of Plessey and other employers shows what is in store.
take extreme action.
In this situation it is vital that militants understand what the TUC is up to with the new proposals it has recently maue and how its policies can be combatted and reversed.
SELL-OUT
Even before the election the TUC sold out the fight against Phase 3. It has taken every opportunity since to put this sell-out into practice.
The circular sent out by Len Murray on this is quite unambiguous: "The general pattern of settlements which has been established in recent months should continue for the present period' (ie within Phase 3). Murray spelt this out still more clearly at the APEX conference when be said: There will be no more "special This complete retreat on the principle of incomes policy is reaffined in the latest TUC proposals drawn up two weeks agg. But in these latest proposals the TUC has even gone beyond acceptance of Phase 3, agreeing to the Confederation of British Industry's demand that no wage settlements in any industry should be made within twelve months of the last one. This means no re-negotiation of Phase 3 settlements, and no putting in of new chims as soon as Phase 3 expires. This is capitulation to the Tory incomes policy with a vengeance.
What this amounts to, when couplto with the TUC's other proposals, is that the TUC is allowing the Labour Government to impose a cut in the living standard of the working class.
TUC says paper that wages should be allowed to rise to keep up with price increases. In fact, the working class is entitled to expect a rising, not just a stationary, standand of living. But apart from this, the TUC proposals are just whitewash for what they have really accepted.
This year prices will go up anywhere between 15 and 25%, With employers are adopting a tougher and toughet attitude. The refusal of British Leyland to pay threshold rises, and the resistance Meanwhile the Confederation of British Industry continues to utter threats, It has said that if its profits are not-protected it will taxation cutting into wage increases, pay has to go up much taster than that to keep up with inflation. Even at the present rate of price increases (and the pace is going to get faster) the Guardian newspaper has calculated the following: wages are lagging well behind the cost of living. The earnings index for April was 12.2 per cent above the level 12 months before, while the retail price index has now risen more than 15 per cent. It is generully acknowledged that earnings must increase 20 per cent faster than prices to keep level because of the effects of increasing tax and National Insurance contributions, so earnings would now need to reach 18%% above a year ago to keep up." In other words the working class's standard of living is already falling.
With inflation still speeding up it mcans that to keep up with prices wages have to go up this year by between 25 and 30 per cent. The TUC is not proposing anything like those types of pay increases.
As for threshold agreements, while it is important to win them, they do not, in their present form, give complete protection. First, they do not take into account taxation — which is why the 'indexation proposals of some bourgeois 'experts" (that is increases for each 1% increase in prices) are such a fiddle. Second, they are based on an anti-working class cost of living index. Third, they only sturt afler prices bave already risen by a certain percentage, which means that not all wages are covered. Fourth, the 40p increases are too small to make up for inflation.
LOW-PAID
The latest TUC proposals com pletely sell the low-paid and women workers down the river. The TUC has made some noises about a £25 minimum wage, but even this they do not seem to be proposing should be made compulsory by law which makes the whole thing useless, In any case f25 is far too low of this, but it doesn't propose that it he mude compulsory now, and it doesn't even name a date when it should be in the future. Neither does it propose any way of combatting the thousands ol re-gradings, re-classifications of jobs, and other fiddles which employers are using to try to avoid giving equal pay and decent wages to women workers.
But while the TUC is retreating, there are some good demands coming out of the union conferences and the wages struggle is hotting up. The London NALGO and teachers'strug gles have shown real militancy, The decision of the NALGO conferenoe to overtun the executive decision on calling off the London struggle was hotted up with the occupation of the Plessey factory in Beeston in the lead. Not one singie claim adopted at a union conference would fall within the TUC's proposed guidelines.
But despite the beginnings of a fight-back, there are still big dangers. It is obvious that, quite apart from the resistance of the employers, the TUC, the Labour Govetament and most union leaderships are going to subotage any real fight to protect working class wages. This means militants have to wage a real fight to ensure that a real struggle is put up for the clims, that the most effective methods of struggle are used in fightto ensure that the widest possible unity is achieved in struggle Fortunately the clements of a policy that can overcome these dangers are corning out in the struggle. It is possible to see in practice the beginnings of a fighting programme which can unite the working class against the employers, the State, and the bureaucracy. As for equal pay, the TUC.talks On equal pay the correct position was taken by the AUEW Nations] Committee when it resolved that the Equal Pay Act could not be relied on to gain equal pay and other action must be taken. This can pruvide the basis for a campaign of industrial action in engineering and other industries for equal pay. The victory won at the North London Lencheries factory shows what can be won on this front Very important here is the cam puign which is petting up steam around the Working Women's Charter proposed by the London Trades Council. Hackney and other Trades Councils are holding conferences around this. There are also moves afoot to call a national conference of trade union organisations around the Charter in the mutumn. A day of national industrial action for equal pay, to tie together existing developments and start a real cam-
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Goods Entrant AS THE PAY FIGHT HOTS UP, IT IS CLEAR THAT THE
a real black eye for the bureaucracy. The threshold strugale has really