made for resolving problems of pay relationships.
A pay structure arising from wage bargaining unregulated by the state i never rigid. A variety of circumstances operate to produce trequent shalts in the structure. Indeed, such shifts are essential for the smooth functoning of the capitalist exploitation of wage labour.
The report points to two arcas in which serious difficulties can ensue if provisions are not. made for a similar adjustment of wage relativitles under incomes policy. The first is labour shortages. The level of wages is a crucial factor in attracting labour into particular industries and jobs, and changes in demand for labour require adjustinent in relative wage levels, if Jabour shortages are not to develop. The current crisis in the public services- particularly in London -is a case in point.
The othet area which the board points to is the feeling of a particular group of workers as to the fairess of their pay, which, the Beard argues, is nearly always perceived in terms of relativities. Again, a variety of factors can alter the basis on which relativities are evaluated and the attitude of a group of workers towards the fairess' or otherwise of their wages.
For example, technological change can upbe upped accordingly to bring workers in line with others whose jobs require similar attributes. A system which is unable to make-these sorts of adjustments is hound to engender very bitter conflicts as groups of workers attempt to push for what they leel to he more just wapes. despite the wage limit imposed by law CONCEPT OF FAIRNESS In fact, this concept of "fairness" is a false one, It obviously has nothing to do with attacking exploitation under the capitalist wage system quite the opposite, it is designed to ensure its most trouble-free operation, The demand for 'a fair day's wage for a fair day's work is no more than a demand that the rate of exploitation should be uniform throughout the capitalist economy -a demand for eguality uf servitude. As Marx remarked more than 100 years ago, this miserable reformist slogan must be replaced by the revolutionary demand 'abolition of the wage system".
But the Pay Board's argument does strike a sound chord with the trade union bureaucrats Red Weekly 8 February 1974 Page 4
CHAPTER 9
pite its stance of oppesition to Tory wage controls, the TUC has left its options open on the Report. Is this just the beginning of an attempt to smuggle acceptance of the incomes policy in through the back door? Will the TUC and the Tories try to do a deal in which concessions are made to the miners in exchange for the TUC underwriting Phase 3 through cooperation in the procedures set out in the Relativities Report!
of 'Inirness" as a ceatral negotiating principle.
In the past this could be a successful bargainang device, giving rise to leap-frogging in wage negotiutions. One group of workers would negotiate big wage rises to marzow differentials and another would then argue for similar rises In restore differentials, all in the name of 'fair ness':
Such tactics were always potentially divisive and dangerous, But under a compulsory application of Phase 3 limits to group wages already serves to open up sharp divisions within groups who accept the Phase 3 rises, as they are forced to haggle over who gels what The relativities report proposes ro extend this principie of "divide and rule' by applying it to relations between different groups.
The basic idea is that a group could apply for # wage rise above the lepal limit, on thr ground that special faciors entille them to an adjustment of their relative position in the wages league table. To satisfy the conditions for such a rise they would bave to make a case that they were entitled to a rise which no other group of workers deserved.
SAFETY VALVE *The eascoce of a claim under the heading of relativities is that one group should move in relation to orhers' (author's emphasis). This is, of course, the logic of the 'special case which the TUC has swallowed completely in the case of the miners. The net effect of all this would be to channel the energies of the trade unions away from an attack on the principle of an incomes policy and towards lighting The Relativities Report is based solidly on the Tories' counter-inflation policy. Desamong themselves over the division of the total sum that the incomes policy allots them.
The relativities mechanism is also a useful safety valve to permit concessions to any puwerful group of workers, without allowing a hole to be punched in the policy through which the rest of the trade union movemeat cun march. The idra of 'fairness', in the language of the Pay Board, is barely distinguishable from the idea of bargaining power: The board suggests that .. The main concern should be with the possibilities of achieving significant shifts in rolativities for cases usually affecting considerable numbers of employees which are of importance to the community as a whole.
But problems of fairness in pay relativities could equally well arise among a small group of very limited importance to the community as a whole' (for which read 'the ruling class"), University of Warwick: IRISH FORTNIGHT Monday 11 February (7.30 pm): Public meeting, 'The present situation and the from the National Council for Civil Liberties.
Wednesday 20 February (7.30 pm): Public forum, 'Have the Provisionals advanced the struggle for national liberation and socialism in Ireland?' Speakers from Sinn Fein, International Marxist Group, Communist Party, Clann na h'Eireann, and IS ALL AT THE UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK, COVENTRY report, precisiy hecause it is nothing less than the sugur-coated tip of the Phase 3 iceberg.
If the trade union movement accepts the relativities report, it is then on record urging anions who are unbappy abour Phase 3's impact to go for a relativities claim, rather than oppose the incomes policy as such. This may lead to concessions for some workers fit certainly would for the miners), but only at the expense of others. The working class as a whole would be more firmly imprisoned than ever within the Phase 3 trap.
If the Government is able to weather the national reiners" strike for any length of time or if the union bureaucrats ger worried about the scule of the striple against the Tories, the TLC is almost cercain to buy the Taries' relati ities scheme, No macter how it is dressed up. this would be a colossal betraya and a serious defeat for the workers" novement An immediate programine of explanatior ahout the nature of the Pay Board's proposal: must be undertaken througbour the trade unsen movement, and resciations passer calling for unconditional rejection of the relativities report, and any machinery connecled with an incomes policy under capitalism.
There as one sure way of making it impossilh for the TUC to engineer such a deal. Every group of workers who have a claim that goes against Phase 3. or are dissatisfied with their Phase 3 rise, should join the miners, in a massiv united onslaught on the Tories' pay policy. The there will be no special case to bargain over.
CARL OWEN tasks of the Provisionals. Speaker: Seamus Loughran, Belfast Provisional Republican. Thursday 14 February (1.00 pm): Public meeting, "Repression and the law'. Speaker
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grade the skill and training required in a particul: incomes poly they become disastrous The at job, and give rise to feelings that wages should