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Institute for Workers' Control

Spokesman Books | Institute for Workers' Control

Workers' Control Books

The Institute for Workers' Control (IWC) was founded in 1968. In this section of our site you can find many writings on Workers' Control and the work of the IWC.

See below for a full list of IWC pamphlets.

PDFs of most of the IWC pamphlets are available from www.socialistrenewal.net/

<span style='font-size: 14px;'>Bad News</span>

Bad News
The Wapping Dispute
by John Lang & Graham Dodkins
Foreword by Tony Benn

In January 1986, some 5,500 workers employed by four of Britain's national newspapers were sacked. The Sun, News of the World, The Times and The Sunday Times were all owned by Rupert Murdoch's News International Limited, and the bitter industrial dispute that followed was to last 13 months.

Although generally referred to as a print workers' dispute, many of those sacked were not printers at all, but managers, clerks, secretaries, librarians, copy typists and messengers who were members of the Society of Graphical and Allied Trades (SOGAT).

In the year following the dispute the authors of this book, themselves previously librarians at The Times and The Sunday Times and active participants in the strike, interviewed many of the clerical workers involved in an effort to document their experiences. Having spent more than a year recording these testimonies and transcribing the tapes onto the backs of discarded fast-food delivery menus using a portable typewriter (money was tight and paper expensive), the project was reluctantly abandoned, the victim of an acute need to earn a living.

The manuscript gathered dust in a loft until, in 2009 (with the 25th anniversary of the dispute fast approaching) unemployment, ironically, provided an opportunity to finish the job. Bad News tells the story of an ordinary group of people thrown into extraordinary circumstances, and how those circumstances affected their lives.

"What comes out in this book is the courage and determination of those who fought for their jobs and their rights against a government that was bitterly hostile to both. This is a book that should be very widely read." Tony Benn, Foreword

Reviews:
Richard Sharpe - Review 31
James Grayson - Chartist, September/October 2011
Sue Sparks - Socialist Review, July/August 2011
Robert Giddings - Tribune, Sunday, June 19th, 2011
Brendan Perring and Ben Welch - Print Monthly, June 2011

Price: £15.00

172 pages | Illustrated

ISBN: 978 0 85124 7960

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<span style='font-size: 14px;'>Workers' Control</span>

Workers' Control
by Ken Coates

Trade Unionists in Britain pursued their hope of a more fulfilling life in the secure knowledge that if they joined together, a better world was indeed possible. Now, a new generation of trade unionists, internationally, may in turn draw inspiration from the ideas and experiences of those who came together in pursuit of industrial democracy and workers' control.

'This book is a significant contribution to the ongoing discussion around issues of workers' control...'

Jeremy Dear National Union of Journalists, Andy Gilchrist Fire Brigades Union, Billy Hayes Communication Workers Union, Joe Marino Bakers, Food & Allied Workers' union, Mick Rix ASLEF, Mark Serwotka Public & Commercial Services Union, Tony Woodley Transport & General Workers' Union.

Read a review by Jim Mortimer

Price: £7.99

190 pages | Paperback

ISBN: 978 0 85124 6826

Socialist Renewal 3:7

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<span style='font-size: 14px;'>The First Worker Co-operators</span>

The First Worker Co-operators
by John Bellers

Introduction by Ken Coates

During the lifetime of the Labour Government which was elected in October 1974, the only experiment in industrial democracy to assume a tangible and practical form, was the creation of a number of workers' co-operatives, under the auspices of the Department of Industry, at the time that it was headed by Tony Benn.

Against great odds, in difficult commercial circumstances, and facing strong Civil Service opposition, the three co-operatives struggled on as long as they could. The First to die was the Scottish Daily News. Its story is documented in a book published by the Institute for Workers' Control, The New Worker Co-operatives.

Price: £2.00

30 pages | Pamphlet

ISBN: 978 0 85124 0664

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Institute for Workers' Control Pamphlets

<span style='font-size: 14px;'>Can the workers run industry?</span>

Can the workers run industry?
Edited by Ken Coates

Contributions by Hugh Scanlon, Ian Mikardo, Ernie Roberts, Michael Barratt Brown, Terry Lacey and others.

With the British Economy staggering from one crisis to the next, the issue of Industrial Democracy becomes increasingly important. Behind all the discussion of little Neddies, Income Policies and rationalisation people are beginning to realise that the most vital economic resource is the initiative of the workers themselves. The basic problem facing the C.B.I. and the Trade Unions is to ensure that the week's work becomes a challenge rather than a burden.

The aim of this book is to show that the best cure for the 'roll on Friday' attitude is to involve the workers actively and vitally in the process of making decisions. The old formula of nationalisation is not enough: there is a demand for new, experimental forms of democratic organisation.

In this volume trade union leaders, shop stewards, university teachers and political leaders present their views and plans for the future of industrial democracy in Britain.

Price: £5.95

254 pages | Paperback

First published 1972

ISBN: 0 90174 0306

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