17.12.1998

Raise our demands

Minimum wage

In 1992 the CPGB published an analysis in which it concluded that a minimum income of about £250 per week was necessary to sustain a normal life for a working class person and immediate dependants. This included the necessary cultural and social activities, recreation, holidays, and so on. It was also in line with Marx’s concept of not only supporting the person, but including also the cost of biological reproduction.

Equivalent incomes in Western Europe have actually been below this for the working class as a whole, and this has been reflected in a reproduction level below replacement. And the quality of the replacement level for the most deprived sections has certainly been going down - Thatcher’s policy in particular was to leave some sections of the working class youth to rot. It was reported in subsequent weeks that these estimations had been confirmed independently by two university studies.

In 1996 we increased our demand for the minimum income to £285 per week to take into account inflation. This generally accepted Party policy has been the scientific basis for the rejection of a minimum hourly wage of £3.60, which would give an income before tax and other stoppages of £144 for a 40-hour week.

At the same time our Party holds that a 40-hour week is too great to permit the satisfactory cultural and political development of each worker. And, given that in big cities travelling to work will easily add another 10 hours, it can be seen that both Blair’s proposed minimum wage and the 40-hour week is completely unacceptable to a party of the working class. There must be a minimum wage and a maximum working week of 35 hours.

The reasoning behind the CPGB’s demand has been further confirmed by a publication of Kings College, London University, which has suggested that the current minimums are too low even to maintain physical health. The Kings College researchers maintain that at least £268 is required and that income support should be fixed at £39 a week below this. They also argue that the minimum earnings should be between £5.40 and £6.96 per hour.

This of course only deals with minimum health requirements. But, as everyone knows, in addition the better off sections of the working class can live more cheaply than the poorer sections. For example, ownership of a car enables you to buy cheaper goods from the hypermarket or drive-in shopping centre; you need good cooking facilities to prepare food more efficiently. Even leaving aside all this, and many other factors - from furniture that does not fall apart to booze cruises to France - the truth of the matter is, the poorer you are, the lower your educational attainment is likely to be and the more liable you are to disease and illness. The government has recently published statistics that show that the death rate for people in the lowest social categories is three times that of people in the top social categories.  This has shown an increase from the position 50 years ago when it was ‘only’ twice as great.

Moreover, it has to be pointed out that although we increased our minimum income demand on the basis of general inflation, price rises on basic foodstuffs, clothing, housing and public transport have increased much faster than on less essential goods. This means that, unlike most sections of society, the least prosperous cannot maintain their standard of living even when statistically their income is keeping pace with inflation.

Another factor not taken into account by these figures is that most of the skilled working class either own or are buying their houses (about one third of the working class now own their homes outright or have small amounts to pay off), whereas the poorer sections are forced to rent. When interest rates fall, this disparity is further increased.

For all these reasons I would recommend that the Party and the labour movement raise the demand for a minimum income to £300 for a 35-hour week. The ruling class will maintain that ‘the economy’ could not stand this. We, on the other hand, demand what workers need, not what capitalism says it can afford. However, in actual fact, with the current levels of production in the UK standing at £800 billion per annum, such a minimum would only absorb 75% of the gross national product. This assumes that roughly 40 million people would be eligible, but does not take into account, for example, the extra income that indirect taxes such as VAT would generate to the state. No doubt Keynesians would also point to the rise in production that would occur as a result of greater demand.

Be that as it may, there is no doubt that the advanced capitalist countries easily produce sufficient wealth to allow all workers to reproduce themselves at the necessary level. Whether the capitalist system could survive such a fundamental change is quite another matter.

Finally, we must conclude that apparently the Weekly Worker can get its research done a damn sight quicker than the academic institutions of this country and certainly seems more accurate than they are in pinpointing not only the minimum requirements for the working class, but the minimum requirements for society.

John Walsh