Rover Workers Will
Continue to Have to Face and Provide Solutions to the Problems Caused by the
Contradictions of Monopoly Capitalism
Commentary by Birmingham Branch of
RCPB(ML)
In the wake of the deal struck between the Phoenix
consortium and BMW there is still the question of how long this
"solution" will stand up. The workers have waged a struggle to raise
their consciousness of the problems that have confronted them and have started
to deal with their marginalisation at a rudimentary level. In the long term the
workers have still to combine with the rest of the class in order to deal with
the question of developing their own political programme and constituting
themselves as the nation.
They would be making a big mistake if even in the short term
they were to believe that there is a coincidence of interests between the
consortium and the workers. This kind of illusion has been promoted again and
again at Longbridge, and generally throughout the working class. Not only has
it led to workers reluctantly accepting increased attacks on their working
conditions and their dignity on the basis that if they made compromises now
then their future would be secure, with the capitalists’ logic that the
competitive success of the enterprise in the cut-throat conditions of the
global marketplace will mean prosperity for the workers. The bankruptcy of this
logic has been shown time and time again. But also it has been so entrenched in
the workers’ movement by the apologists for the monopolies that a real
effort needs to be made by the workers to envision that they should develop
their own programme and fight for their rights and interests with a clear
conscience, without the fear that they would be contributing to the all-round
crisis in the society if they were to do just that. There is no coincidence of
interests and they would be taking up the question of providing solutions to
the all-round crisis in the course of their struggles.
The problem of overproduction is affecting all car workers
whether it is the 2,000-odd workers at Ford Dagenham, who are facing
redundancy, or the many European or global car producers. The problems of
producing cars, or any other products, in the global market are multi-faceted.
The big car producing monopolies have been making arrangements for price fixing
just like the oil producing cartels who have organised the recent fuel hikes at
the petrol pumps. In Britain we can see the effect of holding high the prices
of cars and many other goods on consumers. By far the most serious problem has
been the capitalist overproduction crisis caused by the anarchy inherent in the
capitalist mode of production.
Another enormous problem tied to overproduction is the
effectiveness of the productive forces under the conditions of intense
competition in the marketplace. Ford intends to consolidate their position as
one of the world’s leading car producers by consolidating its European
production. It aims to do this by downsizing some of its operations and
removing car assembly from Dagenham. Each producer aims to maximise profits by
destroying the competitors in the global marketplace. The overproduction crisis
has exposed the true nature of the global market. In order to compete for a
shrinking market the producers fine-tune production, develop the productive
forces by technology and scientifically revolutionary techniques in the
organisation of the production process. It is for this reason that the Phoenix
consortium at Rover faces the ongoing problem of financing investment and is
already thinking of linking up with another major transnational company.
If workers are to constitute themselves as the nation, then
the issue of globalisation and the role of transnationals and multinational
companies has to be taken up as a problem for solution. It is an issue of the
workers themselves taking up a nation-building project and solving the problem
of democracy, so that the concerns of the people are put at the centre of
consideration and the direction of the economy changed. They are being told by
advocates of the Third Way that they must accept that there is no alternative
to operating in the global capitalist economy. The modern capitalist world is
proving that only the major players can afford to stay in business and those
that cannot play, including whole national economies, will go under. Under this
system, the governments are but the salespeople of the monopolies, whose whole
mission in life is to organise society so it serves the monopolies and then
sell the project to the workers that they cannot do without them. That being
competitive in the global marketplace benefits the national economy and
guarantees jobs is one salespitch. However, this does not wash, and this does
not just apply to car production.
Instead, socialist planning of the national economy on the
basis of producing what is needed for the people’s well-being at the
highest possible level is what is called for. Trade with other countries can be
carried out not on the basis of capturing and dominating markets but on the
basis of equality and mutual benefit. In line with this aim, demands can be put
forward right now that more should be put into the economy than is taken out
through paying the rich, through speculation, the extraction of maximum
capitalist profit, cut-backs in social programmes, payment of interest on the
national debt, and so forth. In order that trade can be carried out with the
needs of the people at the centre, demands can be made that national and
international trade be nationalised. The banks and financial institutions
should be forced to serve the economy rather than being the tools of the
financial oligarchy to amass enormous wealth and to call the tune that all the
society must follow. The workers, as internationalists, can give material and
moral support to all fellow workers fighting for the same internationally and
to the peoples of the world who are fighting to choose their own paths of
development. In particular, they can reject the chauvinist and dangerous
clap-trap that Britain has a moral duty to intervene globally and dictate to
others what course their countries should take and that only
"British" values have any validity.
The workers are in the frontline of the productive process,
producing the wealth in an ever more efficient and productive way. Rover and
Ford workers have had to deal with this competition issue long enough to know
this fact. It is because of the highly structured and disciplined way that they
have to produce that makes them their own effective problem. Overproduction at
the factory level is caused because of this very factor; the anarchy in the
marketplace is caused by the constant vicious nature of monopoly capitalist
competition.
It is high time that the national economy ceased to be
subject to the pressures of global market forces and that also includes the
political and economic trade blocs such as the EU that exist on such
principles. To embark on solving this problem, the workers cannot afford to go
back to sleep now the Phoenix Consortium is running Rover and succumb to the
call that what is good for Towers is good for them. The same is true for the
Ford Dagenham workers who are just about to begin one more battle for their
livelihoods. They must proactively get together to set their own agenda, to
take up their own pro-social programme to lead society out of the crisis,
secure in the conviction that it lies in their hands to create a new society
without anarchy and chaos, without crisis and without the exploitation of
persons by persons nationally and internationally.
