No more industrial acrtion in UK -- MARXISM DISCUSSION AREA

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Date Posted: 15:12:48 06/10/99 Thu
Author: Pombo
Subject: No more industrial acrtion in UK

Dear comrades,
(This seems like a good site well done Drew)
The media and the fetish of mass consumption have helped lead to a pacifist society, uninterested in change. But also a more subtle change is the shift in work practices from mass production line, and labour intensive techniques (Or Fordism) to largely meaningless red tape, management controlled office work.
In Britain the decline of manual labour, precipitated by the conservative years in office (1979-97) has led to a complete decline in industrial action, as white collar workers fearful of job losses, accept new work schedules, usually heavily beuacratically ran, rather than risk losing their jobs over strike action. the decline of the unions in their former strongholds of Steel, Coal and other manual intensive forms of labour has led to a decline in their power, leading to a relative support network vacuum for white collar workers. The dissatisfaction remains, the means to enforce this through militancy and turn it into needed reform has been removed. I see teaching as a social job, social skills must be a premium, however in looking behind scenes at one school I visited, and talking to teachers at my collage I see how social skills are becoming secondary to paperwork skills, the same is for my dad who is a social worker, he has now to spend time writing endless cases into reports to be made into meaningless files that remain unlooked at for years. This 'neo-Fordism' in the workplace is as unsupported by the majority of workers, as the pay cuts and threatened closures that led to the strikes in the 'winter of discontent� and the Thatcherite 80's. The workers will not, nor cannot speak out as they, have neither the strong unions, nor the spirit due to the lack of employment.
Most business are now run by a form of "Silent running" from the highest tier of management who make the "necessary financial decisions" for the running of a company due to profit margins, not staff / worker needs. These "necessary financial decisions" are passed down to subordinates under the guise of "necessary beneficial changes." The lower tier of managers and workers get a chance to review the changes that are to be implemented an their complaints and criticisms are 'incorporated into discussions' and included on charters that increasingly mean nothing. The staff are seen as dispensable, and also inferior as they have no strong unions to protect them, whereas the mangers are �untouchables� who involve themselves solely in the running of the company, and not in the �lesser� office chores increasing given to part time workers who have even less chance to rebel.
The cutting of staff in departments, for instance the Passport commission, by management leads to bigger profit margins for those running the company, larger workloads for the workers, and eventually greater beaucracy to cover mistakes that stem from the errors that are created by the heightened workload piled onto workers. Its a viscous circle, from which the benefactors, are not the workers, nor the public who gain only a cheaper inferior service, but the highest tier of management who constantly lick up the cream that has been created by their "necessary decisions" whilst clapping themselves on their back because of the falling amount of industrial action in the country. Which they then quote as a victory for worker-employer relations which they now say are based on consensus rather than confrontation.

Excuse me while Iam violently sick

Pombo

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