Pioneer of the new union bureaucracy

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Be membership would have to toe the line BEN TILLETT was one of the most important leaders of the 'new' unionism of the 1890s and 1900s. He was a leading light in the 1889 Dockers Strike and from then until 1922 General Secretary of the Dock, Wharf, Riverside and General Labourers Union, the formative influence in the amalgamation which produced the TGWU. Involved in most of the big strikes from 1890-1926, he was a founder of the ILP aid the Labour Representation Committee (the forerunner of the Labour Party) and later for many years a member of the Marxist Social Democratic Party and its successor, the British Socialist Party.

A long time member of the TUC General Council, Tillett was also an MP during the first two Labour governments.

His long career has much to teach us about the formation of many of the institutions which still today structure the workers movement, specifically the development and the dynamics of the trade union bureaucracy.

Compared with today's sophisticated and integrated bureaucracy, the leadership of Tillett's day was primitive, "irrational' and close to the ranks from which it had so recently evolved.

Sectional

When Tillett was born in Bristol in 1860 trade unionism covered a tiny proportion of the workforce. Its practice was explicitly sectional, closed to the vast majority of the working class, collabórative, in return for the crumbs a favourable economic situation produced and. only in the most minimal sense. reformist supporting both ibe capitalist system and a capitalist party, the Liberals.

The craft union bureaucracy *zs tir. Sir vears after Tillett's ben the best known organisawe De Amalgamated Society é Enters had only one fulli Era Tilet nas of the -cia charged all thai.

Go: =5000 as a =5.55. sulkie azongst the Paçie of the Abyss in London's secards.

4- secretary of the Tea Opera* ie began to recruit the =stiti but soon despaired of = risibility of any strong *ace organisation in the face :: castal labour. a divided workSo and employer blacklists. He remedy was state backed ceciation and arbitration to be denier by pleading with Libi plicians such as former gace union leader, Henry Be:accust.

i9 strike aided by inabie economic circumTh Noel Hibbert reviews "Ben Tillett" by Jonathan Schneer, published by Croom-Helm.

stances and divided employers, erupted from below to his complete astunishment. 'The men wanted to strike" he wrote, "I could scarcely believe my ears. It had never occured io me that they were read! tor such a thing.

It a pessimistic view of the membership is a primary trait of the bureaucracy, so is a speedy willingness to grasp with both hands opportunities provided by the membership. The success of the strike and the formation of the Dockers Union established Tillett's position as a bureaucrat with some security. Whereas he previously had 500 members, 18,000 now paid their dues.

Despite Tillett's having disowned the influence of the Socialists during the strike the union aspired, in distinction to the craft unions; to be a fighting organisation with Tom Mann as president and strike pay in place of unemployment, sickness and funeral benefits. Nonetheless, a centralised structure corcentrating power in the hands of the executive (not as with previvus dock unions in the branches) was adopted.

The utility of this and the limits of the fighting organisation could be seen once sectional strikes began over employer encroachments on such things as payment during the dinner hour. These incursions, Tillett argued, must be stomached. Now was the time to build and consolidate. Words which were to be familiar to dock militants for the next three generations began to pour out from HQ. 'To those who have been misled by mischief-makers whose disloyalty and underhand work can only do harm ... the executive instructions are: Resume work a: opce taking orders only from prepert appointed officials.

ranks Restrace of abow supply was acupted and recruitment closed. The membership, Tillett declared would have to toe the line.

"The tail would not be allowed to wag the head. They must fall into. their proper places, must await orders and be ready to fight when they were called upon to do so - and not before. There must be generals loyd ity ates inever to orders and privates in every army were necessary." Not a word, of course, about the missing link -democratic control of the generals by the privates in a war fought for common objectives. ar ler of br an pe de de KE viE the en wil sit the we ex] his Til his Br:

his hai lat in€ wa me har wh rar att up the tio: raI tu the lab COI an‹ life tra she a sı isn cor. ces act jus V3: che uni to t Ben Tillett (second from left in foreground) before a conference with the government in the 1912 dock strike Like many of his contempories and unlike many of today's aders, Tillett had experience struggle. Company thugs oke his nose, cracked his ribs id ruptured his hernia. But his rsonal struggle was at an end. = was free from and had no sire to return to the world of privation and insecurity. As eir Hardie's rhyme began, m Alderman Ben Tillett and re got a first class billet' He had no strong socialist ews let alone any developed eory. He reflected the incoherce and prejudices of the mass thout its impetus, its necesy to struggle. The security of • organisation even in a akened form even at the pense of the membership was 3 bill of passage.

