As we go to press this week the Trades Union Congress is opening at the Opera House in Blackpool. It will provide the final curtain raiser for the slashing attacks on living standards that the Wilson Government will carry out over coming months. With £6 limit likely to be endorsed by at least seven en the left in the past few months.
First there was the Common Market referendum, which prepared the ground for sacking Benn from the Department of Industry; then the announcement of the Healey measures and. the TUC's acceptance of them; and finally the outcome of the miners ballot, after Wilson's personal intervention at the NUM Conference. Even so, the NUM executive recommendation had to omit all mention of the f6 limit and the Healey measures to gain even a three to two majority.
Desperate to gain the maximum support at the TUC for Wilson's anti-working class policies, Jack Jones, general secretary of the Transport and General Workers Union, has sunk to an all-time low. Realising that the argument that unemployment will grow if the £6 limit is breached may wear a bit thin as unemployment climbs to the 1½ million mark, Jones is preparing a new line of attack. He has now resorted to the plea that breaking the £6 limit will bring down the Labour Government with little prospect of it winning the next election. Yet it is precisely Wilson's policies that are leading Labour to electorial disaster.
MILITANT'
So policies which would never be accepted under a Tory Government are now rorcea on une labour movement by this former 'left' who at the same time tries to put a 'militant gloss on the £6 limit by saying it is an entitlement and not the upper limit announced by the Government.
Jones attempts to maintain his 'left' image by declaiming to pensioners on Blackpool sands that they should receive half the national average wage on retirement. However, if his own policies are successful, half the national average wage will soon be worth next to nothing.
Even The Times editorial writers were forced to let the cat out of the the bag: The six pound policy has not hurt anyone yet: it became effective only a month ago. In nine or ten months many workers will know to their cost how far six pounds will fall short of maintaining living standards ' (1 September).
Five thousand outfitting and ancillary workers on strike for eight weeks at Swan Hunter ship-yards in Newcastle have already found out out. Two weeks ago the Department of Employment intervened to make it clear that even Swan's paltry offer of £3.50 - the workers are demanding £8.30 plus another £2 in November - is ruled out by the pay policy rule insisting on a 12-month gap between settlements. The Wilson Government is insisting that the strikers can only have 55p!
BACKSTABBING After the failure of the local bureaucrats to break the strike Len Murray pitched in last week. He said: "I am sure everyone in the shipbuilding industry in the region wants to see this lengthy dispute settled, but it must be within the limits so far as l am concerned?
The back-to-work lobby has also gained the support of Bro. Arnold, million votes to three, this will complete the series of tactical victories that Wilson has scored over Swan Hunter workers - on strike for a pay increase above the £6 limit - leave a mass meeting after voting to stay out. The Government says that under the 12month gap rule they can only have 55p! Secretary of the local Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions, and a full-time official of the AUEW. The AUEW is supposed to be opposed to the £6 limit, but it has done nothing to mobilise support for the Swan's strikers who are actually fighting it.
The same warped logic will be shown at this week's TUC by the leaders of the 550,000-strong National Union of Public Employees. A 5,000 word statement by the Union's executive says the present pay policy would mean unem-. ployment and cuts in public expenditure, threatening real living standards, job security and working conditions, particularly for NUPE members. But Alan Fisher, General Secretary of NUPE, says that although they are opposed to the Government's pay policy they will abide by the majority decision at the end of the TUC economic debate.
It is precisely the failure of the "lefts' in the unions and the Labour Party to campaign against the Government's wage-cut plans and for the removal of the Wilson leadership which is preparing the grounds for further attacks on the living standards and organisation of the working class.
Monday saw the start of the trial of 10 pickets arrested at the Eldon Square site in Newcastle last January. At the same time a court order has been issued against 11 nicPhoto: RAY SMITH (IFL)
ets fighting for their jobs at Cammell Laird's, Birkenhead, barring them from their picket line for six weeks If those unions opposing the £6 limit are serious, they should immediately organise campaigns in defence of these pickets and in support of the Swan Hunter workers who are fighting Wilson's wage-cuts, as part of a campaign to defeat the Government's capitalist policies and remove the Wilson leadership of the Labour Party.
James Drake The Defence Committee for the Eldon Square pickets is holding daily pickets starting at 10am outside Newcastle Crown court tor the curaton ore mas watca opened on 1 September. The Crown Court is at the Newcastle end of the High Level Bridge near the Bridge Hotel.
Meetings in factories in the area are being arranged by the Defence Committee including one at the massive Vickers-Elswick works. The opening of the trial of Rob Henderson, charged with assault among other offences, showed what the ten are up against. One witness called by the police was an inspector who had sat in court all day. Police also talked to ute jurors un the canteen at lunchume. An "independent inquiry' is meant to be looking into these 'events".
Next week Red Weekly will be carrying a fuller report on the Defence Committee s plans for the campaign and tne significance of the new attacks on picketing. Further details of the campaign from: Eddie Brady, 86 Benwell Lane, Newcastle 15 (0632-32365)