FIGHT TO RECALL Forty thousand sackings in the steel industry; Chrysler's future still uncertain but at least 9,000 jobs to go; secret plans to cut rail track mileage from 11,000 to 4,000 miles over the next five years; a Cabinet agreement to slash public spending by £3 billion by 1978-79.
On every front last weeksocial services - the right to work took a hammering. One in twenty of all working people are without a job. By this time next year the figure could:
be one in ten. Even Bill Sirs, general secretary of the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation, has described the British Steel Corporation's proposals as a return to 'the harsh position of the 1930s when the employers ruled Discontent But faced with this chronic unemployment situation, the TUC have responded like sheep in sheep's clothing. Len Murray issued a warning that the wages policy of the Government might be endangered if unemployment continues at present levels. But he hastened to add that in the TUC's recent talks with the Government "we did not ask for a consumption-led boom, and Mr Healey stressed that the (coming) package would not lead to a massive reduction in unemployment.
In fact it has been the TUC's policing of the f6 limit that has not only cut living standards but helped to demobilise the fight for the right to work But even the TUC is now uncertain whether it can keep the lid on for very much longer. The 20,000 strong jobs demonstration on 26 November was a powerful reminder of the simmering discontent that lies just below the this concerns Our cost cutting efforts are still not enough. Expenditure exceeds income by over £300 million and we are borrowing money to pay wages and other bills, Next year looks no better The only remaining way of reducing our mounting losses is a massive cut in labour costs.
This is the issue to be resolved when the unions meet management on December IL.
The ultimatum posted on the notice boards of steelworks through the country.
Next day the BSC demanded 40,000 sackings.
This is why Murray issued his 'warning' to the Government last week. An open sell-out would endanger his own position. But the measures he asked for were import controls, a steel stockholding scheme, job creation measures. relaxation of HP restrictions, a little aid for the construction industry, and the introduction of an investment reserve scheme.
What will be the Government's response? Some import controls will be introduced: Their effect on unemployment will be nil, transferring unemployment from one industry to another because the resulting higher prices in these sectors will mean workers have less to spend on other goods. At the same time import controls will sow the reactionary illusion that unemployment can be fought by off-loading it onto the backs of foreign workers.
Job creation schemes? So far these have meant putting lads on low paid work clearing waste land, or driftwood off Sunderland beach. Aid for the construction industry? That envisaged by the TUC will hardly have any impact on a situation where 300,000 building workers are expected to be unemployed by next winter. Investment schemes? Well, it is the Government which has promoted the current investment strike at British Leyland - in the public sector, private industry, and the