BRITAIN CONTINUES TO RISE
By John Walters
London
As a Christmas bonus for sundry foreign bankers, City brokers and all those who have been urging the need for more discipline for the workers, the figures for unemployment were announced December 22 by the Ministry of Labour. The total of jobless now stands at 601,771 (November's total was 541,585). This figure is for the whole of the British Isles. including Northern Ireland.
This is 2.4% of the working population, but in certain regions the figure is higher. In Northern Ireland the figure is 7.4%, meaning that one family in fourteen is now affected. In Scotland it is 4.6%.and in Wales 3.9%. Such regions have had'a persistent record of lagging behind the rest of the country in the economic upswings, and are the-first to register recessions. This time it is’ no different despite claims by the Labour government to have protected these special regions.
Had these figures been available at the December 3 conference in London called by the Liaison Committee for the Defence of Trade Unions there is no doubt that the organisers would not have been able to get away with merely verbalising the opposition; they would have been forced to recommend concrete actions.
Many of the speeches by the delegates were far more militant and forthright than was reflected in the ultimate statement adopted. The "Declaration of Purpose" called for a campaign of opposition to the wage freeze, unemployment and state intervention into trade-union rights. However, little in the way of practical activities were suggested to. implement these very worthy sentiments.
Without doubt the limitations. of the platform were due to the influence of the delegates adhering to the Communist party, who had a large role in organising the conference. But it would be sectarian stupidity to see this conference merely as a Stalinist jamboree as the leaders of the Socialist Labour League picture it. The -.. delegates whose views reflected or coincided with those of the SLL merely succeeded in isolating themselves from the bulk of the delegates by their strident denunciations of Frank Cousins and other leaders of the left in the Labour party as being the main enemy. In so doing they helped the opportunists on the platform to. carry the day..
Nevertheless, the conference, attended by some 350 delegates from all over the country, was representative of a wide cross section of shop-floor militants and indicative of their mood. Far from losing heart, they are in good spirit for the battles ahead. The biggest need shown by the conference is for a programme of transitional demands to unify and raise the level of the present struggles and lead then. on to the. road of revolutionary socialism.
Closely following on the conference came some. hostile reactions by trade-union officials to a series of government actions.
On December 16 it was announced that a five-Shilling a week pay rise due to three million engineers on March 3, 1967 would be frozen. The increase was part of a threeyear “package deal" negotiated in 1964 by the Amalgamated Engineering Union. Hugh Scanlon, a member of the Executive Council, commented: "This shows the inability of the Government to predict the state of the economy under capitalism for six months, let alone three years. This is a warning not to.repeat the mistake of the much criticised package deal." The latter part of the comment was aimed at the right-wing boss of the AEU, Sir William Carron, who represented the union in the negotiations.
On the same day it was announced that a pay award for 56,000 electricians had been postponed from January to March. The Electrical Trades Union’ S general secretary, Frank Chapple (a former Stalinist who is now very right-wing) said that his Executive was "bound to take a very serious view" of the postponement. For the ETU this is strong talk indeed, since. this. union has been one of the most ardent supporters of the governnent's policies and of close cooperation with the employers since it became right-wing dominated. . ;
Along with these wage freezes came a stalling move on the recommendation of the Prices and Incomes Board to grant a small wage increase to 400,000 farm workers and 430,000 drapery workers. The PIB was asked by Economics Minister Michael Stewart to look at the two awards in the light of the government's policy on lower paid workers. This policy is very ambiguous. [See World Outlook, December 9, 1966.]
Commenting on the pay-freeze orders Frank Cousins said they were "A quite unjustified and massive extension of the freeze which will delay badly needed increases for some lower paid workers....Many trade unionists who have previously accepted Government policy will join the wave of indignation against the way things are going."
The day before these orders were announced, Dan McGarvey, the Boilermakers president (one of the unions affiliated to the Shipbuilding and Engineering Confederation which negotiated the package deal) warned that the future of all long-term agreements was in danger if the engineers' rise was frozen. How effective in practice this and all the other critical comments will be remains to be seen. One thing does emerge quite clearly, however, and that is there are great pressures building up in the trade~union movement for a real fight to be mounted against the wage freeze.
Another sign of this developing mood is the December 20 decision of the locomotivemen's union to initiate a work to rule, and a ban on rest-day working, starting January 16. This action arises over a dispute on bonus payment for short-haul freight trains. The union has been trying to obtain the same bonus for this type of work for long-haul and passenger work. Protracted negotiations with the Railway Board were fruitless, the board refusing to move from its position that to grant bonuses in the present situation would go against the government's incomes policy.
On December 22 the union had a meeting with Minister of Labour Ray Gunter. It announced afterwards that it had agreed to meet the board again, but did not make clear if the threatened go-slow had been called off.
The possibility remains that this dispute could be the first major one in 1967. Perhaps the British working class could send no better New Year's greetings to Harold Wilson.
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