Where We Stand

1. _‘ The general task of the Revolutionary Marxist Group is to help to launch a 32 county revolutionary workers’ movement. We do not consider ourselves to be the basic nucleus out of which this movement will develop. We see the process as taking the form of numerous fusions in which the socialist cadre of all revolutionary groups, including both wings of the Republican movement, will come together. However we consider that as a group we can play a vital role in helping to formulate and clarify the programmatic basis on which this movement must unite. 2. -What distinguishes the RMG from other Left and revolutionary organisations is our attitude towards the national question. On the one hand the ‘economistic’ Left says that the class struggle has nothing to do with the national question because they. confuse the class struggle with the economic struggle. On the other hand the pure nationalists, because they are dominated by a false ideology, also deny that the national question has anything to do_with class struggle. They want to keep class struggle in the background as far as possible.

As against these sectarian and opportunist approaches, we insist:

{i) that the working class is in fact-the most exploited and oppressed section of the nation under the imperialist yoke of Britain, and that therefore it is in their objective interests to struggle against every manifestation of imperialism.

(ii) because the working class is the most exploited and oppressed under imperialism it is the only section of the nation which can be depended upon to struggle to the. bitter end -against imperialism. All other classes, as we

Over the past few weeks the IDA, the OECD and the FUE have all come out in favour of an incomes policy for Ireland. The growing chorus is supposed to get a certain message across to trade union delegates who will be attending the ICTU annual conference in July. The message is that wages will have to be even lower this year than they were last year. INCOMES POLICY?

The usual reason given by the employers’ side for controlling ‘incomes’ (read wages) is that wages push up prices’so that Irish products cannot compete with those from other countries. As we showed in The Plough (Vol.1, No, 2), this argument is fraudulent. Over the: past decade or so real wages rose by only 42% while industrial productivity rose by 60%: So the increase was not inflationary, in the sense that it was paid for out of a real increase in the x wealth of society. Speaking at the Cll Conferbace earlier this year, Professor N.J, Gibson (of recent notoriety). who lectures in economics at NUU verified our view. According to'the Irish Times report, Prof, Gibson-was annoyed at'the fact that, ‘in the analysis of inflation in the Republic, rather more emphasis is put on domestic costpush phenomena than is perhaps warranted.’ And he pointed out in justification of this criticism that, ‘the average wage earner in the transportable goods industries has not increased his relative share of the national output despite the activities of trade unionists.’ What then is the real reason for the big push for an incomes policy? The answer to this question may be found in a deeper understanding of the nature of Irish capitalism and the present dilemma it finds itself in.

OPEN ECONOMY During the past ten or so years the traditional ~ base of Irish capitalism has been in a process of gradual transformation. From an industry geared specifically towards the Irish market, irish industry has been increasifigly geared, with the help of foreign capital, towards the British Gnd continental market. During the -sixties the export of industrial products rose to. 30% of total industrial output, and the proportion of industrial products in total exports rose to over 50%. E But the reshaping of the economy has created a number of headaches. Firstly the Irish econo‘my is what the economists call an open economy. That is to say that Ireland’s Gross National Product is comprised of a significant percentage of exports and imports. This puts Ireland at an automatic disadvantage in competition with other countries, Forty per cent of Ireland’s GNP is comprised of imports; which means that the government and employers have no control over the inflationary content of a huge number of consumer goods necessary to Irish workers or raw materials which are processed and re-exported. The rationalisation and redeployment of labour was the favourable rélationship of forces which existed between labour and capital. Over the year the labour movement had forced the employers to respect its interests: ‘Many restrictive practices surrounding jobs €,g. Overmanning and demarcations, excessive overresult is that Irish workers’ wages are pushed up to meet the inflation in foreign goods, so that in addition to the inflation contained in ~ the imported raw materials, increased labour costs also add to the price of the‘finished products, making them less competitive. The first problem points towards the second problem. In order to keep industry expanding it is necessary to attract British and European investors, Since Ireland is an open economy which imports most of its raw materials from Britain and Europe the only advantage these in wstors see in Ireland is its abundant supply of cheap labour. As John Carroll, vice-president of the ITGWU, pointed out in a recent criticism of the IDA: ‘Many employers who were setting. up shop here were now saying quite clearly time etc..: have become integrated into the emplayer/ employee relationship as legitimate practices.’ This had to be changed before rationalisation could be generalised. it was in this context that the management regime within the factory began to harden. It reflects a had to pay EEC wages.’

To overcome these problems Irish capitalism needs desperately to keep wages at an abnormally low level. Otherwise exports will fall off and industry will cease to attract investment. Already these problems are beginning to threaten menacingly. When the Third Programme for Economic and Social Development ended at the beginning of this year, it was revealed that while investment attained its modest target of 6.8% average annual increase, the annual average increase in the volume of exports was only half the projected 9%. It is because of these ‘disturbing’ results of the Third Programme that the employers urgently need an incomes policy to restrain wages. WORKERS’ INTERESTS In this situation, where do the real interests of Irish workers lie? Needless to say, a contraction of industry has no advantage to workers. This indeed is the argument used by the government, the employers and the trade union bureaucracy. But it is a one-sided-argument. The real threat to industrial expansion ant. trade’ comes in fact from capitalism itself. Irish capitalism can hope to survive only so long as international capitalism can permit some form of free trade.

But there is no guarantee that it can continue to do this indefinitely. The tailing off of the post-war boom points the way to a new series of trade wars, as foreshadowed by the recurring disputes between Japan and the United States, The recent hustle in the EEC over monetary policy and agricultural prices leads in the same direction. Under the circumstances only the short-sighted bureaucrats of the ICTU could urge the workers to hitch their wagon to the doomed star of capitalism. Collaboration to make a broken-down, out-moded system work will be a death-trap for Irish workers, What is needed on the contrary is a resolute policy of struggle. Let the employers and the trade union bureaucrats put their money where their mouth is. If wages push up prices then let’s have the matter tested by tying wages to prices. For every increase in the consumer price index let there be a similar increase in wages. In other words, instead of an incomes policy or a wage agreement, let the labour movement demand a sliding : scale of wages. process of ‘softening-up’ the working class. One need only look at the innumerable regulations governing the operation’of natural functions and desires — no using the toilets without the foreman's permission, no use of toilets over a certain arbitrary number of times a day, no talking, no singing, no use of phones, no. freedom to dress or behave as one desires. None of these bear a direct relation to raising productivity. They do not apply for instance to office staff, Their sole purpose is simply to-cow the shop floor labour force so that management can herd the workers about as it sees fit, HOW TO FIGHT _ .

Apart from the many reports similar to David Hynes’ which appear in the daily press, it is difficult to get accurate information on the role this type of grievance is beginning to play in the economic struggle, David O’ Mahony’s ERI report on industrial ~ relations does give some figurés which confirm that the tightening of the management regime during the sixties has given rise to a whole new area of struggle.

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that they could not compete in the EEC if they By ALASTAIR McCAFFERTY.