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‘In the past workmen have thought that if they could secure higher wages and better conditions they would be content. Employers have thought that if they granted these things the workers ought to be contented. Wages and conditions have improved, but the discontent and unrest have not disappeared. Many good people have come to the conclusion that working people are so unreasonable that it is useless to try to satisfy them. The fact is that the unrest is deeper than pounds, shillings and pence, necessary as they are. The root of the matter is the straining of the spirit of man to be free.’— William Straker (Northumberland miner), in evidence before the Sankey Commission, 1919.
Workers’ Control is about the struggle for a genuine system of industrial democracy. It is based on the premise, and contradiction, that while we live in a political democracy, however weak and limited that democracy may be, we certainly do not have any real economic democracy. And, furthermore, that without a swift development of democracy in industry we are not very likely to maintain much of our existing political democracy, which has already been seriously undermined by the rapid growth of huge economic empires accountable to no-one. On the other hand if we can create genuine democratic institutions in the industrial sphere we shall have a substantial base from which to attack the weaknesses of the present political framework and to make it much more responsive to human needs and aspirations.
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- Copyright © 1972 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers
References
page 506 note 1 Since that time, throughout the 1960, the Yugoslavs have virtually abandoned any overall central planning to the irrational forces of the market and, as a consequence, are passing through a deep economic crisis, but this is not really relevant to our present analysis and it suffices to say that now we have as much to learn from their subsequent failures as their earlier successes.
page 509 note 1 That the workers were forced to accept the takeover of the Clydebank yard by an American Corporation for building oil rigs, and to sign a ‘no‐strike’ agreement does, however, demonstrate the inherent limitation of local struggles.