The first major threat to the Government and TUC leaders' wage cut policy was diverted over the weekend when the executive of the National Union of Seaman voted against immediate strike action and decided instead to hold a ballot on the present offer. The offer means that the scandalously. low basic rate of 85p an hour will be frozen until the New Year.
This proposed freeze takes place despite an apparent willingness by the shipowners to pay an immediate £6 a week rise now, and even a judgement by the Advisory Conciliation and Arbitration Service which the NUS interpreted as supporting its case. Apart from the Government itself, the only organisation which has opposed the NUS claim is the TUCwhich acting in its now usual role of the Labour Government's snivelling lap-dog told the NUS that it couldn't get its paltry £6 a week rise.
The NUS general secretary, Jim Slater, who says that his claim is within the pay guidelines, has explained this TUC rejection as due to a lack of knowledge and foresight'. He argues that the TUC simply don't understand the justice of the NUS claim -after all, Slater himself has described the 4½ per cent pay policy as 'wellintentioned".
With such remarks it is hardly surprising that the NUS executive voted against strike action, and even if a majority of the members rejéct the present offer, the wording of the ballot is such that strike action may not follow. All the executive are asking is for an opinion on whether there should be industrial action 'in a manner to be decided by the executive; and the signs are that such action would be restricted to an overtime ban.
Despite these damaging limitations, it is obvious that the NUS ballot does offer at least a minimal opportunity to challenge the pay policy. But such a challenge will have little prospect of success as long as the leadership of the NUS argues in the context of the social contract, rather than against it; and as long as Jim Slater waffles around complaining that his claim is becoming a "political issue'.
Of course it is a political issue, and in this sense the NUS claim is important for all trade unionists. Sadly the lessons of the claim so far are all rather negative-negative, in that arguing in terms of the social contract, arguing that the national executive cannot make decisions on strike action, and arguing that the claim should not be seen as "political' all open the door to division and defeat rather than the fighting unity which is necessary to win the claim.
Tom Marlowe