real income.
Yet still the wage-cutters of the Social Contract demand restraint. Last October, for example, Jack Jones decided that, we are not going back to a wage explosion or a free-for-all, but we are going to try to deal with the problem productivity and the necessary incentives make industry cient."
Since then the TUC, in collaboBritish Industry and the Government nave been nara allayne to find a formula for the planned ing' agreed at last September's Trades Union Congress.
'FLEXIBLE' For the TUC leadership a 'planned return to free collective bargaining' means instructing trade unionists to accept another year of pay cuts; but this time with a more flexible' limit on wage increases than the flat £6 limit of stage 1 the s per cent or stage finding this more "flexible' formula is proving more difficult than they would like.
Firstly the previous stages have resultea in a distortion or ine previous wage pattern. Most obvious is the narrowing of differenbe earning £70.14 by April 1977. But with the inflation rate remaining at 15 per cent, this £70.14 will be worth only £51.30 at April 1975 rates — a cut of about £10 a week in tials, which has led to a number of disputes, particularly in the car industry.
of LOW PAID effi- In addition, stages | and 2 have never beer consolidated into the basic rate of pay - thus those low paid workers depending on overtime and shift allowance for a decent wage packet have been hit extra hard.
Then the TUC has the problem that across-the-board leave no room for productivity dealing - something which the CBI particularly wants.
But the biggest problem of all faced by the purveyors of the working class is increasingly unable to see where the beners or like beavers' are to be found. Unemployment snows every sign of getting worse. The social services are coming under But the hammer. And inflation is not pay expected to fall below 15 percent before August, even according to the Governments own opuliste figures.
No wonder Jones is saying: *It we do not hold prices down we shall not be able to avoid strong Delegates at the Youth Campaign against Unemployment conference last Saturday vote unanimously their solidarity with Right to Work marchers facing jail sentences. The conference, organised by the LPYS did little else. Manipulation of the chair by Militant supporters did little either to aid the fight against unemployment or to make the case for defence of democracy in the Labour Party. the rises under wage pressure.
One thing is clear - the CBI will have to make concessions to Jones because tney nave no arternanve way of imposing wage cuts. They increases job by having the TUC hold back is memDers wages for tem The outcome of the current talks canner or course be orcalcice with certainty, but it is most likely to Is inal tne consist ora comonalion or a tal rate increase for arguing for £2 to £3 instead of the old £2.50 to f4 of stage 2), plus leeway for local productivity bargaining and regrading.
STRUGGLES
This is by no means an easy course for the Labour ment, however. It raises the possibility of creating a stream of local struggles for regrading, not only fighting for equal pay.
ony make ine best ora Dad IMPATIENCE all (Healey and Governthe wrong policies tract was that it did crease in real wages. nauve. SnIS index ca cuated low pay for women.
RICH PALSER by skilled workers losing differentials but also by lower paid workers. in particular women workers But despite the growing working Walll class impatience with the class collaboration of the Labour Governthe TUC, socialists should not run away with the idea that everything is getting back to 'normal'. In particular, we should avoid the approach of the Communist Party, who hope to exploit the growing discontent within the trade unions under the slogan of a return to free collective bargaining in order to convince left leaders like Scanion that they had Simply demanding 'free collecalternative set of policies are needca, because ine reason for une ini tial ready acceptance by many trade unionists of the Social Conhold out the prospect of an all-inclusive deal: something which would cover prices, unemployment, and an inALTERNATIVE This prospect has by now turned terribly sour: which is why the time is ripe for the left to offer its alterbeyond the simple demand of a a ternanve return to tree couccave barealing', beyond a reliance on mere militancy, ul it takes up a fight * An across-the-board increase for all workers to recover the loss in real wages under stages 1 and 2.
* Wages to be tied to rises in the cost of living, using a cost of living * Immediate implementation of the TUC minimum wage.
the rate or me oo - against
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INCOMES DATA SERVICES recently estimated that an "average worker' earning £60.80 a week in April 1975 will