Is That All Right, Jack?

Labor Leader Harold Wilson began Britain's election campaign last week in search of additional votes that would bring him back to 10 Downing Street with a majority rather than a minority government. For a time, though, it seemed as if Wilson was off to a bad start. First of all, Lord Chalfont, a Labor peer who held sub-Cabinet posts in Wilson's first two administrations, resigned from the party to protest what he called the trade unions' "virtual dominance" of party policy. Then Sir Leonard Neale, former chairman of a Labor government Commission on Industrial Relations, disclosed that he might not vote for Wilson this time because the party "had been sold in bondage to the Trades Union Congress." At a televised press conference, Shirley Williams, Minister of Consumer Affairs in the outgoing government, said that she would quit politics if Britain should withdraw from the Common Market in accordance with a referendum that Wilson has promised to hold at the behest of his party's left wing and their union supporters.

"Social Contract." Clearly, Britain's rampant inflation rate (approaching 20% annually), and what to do about it is the main campaign issue. But a secondary one is the political influence of the unions. According to a recent National Opinion poll, a surprising number of Britons share Lord Chalfont's misgivings: 73% feel that the unions are too powerful, while 66% believe that they are more powerful than the government. For obvious reasons, Wilson would like to keep the union issue out of campaign debates, but the Tories may not let him. In a speech last week, Tory Lord Hailsham, former Lord Chancellor, acidly described the Labor Party as a "wholly owned subsidiary" of the unions.

Since its birth in 1900, the Labor Party has always been closely tied to the unions, which wield more than 80% of the voting strength at Labor Party conferences. Up to and throughout the '60s, unions were clearly the horse to the Labor Party's cart. But now the accumulated strain of the inflationary '70s seems to have caused the once cooperative unions to bolt. Wilson's fate in the Oct. 10 elections depends largely on his ability to convince voters that he will be able to rein in the runaways.

Wilson's cause was boosted last month when Britain's Trades Union Congress (T.U.C.), an umbrella organization representing 10 million workers in more than 130 unions, voted almost unanimously to support the much touted "social contract." Under this informal agreement, the unions promised to exercise voluntary wage restraint in exchange for the Labor Party's promise of economic and social reforms. Since wage increases are expected to be a chief source of British inflation during the coming year, success of the social contract is Labor's crucial selling point to financially panicked voters.

Its effectiveness, however, has already been called into question. The T.U.C. is not a monolith, but a loose federation that can exert only moral force over the individual unions it represents. The limits of its power were demonstrated when, less than a week after the T.U.C.'s pledge of cooperation, 1,800 workers at Ford Motor plants in Dagenham and Halewood went on strike. They are demanding further cost-of-living adjustments after the current escalator agreements expire next month. The walkout has already affected another 15,000 workers at the two plants. Says Arthur Flicker, spokesman for the shop stewards at Ford: "The social contract means nothing to us. It is a matter for the politicians who invented it. If it means that our lads have got to work for less money, then to hell with it."

The Labor Party's hopes for union cooperation were further dashed by the fact that the strikers are members of the Transport and General Workers' Union, whose leader, Jack Jones, is the chief union architect of the social contract. Although Jones is regarded as one of Britain's most influential and respected union leaders, he has been unable to persuade the strikers to return to work.

Even if the unions can be made to abide by the terms of the social contract, Wilson may find himself struggling with the consequences of a Pyrrhic victory, for union cooperation can only be bought at the price of serious policy concessions. According to TIME Correspondent Lawrence Malkin, the T.U.C.'s "favored programs of better government health, housing and social security, higher taxes for the rich, redistribution of income, unrestrictive labor laws, and commitment to economic expansion and full employment differ little from those that George Meany perennially champions. The difference is that Meany knows he hasn't a chance of obtaining them all from any U.S. Government. Britain's labor leaders are bargaining that they can--from a Labor government."

The hopes are not quixotic. Government policy papers still routinely make the rounds of the T.U.C. before being published or debated in the House. Just how strong is union influence within the Labor Government? According to one illustrative story, a minister unconsciously reversed the old "I'm all right, Jack" cliche into a virtual "Is that all right, Jack?" by responding to an interesting policy suggestion with "Let me check that with Jack." He meant Jack Jones.

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