Nothing better illustrates lett's view of the ranks than s speech after his defeat at adford in an election in 1892. te had spent the best years of ; life and the best energies he d for the benefit of his class • He believed in a division of your and if his part was work5, speaking and travelling, it is their part to contribute the ›ans for his doing so. There i been a meaness shown lich was despicable."

Manoeuvring As Schneer comments, illett developed towards the ak and file a condescending itude which at times verged on contempt.

One means of escaping from = tension between organisanal and personal security and is and file insurgenc! was sura to the state to regulate = conflict bermeen capital and our and in the process the nflict between bureaucracy d rank and file. Tillett was a +-long advocate of state arbition. In the early '90s, he ed his liberalism and became elf-styled socialist.

The leaders of the new union1 are usually portrayed in itrast with their craft predessors as socialists. Tillett's ivities in the early '90s show t how limited this socialism sand how it was a response to : weak bargaining position of ons of the unskilled (relative he labour aristocrat) and the employers vigorous counter-attack.

What he believed in was classic labourism — more regulation of the capitalist economy by the capitalist state.

T'he working class would be admitted to citizenship right within capitalism and its leaders would be legitimised as brokers between state and labour. He denounced 'the harebrained chatterers and magpies of continental revolutionists' and celebrated English muddle and empiricism. The workers could not run things. 'There was no class of people whom he would fear more to have in their possession unlimited power."

In accordance with these views he joined the Fabian Society.

But if Tillett was a bureaucrat every bureaucrai was not Tillett. Despite the formation of the LRC, the situation was still fluid as illustrated by Tillett's idiosyncratic twists and turns. He moved 'left' . The early years of the century found him attacking the Labour leaders and forsaking his initial teetotalism for peans of praise for wine, horseracing and the music hall and abuse for "British prudery"

Between 1908 and the war he was a pillar of the SDP/BSP proclaiming: "There is no solution without revolution"' • With the outbreak of hostilities his collaboration and patriotism were equally strident.

If his oscillations are in part explained by his erratic and extreme temperament and the strange - for example, jingoistic — Marxism of Hyndman's organisation. this had to be related to the bureaucratic Unrest of 1910-14 increased his stature with trade unionists. Yet in the 1911 Dock Strike he was characteristically 'militant and conciliatory by turns' and his comment on the 1912 dispute when the government requested food and fuel be allowed out of the docks summed up his one enduring consistency, the desire TOT for ut thin of it The estate:

ment coming to us for permission.

An excellent example of Tillett's manoeuvring was his attack on James Larkin during the 1913 Dublin Lockout. Small groups of British workers blacked goods but the TUC failed to give a lead. Asked for solidarity action they refused and instead confined themselves to giving financial contributions to the workers in Dublin.

As the most prominent 'left' and castigator of the official leaders, Tillett went on * Founded as the Democratic Federation in 1881, the organisation became socialist as the Social Democratic Federation in 1883. Afterwards it became the Social Democratic Party, and in 1911, after fusing with breakaway bran of the Independent Labour Party, it became the British Socialist Party. • The BSP was by far the biggest component of the Communist Party of Great Britain established in 1920. The Hyndman minority section of the BSP split off to pursue their jingo polities in 1916, and called themselves the National Socialist Party. British speaking tour with Larkin. Whilst Larkin attacked the union leaders and urged the rank and file to take independent action, Tillett, inbetween calling for the arming of the workers, simply urged a special TUC conference to call a General Strike. When the conference was called, he immediately moved a resolution of confidence in the TUC leaders, denouncing Larkin's criticisms.

Chauvinism

The chauvinism that had governed Tillett since his support for anti-immigration leagues in the docks provided him with his last star turn as a warmonger. Manoeuvred by Bevin out of any position in the TGWU he ended his days poor and usually drunk, soliciting money from the Tories in return fur information on Communist activities in the unions.

The real growth of bureaucracy occured after Tillett's heyday. Union membership went from 2.6 million to 8.3 million between 1910 and 1920. Size of organisation was transformed and national collective bargaining developed. When he died in 1940 it was just making its full entry into the portals of the state. Nonetheless, his story illustrates in the chemically pure form, many of its tendencies. Jonathan : Schneer's book depite its relative exclusion of what was happening within the ranks and within the state is well worth reading even if at almost £15 for 214 pages it is a prohibitive purchase.

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