If their struggles wore united into one centralised offensive they would easily defeat the government and the employers. But at present they are all going into action separately This was the recipe for disaster that defeated the gus workers, the hospital workers, the Manchester engineers, the post office workers and many others. In the face of a centralised ruling class attack the working class response must be a centralised one.
The best form of this would be a general strike. Ten million workers united together would smash through any wages law and soon put an end to the Tory government as well. But the TUC has consistently refused to take up this most effective way of dealing with the situation. This does not make it wrong to demand that the TUC call a general strike, indeed the demand for a recal TUC Congress on Phuse 3 to call a general strike must be put forward but it does mean that it has to be understood that the trade union leadership will not carry through an effective struggle against the goverument.
Militants have to work for other ways of coordinating the working class atluck. Already steps are being taken in this direction in some areas. Miners and engineers are actively discussing how to unite their struggles. In London. the District Council of ASLEF and the busmen's delegate conference have voted in favour of joint action. Local conterences have been held in some areas to discuss how to co-ordinate the struggles. These steps are particularly tra drew in the waaker mountal workers Firemen's strike showed the way a democratic the union bureaucracy and smash through the pi economic probiers that British capitalism has created, and at the same time suggested that some compromise is possible, even in the present crisis. These talks led completely away from the urgent task of prepuring the inevitablo struggle. It was obvious even to the blind that a massive controntation-not a cosy Tea-room chat-was on the order of the day It is quite possible, as the showdown cores closer. that the government will try to reopen the talks as a diversion from the struggle. The nast performance of the TUC suggests that they will walk quite cagerly into this trap Trade union militants must prepare to cumPaign vigorously against any attempt to renew the TUC-Government talks However the danger of renewed TUC-Government talks are only one of the threats to the little independence that trade unions still have under the law. Both the Industrial Relations Act and the idea of an incomes policy are powerful weapons in the bunds of the ruling class.
The recent 100,000 fine imposed on the AUEW in the Con-Mech cuse, and the decision that the T&G must pay compensation, which may amount to even more, in the GAS case. represent a major stepping up of legal attack on the trade unions. This puts paid to the burcaucrats" dream that the Jimited mobilisation by the TUC against the Industrial Relations dat the relucal to register under