
is profitable because the losses will be
used to offset future profits resulting in
enormous tax Savings.

The community has been milked for
all the tax and other concessions the
corporation is likely to get. Further-
more, the local political scene becomes
less cooperative if not openly antagonis-
tic. Such an environment is less attrac-
tive to.a board of directors concerned
with maximizing profits than a new

plant in acommunity that expresses its -

welcome with tax abatement, free road,
water and sewage access, plus an anti-
union climate.

Anew plant also generates cash flow
from investment tax credits and accel-
erated depreciation. All this, which is in
addition to government credit guaran-
tees for the new facilities, proves that
the capitalist system works for the
capitalists, but at the public’s expense.

Chrysler departed from this

scenario by wringing from the workers, —

with government assistance, conces-
sions worth $450 million. A grateful
company offered Fraser the director’s
job. Fraser accepted, stating he saw no
conflict of interest because when mat-
ters dealing with jobs, wages and work-
ing conditions arose, he would excuse
himself from the meetings. It may be
unfair to say the company got the mes-
sage. The fact is, Dodge Main was
closed without protest from Fraser.
The time has come to reassess the
role of class collaboration that leaves
the workers defenseless against plant
closings, layoffs, wage cuts, union-
busting, strikebreaking and the chip-
ping away of the meager labor legisla-
tion still on the books. The long defen-
sive battles waged by the workers
against the endless attacks of the
employers, even when won, exhaust the
union’s funds and sap their stamina.
But the inexhaustible energies of the
membership have been barely tapped.

A labor movement united economi- ©

cally and politically in aggressive
struggle is the only force capable of re-
versing the drift to the right and redi-
recting the nation’s priorities to prom-
ote the general welfare of the people.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MAY 9, 1980—Page 7

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