doubled while wages rose by only a fifth, the industry is now being hit by increasing bankruptcies.
For building workers this means large scale unemployment. The monthly average of registered unemployed for 1973 was 86,000.
For 1974 it was well over 100,000.
This year will be considerably worse.
The slump in the industry comes at a time when there is an increasing need for buildings of all kinds. The slum clearance programme has come to a standstill. In 1971 almost one fifth of the dwellings in England and Wales were classified as sub-standard -a polite name for slums.
This figure is certainly an underestimate. A local survey in Birmingham showed that there were 41,000 such homes, as against the official Commons last month figure of 25,000. It is estimated that three million homes lack such basic amenities as hot water, a bath, and indoor toilet. Despite this, council house building still lags behind the 1969 levels. Waiting lists are now at the levels of 15 to 20 years ago.
Pledges that wage restraint would be balanced by increased spending on the social services were never credible. The recent building industry wage settlement (hailed as a victory for the social contract) was only a few weeks old when the Government announced that council house improvement grants were to be slashed by a third. As a result Birmingham corporation announced that up to 900 of its Housing Management labour force of 3,100 were to be made redundant.
In virtually every area of the social services a similar situation back.* She goes on to explain that what Wiison nas to guess is: How manv unions will refuse to knuckle under, and of these how many would strike and which could stop the country. Ms Goldring explains that 'the economy's four most vulnerable points are in descending order: Waterworks.... electricity switching stations ...... oil delivery tankers......and railways."
According to the well-informed Ms Goldring: "The Army has trained men on the quiet to drive oil tankers, but the Forces do not have enough tankers of their own to maintain even minimum deliveries, nor enough drivers to requisition the oil companies. However:
Waterworks jobs are unskilled and *given supervision troops could do them if supervisors cooperated.' worst year since 1953. After a period of boom in which the profits of leading firms more than applies. The school building programme has been slashed. No new hospitals are being built.
Nursery building is virtually nonCISECIL The cutbacks are declared to be in the interests of the economy; but whose economy and what kind of economy? The present situation is certainly not in the interests of building workers and it is not in the interests of the working class to waste the labour and skills of builders. The chaos and stupidity of the present system which serves the interests of a tiny group of employers can be seen if we look at the boom of the early 1970s.
Unemployed Merseyside building workers lobbying Eric Heffer at the House of noto: MICHAEL TOMLINSON UPLI During that period the industry was going flat out, but the bulk of the building was not in the areas of greatest social need (houses, schools etc.,) but in big money speculative ventures such as hotels and office blocks. Fortunes were made on borrowed money, as prices soared faster than interest rates. was that interest rates rose and land values rocketed.
The boom' was a boom for the capitalists only. of £80 per week was needed to buy the average priced house, i.e. an income of twice the national average. This meant a decline in the demand for houses; and as the crisis deepened the demand for office blocks fell off, too.
Under the pressure of rising interest rates and a falling market, profits decline. So building stops.
The employers immediately demand The Investors Chronicle of 23 May contains a piece of hard-headed advice to Harold Wilson, entitled 'Unions that can stop the country. It might more appropriately have been called "Prepare for battle"! Written by Mary Goldring, who is well connected to top people in all the main parties at Westminster, it says: "The betting at Westminster is that the Government will call a wage freeze of some kind once the EEC referendum is off its *a strike here could disrupt supplies to the point where normal life becomes impossible Unfortunately Ms Goldring: "The job is skilled and could not be done by troops, and the management engineers....could only provide a broken-backed operation.' Although the power of the railways 'is dwindling', and the shut down of industry would depend 'on the prudence of each factory's storage arrangements. she says successive governments have been advised not to risk it.
But Ms Goldring is not only a realist. She is also a deep-seated cynic and is quite prepared to accept that: "Local government strikes may Do smelly, gas and hospital strikes may government subsidies, grants and ional interest, of course.
council house rents go to pay interest on loans, and if large aminto the industry it will merely current crisis. Furthermore, this money will be taken from the pockets of working people.
But the Labour Government has done nothing to overcome these problems. And the construction union leaders simply indulge in pious hopes, writing in a recent issue of the UCATT paper Viewpoint: We shall be anxiously awaiting details of Government other essential structures." The results of 'anxiously awaiting' and reliance on the social contract are plain. Unemployment has to be fought.
drawing in other sections of the labour movement around a campaign against the cuts, particularly necessary in view of the scattered nature of the building industry.
Linking up with workers also fighting the cuts in health, education, ete. can be an important first step.
the demand for nationalisation of the industry and development The result social service. There ought to be no unemployment amongst building workers while social need By 1973 an income remains. A programme of socially emphasis on houses, schools and hospitals, is vitally necessary. If private industry cannot meet these needs, then it is the Government which must ensure that the resources of the industry and the skills of building workers are not wasted.
Pat Hickey (UCATT)
All that worries this adviser to the ruling class is 'how other unions would react to a deliberate government attempt to stand up to a strike in defence of incomes policy.' She knows that the thought is never far from the centre of Wilson's mind, and she candidly admits: "The Cabinet has a civil contingency committee to advise on which it is technically possible to stand up to...."
This article shows that the ruling TOT class and the Labour Government are deadly serious about imposing some form of incomes policy. Furthermore they are discussing with the civil servants and the military how they can break strikes in the key sectors.
Ms Goldring reveals knowledge of Government plans and intentions which is deliberately shielded from the labour movement. Once again we see how the right-wing members of the Wilson Cabinet have much more in common with the capitalist propagandists to whom they reveal their confidences than they have with the rank-and-file members of the workers movement.
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The building industry is now facing the biggest decline in activity since the Second World War. New orders in 1974 were 36 per cent down on the previous two years. Overall, 1973 was the