IF the effects of inflation are bad for most of the working class, they are disastrous for the low paid.
Everyone knows about the terrible situation of the pensioners and the unemployed. But what is not generally realised is how many workers get less than the much quoted "average" wage. The left-wing research group Counter Information Services, in its special report on the Heath Government, revealed that three-quarters of manual workers earned below the published average earnings.
BIASED
Moreover the official cost of living index a biased against the working class-and against the low paid in particular. This is because it loes not take into account how big a proportion of their income working class families have to spend on essentials such as bousing and food. For example it calculates that only 8.7% of net incomes is spent on rent. This would mean that a worker paying £5 a week rent sbould be receiving after tax and national insurance-E60 a week. This is clearly ridiculous, Millions of workers pay E5 a week rent but receive nothing ke a E60 a week income. This is just one reason y the TUC, or some other working class body cort of living Iwa for the working class. The employers he press are continually trying to turn se workers against the trade uniois.
Equally dangerous is the attempt by the aht wing within the trade union movement to arguments about the low paid to support working class measures such as an incomes cy. Tom Jackson of the Postal Workers, for ple, said on a television programme during • 16 May 1974 low paid worker ever receives a penny because a highly paid group is holding back. On the contrary, it has been the stronger groups of workers pusung ancao meat was pusacd up wages. The Financial Times calculated that the real income (wages after prices are taken into account) of a worker with two children, earning the average wage, fell by 0.6% in 1972-73 (when Phase 1 and Phase 2 were in operation), will tail by 1.4% in 1974, but rose by 7.6% following the miners victory in 1972.
Despite this Jackson's views do to some extent reflect a confusion into which weakly orgallised workets can fall when the strongly organised do not take up the problem of low pay. Some time ago the TUC did show some understanding of this by demanding a L25 minimum wage. Jack Jones comments on this in a recent article in Tribune: "It is intolerahle, for example, that millions of adult For full protection against inflation: a sliding scale of wages should be carning less than L25 per week, and in terms of its value today that must mean a bedrock minimum of C28 per week.
ACTION
Although Jones says this situation is "intolerable' he admits that 12 months after the TUC policy was laid down the situation is still the same! He still has no proposals for action. All he can say is that somebow the situation must be put right. This will get us nowhere. Action is needed to achieve a national minimum wago-a demand which can rally all low paid workers around the trade union move ment.
Jack Jones's figure is in fact too low. Two low paid unions, the farmworkers and' the seamen, have already come out for C40 for 40 hours. But even determined action for a E28 minimum wage would be better than the present inactivity.
By far the biggest section of the working cluss suffering from low pay is women workers. Five years ago the last Labour Government promised equal pay. But almost nothing bas been achieved. In 1972, for example, women earned, on average, less than two thirds of men's wages. In April 1973 che two million manual women workers curned an average gross wage of only E19.07. This is six poindr leas than the old TUC turget of a minimum wage of E25 for every worker. The situation has not got much better since either.
REACTIONARY
The failure of the trade unions to lake up demands on the oppression of women poses great dangers for the working class. It threatens to cut off a massive section of workers from the workers movement and split the working class family in two. These dangers can already be seen in the reactionary acts of some workers' wives in the Cowley dispute.
Of course, equal pay alone will not end the oppression of women. Free contraception and abortion on demand, twenty-four hour nurse and much more, are necessary. But equal pay is a vital step, and a serious fight for this deman will cement millions of women workers around the struggle of the trade unions.
For £40 a week minin
only provide complete compensation for the lower paid (who are least likely to be covered by threshold agreements!) For someone on the average industrial wage an increase of 40p for increase in the cost of living. The payment for each rise in the cost of living must be raised to Dive real compensation, At present, for someone on the average wage, this means an increase of at least 60p for every 15% increase in the cost Times, Tpere can be little doubt that the impending implementation of the cost of living threshold agreements is now one of the major worries in Whitehall.
The ruling class is even more terrified that