detail.
(CHRIS BALFOUR Such an agreement will simply be another means of achieving the same ends as Phase 3-the holding down of wages so that the working class is forced to bear the brunt of the coonomic crise into which British capitsIsm is dragging us.
No complex new law was needed to make Phase 3 a dead letter, simply a public declaration by Foot that he would use hs authority as a Minster to rubber-stamp any settlement that came before the Pay Board, as he did with the miners. The Labour Party and the TUC, If they had wanted to snash Phas 3, could easily have mobilled the mass of workers to nip the Parliamentary manoeuvres of the opposition parties in the bud through mass demonstrations and the threat of a general strike.
But Foot did exactly the opposite. He promised, like a faithful servant, not to use hs powers asa minster except in truly exceptional circumstances and instructed thom workers who had already settled under Phase 3 that they must swallow the bitter pill once-and-for-all.
The task of militantsin the months ahead will be to give Mr. Foot his truly exceptional circumstances*-through truly exceptional struggle.
Millions of worker have already seen their paypeckets eaten away by rising prices under the Tory pay laws. Next year prices (despite Labour's souped-up Prices Connision and food subsidies) will shoot up even faster.
Under such circumstances the Government had for the workers movement on Monday. With the active connivance of the TUC bureaucrats, Labour has decided to keep this hated piece of Tory legislation in foroe until a voluntary agreement on wage restraint can be worked out in ruling class cannot seriously expect to avoid massstruggles. But what they want is an agreement between the Labour Government and the TUC to ensure that such struggles are denied official union backing.
In this way they hope to solate and localise the militant sectionsof the cia si,so that they can then be ha minered into submission by the boses, with the support of the police and the courts.
Old trade union lefts' never diethey simply go into hibernation when the struggle hotsup. Sure enough, rumblings have recently been heard from the grave of Hugh Scanion.
He is now talking about a struggle for the national engineers claim, whether it is within Phase 3 or not?
This rejuvenated militancy pales a little when we recall that Scanion. just before the election, was busy assuring all and sundry that the engineers' claim did fall within Phas If Scanion really wants to try and dress up asa militant once again he should come out for the fuil claim including immediate equal pay and a 35-hour week (which is certainly not within Phase 3)-und not just the wages half. Moreover, he should call for a national engineering struggle to actually win the claim, instead of indulging in the ah surd shadow-boxing of an overtime ban.
Regardless of what Scanion gets up to, these must be the aims of militants in the engineering industry.
Other workers must aso push forward wage claims that make up for past hardship and meet their present needs. But in order thatsuch struggles can succeed, moves must be Barricades at Essex University. This too & part of the struggle to defend picketing. E sexstudents are in urgent need of solidarity from the student and trade union movementsin their fight against repression by both the University authorities and the police. See page 8 for fulf story made to overcome the treachery of the TUCand the Labour Party.
of all the additional weapons they Labour promises. But all challenges to the right to picket must abo be broken: all anti-picketing laws must leading to indefinite strike action, must be got under way immediately to attain these objectives, mounted inside the unionsto block the preparation of voluntary' wage restraint, Coming together around der capitalism, all trade unionists must condemn the TUCk capitulation over Phase 3 and demand recall conferences of their own union and of the TUC to stop any further sellout moves over wages.
that goes into struggle-for decent wages, against redundancies, or whatever-must be able to count on and-file of the workers' movement, no matter what rotten tricks the of militantsare urgently necded in every area to organise such support.
class hope to turn the electoral defeat of the Tory Government into a real working class victory, and ensure that it sinterestsare protected from the attacks of the capitalist class.
First, the boses must be deprived have acquired under the Tories, The Industrial Relations Act must go, as be ended, and all the picketson trial at Shrewsbury must be pardoned and set free. A campaign of mass action, Second, a ma save protest must be the theme of No incomes policy unFinally, every group of workers the active support of the entire rankbureaucrats pull. Action Comittees year.
Only in this way can the working