THE NEW SABOTAGE

Hokitika Guardian, 11 February 1921, Page 4

THE NEW SABOTAGE

UNIONS AND JOB CONTROL DOCTRINE OF REVOLUTION.

(Sydney Paper)

Until assurances are given that the maritime unions.will work uninterruptedly under existing awards and agree" mentis, and that the policy of job control will be discontinued, the Commonwealth Steamship Owners’ Federation says that none ot the 7(5 interstate steamers now idle will be recommissioned, Job control is stated to mean virtually sectional strikes to obtain concessions on isolated ships. The system has been vigorously advocated by American industrialists, and apparently it has many supporters in the Labour movement in Australia. According to union maxims the aim of jol) control is to.give employees undisputed sway in obtaining concessions on jobs in factories, workrooms, constructional works, and ships. As tar as the ships are concerned, the system is based on a thorough understanding among all members of the crew to co-opeiate in any attempt to improve the conditions of any section. To illustrate this by example—which, by the way, is not as farfetched as it may appear to lieeggs are at present over 3s a dozen, and most housewives of the working and middle classes are consequently sparing in their use of them. The seamen on any ship may suddenly conceive the brilliant thought that, with eggs at 3s a dozen, it would be pleasant to have them on the menu twice a day. “Harassing” tactics would be resorted to, and tho owners, fearlul lest the running of the ship should be interfered with, with a resultant loss ot heights, would concede a few hundred dozens of eggs for the sake of peace. And so the process would go on indefinitely. An official statement issued at the

Trades Hall this week pointed out that the object of the union was to lorm a committee on each ship, consisting of representatives of the seamen, stewards, cooks, and, if possible, ot the engincois and captain. The committee would discuss matters in connection with the working of the ship, and would act without reference to .the respective

unions. One of the systems that might be worked under the “job control ’ fm enforcing the demands of the employees it is stated, would be lor tile stew aids t t) supply the food meant, for the saloon passengers to the third-class passengers

and vice versa. Another system would be to put into operation “irritation strikes.” It Was explained that in this way it was intended that the men should cease work on repeated occasions, but only for short durations of time. A manifesto issued on behalf ot the Australian Timber Workers’ l liion is almost equally explicit. “When

union conditions do not prevail,” it states, “do what you ought to do for tho amount of money you receive, take any reasonable action you think fit in order to obtain as high a wage at least as other employers are paying. Treat the employer as well as lie is treating you.” No mention is made of who is to be tho judge of tho fair conditions, because the employee’s intention is to get just as much as tie has the strength to take. The fact that the basis of all arbitration and conciliation legislation is the necessity for an impartial judge of what is a fair tiling is carefully suppressed.

These tactics, in fact, are in every wav comparable with the sabotage of the T.W.W. This so-called sabotage consists in the inflicting of injury on the employer. The term derived from sabot, meaning a wooden shoe. The propagandists say that sabotage is a slang word used figuratively in the sense to “work tgfcimsily.” Nearer the mark is the siniste’ connotation derived from tlie action of the French peasants in throwing their wooden shoes into machinery as a strike device. Apart from this violent or-active sabotage, there are other methods of carrying its principles into effect. Goods for sale may lie wasted by giving double the quantity to the customer tor the same price Work may be done inefficiently, or even as was the case in an original kind of sabotage invented by the railway employees in Italy, and threatened a few years ago by the tramway employees in Sydney, by fastidiously applying all the rules in such a way that the service cannot proceed. The first only of these modes of sabot-

age, material damage, is liable to lie punished. There is little, if any,

difference between these methods ol sabotage and those advocated in the quotations we have given. .Material damage to employers’ property is not urged, but the thinly-veiled suggestions contained in the union manifestos can easily be construed by a sympathetic worker to mean almost any form of passive sabotage. These doctrines, and their great harmfulness to the workers themselves, were fully exposed when the Government determined to exterminate the serpent of the I.TY.W., which, at the time, was trying bard to undermine our national life. Since then, little lias been heard publicly of sabotage, but militant unionists apparently now think that by reintroducing it under the general beading of job control an undiscerning public will not be able to note the resemblance. It is an unfortunate fact that no means have yet been found of enforcing the obligations of the worker to give a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay. The moral guarantee of a tnide union might serve the purpose under conditions other than those which rule at present, but when some union leaders them-

selves advocate “ea’ canny” practises, such a hope- is futile. No one can Maine the shipowners if they take steps to ensure that they will not be subjected continually to the results of such tactics as have been indicated.

This new policy of job control is, of course, only one phase of the worldwide movement of revolutionary syndicalism. “The fundamental idea of revolutionary syndicalism,” writes Dr Louis Levine, in a well-known work on the subject, “is the idea of a class struggle. Society is divided into two classes, the class of employers, who possess the instruments of production, and the class of working men who own nothing but their labour power and who live by selling it.” Upon this basic principle—fallacious and rotten to the core—is founded the whole of the gigantic world conspiracy. The obsession of men’s lives becomes the expropriation of the hated capitalist. To this end all so-called palliatives, by which

is meant all humanitarian and social i legislation for the purpose of bettering the lot of the worker, are regarded as so many obstructions in the path. Arbitration and conciliation are not wanted. They tend to bring about the peace which is fatal to the syndicalist. So with profit sharing, and all schemes which aim at the peaceful emancipation of the worker from the wage system. Instead, they advocate almost

continuous devastating strife so that, eventually, the social edifice, topheavv by the burdens it has to carry, will come tumbling to the ground, and upon its ruins will be erected the now millennium, the rule of the proletariat. The coalminers are the most notable exponents of tliis theory in Australia. Long ago they abandoned their policy of conciliation. Their ultimate object i B the taking over of all industries by the. workers themselves. By the irritation, strike, which operates by the miners remaining at work, reducing their output, and so contriving by theii ironeral conduct to make the industry

unremunerative, they hope to achieve their ends. The terms of “democracy” and “freedom of speech” become a hollo* mockery under these conditions. Lenin himself admitted this when he wrote in an American Bolshevik paper (The New International, April, 1918): “The word democracy cannot be scientifically applied to the communist party.' Since March, 1917, the word democracy is simply a shackle fastened upon the revolutionary nation, and preventing it from establishing boldly, freely, and regardless of all obstacles, a new form of power; the council of workmen’s, soldiers’, and peasants

deputies; harbinger of the abolition of every form of authority.” I jenin, shortly alter the Bolsheviks came into power, defined the new ' dictatorship of the proletariat as follows: —“Just a s 100,000 lordly landowners under Tsar•vism dominated the 130,000,000 ot Russian peasants, so -200,000 members of the Bolshevik party are imposing their proletariat will on the masses, but this time in the interest of the latter.” And on the subject of free speech and intolerance! A socialist has been writing his reminiscences in the “Manchester Guardian.” Here is Ids testimony

“The experience ol those wild days has not been in vain. It convinced some of us that the world will never bo reformed until the workers —brain or manual —have reformed themselves. Tolerance of others’ convictions and feelings is a vital necessity of reform. Is there anywhere, however, more intolerance than among revolutionists, revolutionists ol the ‘Red Flag’/mler, 1 mean? 1 recall that once when I ventured, mildly enough, to express a difference of opinion from the chairman of the club I was immediately denounced as a fool and told to .shut my mouth. Independence of thought is the one tiling which our red rag revolutionists will not stand.

A first condition of real, enduring reform js that individuals must reform themselves. To make good, honest lans, there must be good, honest men and women. The builders of the new world must be builders, not mere wreckers.”