[in their interest under their direct contain sections…]

Scan page 9

in their interest under their direct contain sections on this subject. control. Companies must now in theory To limit their gaze to one indiv- disclose information needed by idual factory or even one vast Trade Unions in collective bargaincorporation can spell disaster not ing over wages, conditions, employonly for the workers directly ment and allocation of work. Trotsky understood . this information since workers equally Georges Politzer: Elementary Principles of Philosophy Lawrence and Wishart, London, 1976. Price £2.00:

The recently announced plans for sacking 3,000 Courtauld workers shows clearly that in this period of economic crisis even the largest firms may suddenly declare that "financial reasons" require redundancies and the struggle for workers to gain control over the chaos of capitalist production profitable under capitalism.

It is this standpoint that these leaders to join • now schemes of "participation" rationalisation and speed-up that n lanagement use in a futile atter npt to solve the crisis at the w orkers' expense.

NO ideas on how to rationalise production through speed up and redundancy, and how to control the workforce through no-strike clauses linked to bonus payments.

The activities of these convenors now even threaten workers in the supplier firms which feed off British Leyland. Their "participation" committees tour the country threatening to absorb work into Leyland and throw the component workers out of a job.

This shows very clearly that while knowledge can be powerful it is only useful to workers if wielded involved but for others.

probiem when he wrote:

"To those capitalists . . . who of their own accord sometimes offer to throw open their books to the workers - usually to demonstrate the necessity of lowering wages - the workers answer that they are not interestd in the book-keeping of individual capitalists but in the account ledgers of all exploiters as a whole. The task is one of reorganising the whole system of production and distribution on a more dignified and workable basis."

To succeed, a trade union "open the books committee" fighting for access to management's full accounts and plans must constantly expand and multiply until it covers whole industries.

The Aerospace combine, although not pressing for concealed figures, showed a useful approach in its survey of what products could be produced as an alternative to useless and declining military production.

ALTERNATIVE

This has had an important effect in giving aerospace workers a glimpse of a socialist alternative to production for profit.

Unfortunately this move stopped short, still within reformist limits, pulling back from any attempt to impose its suggested programme on the industry.

It also failed to involve wide sections of workers at nlant leval relying heavily on convenors and specialists.

It is against this that the proposals of the retormist lUC and Labour Party for the "disclosure of information" must be seen.

The Industry Act and the Employment Protection Act both Yet all this is a limitation on need facts about other firms with whom they do no bargaining.

It is also obvious that workers need to investigate any set of company books thoroughly before they can discover which particular questions to ask.

But under the law the company need not give even information requested *if it could cause substantial injury to the undertaking". In other words the reactionary code of business• secrecy still reigns supreme.

OPPOSITE

Since the interests of workers and shareholders are inevitably opposite, most information of use to workers will be injurious to the shareholders, who under bourgeois law are identical with "the undertaking"

Another important is Protection for the employers is that по "confidential" documents need be produced even on request.

Lastly, if the employers refuse information, nobody has the authority to force it out of them!

It is obvious that only information selected by the employers will be disclosed, and апу that is disclosed will be information which will benefit the employers and their tame representatives in the trade unions.

In this way the reformists have turned a real demand by workers for knowledge into a weapon to be used against them.

ACTION

Only industrial action will force the employers to the vital information that workers need.

The struggle to defend jobs must start in each plant with an open the books committee elected by trade unionists that sets its goal not an understanding of the individual factory or enterprise in which it begins work, but of a whole industry and eventually a whole economy.

In this way the struggle for knowledge becomes a struggle for control and a school for planned

----- pull-quotes -----

ON REFORMISM