backs of the working class. Using the miners' settlement asan excuse, the Electricity Council is calling for a price rise over and above the 30 per cent already applied for. This will be the fourth on the railwaymen, powerand many other workers for rises similar to the 10 keep just ahead of inflthe Labour Government is the big stick. Chancellor y has threatened massive ployment at a time when 500,000 are already on the doleincrease of 20 percent since November.
The Government's favourite left' Michael Foot, fresh from his triumph in South Wales (see centre pagra), has echoed Healey's threat. He warned that it settlements follzand the pattern set by the miners* deal, "all the warnings on unempl yment and the economy generally, which Mr Denis Healey has recently would come true? (Financial Timer, 15/2/75). THE LABOUR GOVERNMENT is unloading another round of massive price increases onto the ne in electricity prices in tweive months, affecting a basic item of every worker's living a pint, butter and cheese by five pence a pound. We can be sure that the hacks of the will somehow manage to blame these increases on the miners! Yet in January alone retail • rose by 2.6 per cent, the second highest monthly total on record. In the past three months annual rate of inflation has been a staggering 25.9 per cent!
Waving the battered remains of the social contract, he argued that comparability of pay levels was not recognised as a reason for "spec Fal' pay rises under the TUC's wage guidelines, This is of central importance for the railwaymen and power workers, whose wage rates are now far below the 41 a week that miners on the surface will be carning, and with which their wages are usually comparable.
Foot is also putting the boot in on threshold agreements. The social contract is based on the claim that in return for self-denial by the more powerful sections of the workers movement, wages of the weaker sections will be defended against inflation and the social services improved. Yet public sector employers including the National Coal Board, are now being instructed to stand butter and cheese prices will all rise again in the next few weeks — milk by a which could provide permanent protection against inflation.
of the Labour Government to introduce some form-of statutory ment should launch the fight for a "nil-norm" threshold.
complete protection to all those living on wages and state benefits against every increase in the cost of living. could have opened the road for the weaker sections of the movement by campaigning for such a deal to be part of their final settlement. James Drake