Arbitration Board set up by the TUC and CBI. It had previously suggested that for the dockers. But in both cases the rank and file do not want to know. Both cases have indecently exposed the bureaucrats. SMITH, UCATT, AND THE T&G George Smith and his fellow members of the UCATT Executive Committee looked pasty faced when they left the regional officials meeting in Birmingham on Thursday. The EC meeting before had recommended acoptance of the increase to £25 guaranteed minimum rising to £29 guaranteed minimum in February 1973. One week later they have had to call for "the most rapid intensification" of the stoppage. Why was this?
ORGANISATION OF THE INDUSTRY Basically because they did not understand the feeling of their members. The guaranteed minimum includes £2 and £3 bonuses at cach increase. The most important way that employers have been able to make the profits they have is because of the way the industry is organised. By always keeping basic rates low big bonuses could buy off the most militant sites, and keep the wages bill low on all the others. It takes several months to organise a site. Organised sites' militancy could not be used to win higher wages for new sites. Every site that started was a new fight. The workers in the industry have had enough. They are for using their strength nationally, to got a higher baric rate.
That's why Smith and Co. miscalculated. Once there was a big stoppage, the building trade workers had some feeling of their own strength, or a nationally organised body.
POLITICS AND TRADE UNIONISM It is no longer possible for a trade-union Trade union organisation in East Kent has