The TUC, with Jack Jones in the lead, is stepping up its efforts to head off the growing working class opposition to the pro-capitalist policies of the Wilson Government. manoeuvres is the new Social Contract proposal of Jones, whereby no trade unions would be allowed to negotiate wage increases greater than £10 across the board.
a wife and two children and earning £42 a week at present - which is close to the average wage for a manual worker - receives roughly £37.20 after tax. After tax a £10 increase in pay would mean a real take home increase of E6.50 — roughly 15 per cent. With prices having risen by 25 per cent in the last year - and threatening to rise even faster - such an increase means a massive cut in living standards. Only an increase in wages of around £15 would keep a worker on this wage up with the cost of living.
MASSIVE UNEMPLOYMENT
As for the suggestion that Jones's proposed increase is adequate because inflation will drop to less than 15 per cent, this is simply a straightforward lie. In fact every at a rate of at least 20 - 25 per cent throughout this year. A Social Contract with an open wage-cutting face is what the TUC is now putting forward. Worse still, this is to be accepted in the face of massively rising unemployment and huge social expenditure cuts.
Getting an agreement on a renewed Social Contract is vital for Wilson. If the Government simply attempts to introduce a compulsory incomes policy without trade union agreement, it will meet gigantic resistance. This fight back would not merely defend the living standards of the working class, but it would spell the beginning of the end of Wilson's leadership of the Labour Party. If the TUC accepts a further Social Contract, however, this will applear to concede that wages are responsible for the crisis, will demoralise sections of the working class as they see their leaders accepting wage cuts, and will leave Wilson unchallenged in the leadership of the Labour Party. By these means Wilson can prepare the way for a further compulsory incomes policy and unemployment if even the TUC enforced wage cuts are not sufficient for the demands of capitalism.
ATTACK ON LABOUR LEFT ards of the working class. It is quite clear that Wilson used the negotiations over the Social Contract to help carry through his attack on the Labour left in the Government reshuffle. If the trade union leadership had clearly opposed the changes, Wilson would have faced working class opposition in a situation where even the trade union bureaucracy and Labour left opposed him. But because Jones and company wanted to try to wheel and deal with Wilson, and because Wilson undoubtedly told them that they had to agree to a wage-cutting Social Contract or there would be a coalition and even greater unemployment, the trade union bureaucrats accepted the Government changes.
Jones beforehand. what the trade union bureaucracy wants, was discredited by taking Jones's advice to accept an alternative Ministry.
Wilson, of course, greets au this with laughter. His negotiations on the Social Contract not merely allow him to see a way to cut the living standards of the working class, but they allow him to weaken even his opponents in the Labour, left. The Labour left and trade union bureaucracy, because they are unable clearly to oppose Wilson and the Social Contract - indeed they are the main supporters of the Social Contract - cannot even defend themselves, let alone the working class.
The real alternative to the Social Contract begins to become clear when it is realised that if thresholds had still been in existence they would have been triggered 16 times since last November. At 40p a time that would mean mean an increase of £6.40. At the 70p a time which is really needed to defend wages it would mean £11.20. Instead of the Social Contract, the unions should be demanding a sliding scale of wages which gives automatic cost of living increases against inflation and for across the board increases on top of this.
FIGHT FOR WILSON'S REMOVAL On employment there is a tremendous shortage of houses, schools and hospitals, yet well over 120,000 building workers are on the dole. An emergency programme of useful public works is needed against unemployment. As for firms which sabotage the productive forces through redundancy - and that is what laying off workers is — they should be nationalised without compensation and under workers control. As there is no chance that Wilson will accept such policies, he must be removed from the leadership of the Labour Party as part of the fight for these policies.
unions should be campaigning for a programme of action to maintain living standards and defend the right to work. Instead of propping up Wilson, the unions should be fighting for his removal from the leadership of the Labour Party. tract in its existing and new forms.
The centre of these new This proposal is a clear demand for wage cuts. For example, someone with economic forecast shows that inflation will still be raging But what is at stake over the Social Contract is not simply the living stand There is no doubt that Wilson discussed these changes with Furthermore Benn, whose whole policy is based on doing Instead of shifting the burden of the capitalist crisis onto the workers, the To fight for these policies needs a clear rejection of the Social ConAs the NUR prepare for their first national strike since the 1926 General Strike, the Labour Gov