Len Murray says 'cool it', but British Leyland stewards are going ahead with a plan to launch an all-union campaign against any new round of incomes policy. Ford shop stewards will probably join the campaign after their April council meeting in Coventry, and 7,000 Corby steel workers have made a similar call. The AUEW National Committee looks likely to endorse the position of the union's North-East District and reject a further round of incomes policy, while the deep discontent revealed by the 46 per cent vote against the retirement deal in the miners' ballot speaks for itself.
The main danger is that the opposition to incomes policy will be conducted around erosion of differentials, isolating low paid workers, especially women. The best way to prevent this is by building the widest support for the Leyland stewards' initiative on the basis of demands that can unify the whole of the working class against incomes policy - such as automatic compensation for intlation.
AGAINST UNEMPLOYMENT Jack Jones says 'don't jump the gun', but a national one-day docks strike against the closure of Preston docks and the loss of 450 jobs seems likely to go ahead; redundancies in the telecommunications industry are beginning to be fought by the one-day strike and lobby on 14 February.
But the continuing struggle by the Sheffield engineers against redundancies announced by Edgar Allen is the best example of how two million unemployed can be tought.
AGAINST THE CUTS