Look Again at Tactics

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1 THINK we need to examine in more detail some of the tactics we must employ if we are to successfully expedite the difficult business of robbing the rich to help the poor.

For example, John McIroy (SO 48) raises the problems of capitalist viability, the trade union bureaucracy and the necessity for wide blacking and picketing but don't we need to go further.

It seems to me that there is no point in using the most effective demand in a closure situation under a Labour government, nationalisation under workers control, when we are faced with Thatcher.

For both Lee Jeans and Laurence Scotts work-sharing may have been 'a good idea' . The real problem was getting the workers outside the directly threatened plant to strike for it.

Cowed by three million unemployed, conditioned by the practices of the boom and confronted with a hostile bureaucracy, the majority of workers are not prepared to take action whère their own specific and direct interests are not at stake - and their vision of these interests is an extremely limited one.

Work sharing on full pay still leaves us arguing through the basic question of solidarity and long termi interest and unity and we difficulties here.

'Opening the books': In practice, isn't this all too likely to be interpreted in the way that Mellroy warns against? Isn't the disclosure of the individual firm's plight likely to have a demoralising impact on workers conditioned to sectional enterprise-based fights. Doesn't any educational impact depend on a higher level of socialist consciousness than exists in the working class movement today?

Idea Isn't he nd books ipe again a fine idea likely to stumble in reality on what has yet to be overcome, the power of the bureaucracy vis a vis the rank and file.

And what about the other type of situation in British Leyland or British Steel where collapse. is threatened every time the workers defend their rights? Do we believe for example that the Thatcher government would not allow these enterprises to collapse given the massive impetus they would give to unempioyment? Do we say Thatcher and Edwardes are bluffing? Or do we say 'No they are serious but strike anyway the rest of the class'?

Doesn't this bring us up against the Lothian/Lambeth /Scargill syndrome? Why should we run risks to start a class fight which we doubt will occur anyway?' Discuss These are some problems that I think we have to discuss further although I have no doubt that we can find the answers. We won't find such debate in the Simple Simon pages of the terrible twins Socialist Worker and Socialist Challenge" so let's hear from Organiser readers.

JACK DUGGAN Crush As communists we need to build a real mass movement based on the black and labour movements to drive the racists off the estates, out of the gigs, and crush their organisations.

Today, the task is to develop and link the spontaneous reaction "black self-defence is no offence" to building genuine workers' defence guards.

This policy must be linked to a struggle of mobilisations by Socialist Organiser supporters against the racists, not just in the official workers' movement, but by independent work amongst the kids on the estates.

Yours fraternally, EVERTON WILLIAMS

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Socialist Organiser, 17 September 1981 Page 13 Socialist Not as dangerous as a coalmine = but bad enough different levels of represen- Safety committees are tation for two sets of tasks needed "Office Workers' Survival Handbook". - reviewed by John Plant.

This very useful book is published by. the British Society for Social Responsibility in Science and in the main represents the work of their Women and Work Hazards Group'.

In only 200 pages, and at a reasonable price (£2.35) it presents nearly alt the relevant information on hazards of office work in a clear and readable way.

The image presented by the capitalist press of office workers is one of cossetted, tea swilling, unproductive, time wasters. While everyone who works in a large bureaucracy will be aware of examples of this kind of thing, just as surely everyone who works in an office will tell you that these are isolated cases and far from being the general rule.

Although the scale and severity of office hazards do not come close to those in heavy industry, they are none the less real. Abour The sises th not an 5,000 injuries a year occur to office workers which are severe enough to cause at least 3 days absence from work.

Almost half of these are caused by trips and falls, three quarters of which can be directly attributed to defects in office safety.

The. second most common cause of injury is - strain from lifting or moving heavy items of office equip"ment or packages.

Office: machines ::.also present a range of mechanical and electrical hazards.

One area where office work ranks highly is stress. The Handbook quotes an American survey of heart disease among women workers which established that office workers suffer twice the incidence found in the rest of the female population.

Stress

Handbook mpha stress from ork i individual v aknes in the worker, but a result of the job being wrongly designed and organised. Stress symptoms such as headaches, bad nerves, persistent indigestion and so on, are far from trivial matters, and frequently are only the beginning of more serious conditions.

The Handbook marshalls the scientific evidence about the extent to which these symptoms are the result of doing boring work in inadequate conditions.

The main sections of the Handbook are on noise, lighting; body strains (writer's cramp' etc), dangerous substances in the basic facilities for welfare and hygiene.

Each section contains a check list for shop stewards or Health and Safety Representatives on the main risk areas. Special attention. is given to the problems of microelectronics and their introduction into the office.

The section on action against hazards covers the various Acts and Codes of Practice which stewards and safety reps can make use oi in arguments with management over Health and Safety matters. It goes on to loök at questions of organising for safety, and stresses the importance of joining a strong effective union and working actively in the union for action.

Every shop steward and safety rep should own this handbook.

There were one or two areas I felt the Handbook neglected, and which. Would be valuable in any futúre editions. : There is for example little or nothing about the problem of threatened or actual violence from members of the public to office workers. This is a growing problem for local authority employees who increasingly bear the brunt of public anger about the cuts.

Secondly, in the section on ventilation, the problem of smoking is diplomatically avoided. In my view there should be a right to work in a " non-smoking office, since other people's cigarettes are at least as dangerous and pervasive as many of the other hazards described in the Handbook.

Weak

In one or. two places I thought the Handbook was a bit weak on technical matters. For example the checklist on new technology asks: Is the user safe from electrical hazards?' without describing in the text how this can be ascertained.

I felt that the book also failed to deal with some of the real questions of organisation which arise for union activists when Health and Safety questions arise. Some branches try to encourage all shop stewards to become safety reps, partly because of the greater flexibility of operation it gives them.

However, there are likely be dangers in having two which overlad so much. It is disappointing that the Handbook did not discuss the experience of this in other areas.

It only mentions in passing the difficulty of integrating Health and Safety matters into already overburdened branch agendas, and does not give any attention to the question of whether separate Health and Honefullv. the publication of the Handbook will generate discussion on all these points, and future editions will be modified in the light of experience.

However, don't let this deter you from using the Handbook here and • now.

*Abridged from the GLC GLC/ILEA NALGO branch bulletin.,

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-Review •Review - PERILS FACING OFFICE WORKERS

office, temperature and ven- tilation, and the provision of