side the offices of the National Union of Teachers. The three, all members of Wandsworth Teachers Association, face disciplinry charges ofter disturSances at a miss meeting in Central Hall, Westminster, which was held in the middle of the teachers' struggle oner the London Allowance. For further Picture shots the Wandsworth Three Chrysler workers at Ryton in Coventry won a left to right, Eric Porter, Fred Scott and Fred Whiteley Stoke engine plant, cutting off supplies to at a picket held on their behalf Inst Saturday out• few days later Chrysler were forced to ember to March) was the first stage of a strategy not against inflation but for reducing reul wages and raising profits. The figures are now available to assess in detail how it worked. During the five months of the freeze wage rates went up by about 1.5 per cent and money earnings (mainly due to an increase in overtime working and a reduction in short time) rose by 2.8 per cent. Retail prices in the same period shot up by 44 per cent. So, in terms of the workers' average living stundards, real basic rates fell by almost 3 percent and real earnings by about 1.6 percent.
Since most inflation during the freeze resulted from soaring food prices it was the lower paid workers who suffered most. The contrasts be tween different industries are also quite mark. ed. In the first four months of the freeze reu! average earnings went up in the following industries: food, drink and tobacco (+6.5 per cent), metal manufacture (+2.9) and construe tion (+2.0). But in nearly all the rest they went down: especlally in transport and communications (-3.6), paper and printing (-1.9), mining and quarrying (-2,1), chemicals (-3.0) and rehicles (-5.9).
PROFITS SURGE The result of this decline in real wages, along with a sharp rise in productivity and output, was a tremendous surge in profits, though leas than the Tories intended owing to the unprec edented rise in raw material costs The share of profits in the total money value of home pro duction, which was halved between 1964 and 1970 and then static up to the end of 1972, leapt up sharply in the first quarter of 1973 (from 10.4 per cent in 1972 to 11.8 per cent un the first quarter of this year).
April, the first month of Phase 2 of the wage laws, was the cruellest so far for average living standards. Basic wage rates went up 2 per cent as the pre-freeze agreements were implemented But the rise in earnings was only 0.6 per cent while prices went up by almost 2 per cent.
It looks as if the rest of Phase 2 will continue the same way. The formula for permissible wage increases (El plus 4 per cent) would give an averuge rise of 6.8 per cent a your; and the rate of inflation in the last three months has been neurly 14 percent a year. If that contanues it will produce a really tremendous decline In living standards over the coming months.
Thew are the economie results of the policy in which the trade union leaderships have reluctantly acquiescod".
This mixture of rising prices and falling real wagus can only produce the feast of profits for which the capitalists mouths are watering, for so long as the present rapid growth of output goes on. But further deterioration in the balance of payments (the May trade figures were once again the worst ever) and more gloomy prognostications for the world econ omy make this increasingly problematic There is, therefore, no prospect of looser wage control under Phase 3. And this is confirmed by the CBI's two demands in the tripartite Lalks: for the continuation of satutory control of wages and the complete ending of regula tions on prolit margins.
POSTSCRIPT: The efforts of Hill Samuel and Slater Walker to merge into the largest mer chant induscrial bank in the country (analysed in this column two weeks ago) bave failed. The deal was called off, they say, because of fund amencal differences in work-slyle and personality'But capitalists get together to make profits not love. And the declining share prices of both Gems since the merger was announced bestirs to a luck of confidence in the earning power of the merger. The principle feur was probably that entry to the respertable Issuing Hous Committee, of which Hill Samuel Is a member might have led to more scruting of the rutbless asset stripping methods which have made Slater Walker so profitable. Both companies are now again on the lookout for other oppor tunities to merge themselses out of their respective problems.
Alistair Bucharan Michici Price