Public Sector Crackdown

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California State Governor Gerry Brown "This is an austere and lean budget-the Brown, Democrat Governor of: California, recently as he announced his budget plans for the coming year.

Part of his miserable package is a complete ban on wage increases for all state employees (they were due for a magnificent 22% increase-about one third of the present rate of inflation).

Money: allocated for abortion programmes is to be drastically chopped. Adult education: courses, technical training schemes and summer school sessions (which had 500,000 enrolled) are threatened with shutdown.

Increases in welfare grants are to be blocked. The significance of all this for the American working class should not be underestimated.

'Rebellion'

Brown's excuse is the reactionary Jarvis-Gann initiative which was passed by the Californian electorate on 7 June.

Now similar legislation is on the cards in most states as the right wing instigated taxpayers rebellion' is whipped up by the media, big and porations.

Jarvis and Gann are small-time capitalists, their own admission ag trade unions and state cation.

Collaboration

Their reform' of the tax system was presented as relieving the pressure on middle and working class homeowners; but in reality it is designed to boost the tax-savings of - banks, corporations and all these in the higher income groups.

Now similar moves are being backed across the US by both Republicans and Democrats alike.

In California the right wing were able to count on the collaboration of the trade union bureaucracy in pushing through their attacks on the working class.

In San Francisco; Jack Crowley, President of the City's Labour Council, (the US equivalent of Trades Councils) supported the Mayor's declaration of a state of emergency which immediately nullified . all union contracts agreed in the last 30 years!

In Sacramento,.. where massive layoffs are threatened, the leaders of public service unions simply offered suggestions as to which jobs should be cut first.

In America ano internationally nothing has two on inst educhanged since the American syndicalist Daniel De Leon described such bureaucrats as "the labour lieutenants of the capitalist class" more than seventy years ago.

Such betrayals must be set against the background of the international crisis of capitalism, a crisis which has produced soaring inflation and unemployment figures in the US.

Carter's leading economic advisers, Schultze and Strauss, have both admitted to current inflation rate of 7.2%.

Trade deficit

Concealed within this dramatic rises of 16-179 the prices of basic for BILLIONS AFL-CIO leader Meany are in ds.

The tion is : trade d around The list crats starts hardened employers' George Me.

Carter administraalso expecting a huge leficit this year of $40 billion.

Reaction

Nationally there are almost 6½ million unemployed. When broken down this statistic reveals a youth unemployment rate of over 17% (40% in New York), and a rate for black workers (12.5%) which is more than twice that for whites (5:5%)

Carter's. reaction has been to attack wage claims, cut puhlic spending, increase tax incentives for big business and sell off 300,000 ounces of gold per month, supposedly:

to re-establish stability for the dollar on the foreign exchange and bolster confidence at home"

In order to retain and augment America's dominant influence in the IMF Carter has to keep his own working class in check.

In order to achieve this he has at his disposal a whole battery of reactionary legislation and, most effective of all, a queue of collaborators and traitors in the leadership of the trade unions; all eager to prop up the interests of capital and imperialist exploitation.

of these bureauat the top with conscious agents like. ny (head of the 'Left' opponent Balanoff AFL-CIO confederation, Fitzsimmons (Teamsters Union), Miller (Mineworkers), McBride (Steelworkers) and Fraser (Auto Workers) and extends to the gaggle of sub-reformists, and budding bureaucrats who constitute the official 'opposition' in the trade union movement.

At the last AFL-CIO conference Meany echoed Carter's attacks on postal workers' and Teamsters' wage claims and blamed workers in Russia, Japan and Europe for unemployment in the IS.

He pruposed massive tariff restrictions and import quotas as the only solution. He also engineered a 22% wage rise for himself!

Blustering

The lack of principled opposition was evident in the empty blustering of Machinists Union leader Wimpsinger and in the utter bankruptcy of the most voluble anti-Meanyite, Jim Balanoff (leader of 110,000 Chicago steelworkers).

The latter refused to carry out any fight at all, he simply packed up and left for home!

The union leaders are also backing Carter's anti-working class Labour Law Reform Bill.

This is an attempt by Carter to update the 1935 Wagner Law which saddled the trade union moveinent with a mass of major and minor restrictions.

Carter's original proposed Bi enough, but been pushed right by amendments.

Now even Carter says "it is much more inclined towards the employers' position than it was in its original form" , but Meany recently took out an advertisement in The Wall Street Journal calling on the "wise and intelligent leaders of the American business world" to support the Bill!

United Steelworkers President Lloyd McBride spelt out his class allegiances when hi advised American capitalists to accept the Bill's proposals for speedier union recognition on thic grounds that if they didn't "it could produce the same conditions that were largely responsible for the Great Depression ... I would not be surprised if such conditions caused a In other words, give the workers a few peanuts now and then and we'll be able to keep them down much more effectively.

Stage-managed

A recent example of a reformist attempt at independent opposition to such leaders was the conference called by the "All Unions Committee to Shorten the Work Week".

This was attended by a number of militants looking for a lead, but was effectively stage-managed dent of the Auto Workers Union) through Frank Runnels (President of a large Cadillac UAW branch).

Runnels correctly illustrated the massive attacks on US workers through unemployment and speed-up since the war, but timidly declared that:

"It is not our intention to tell any union how their programme should operate"

of He gave an platform to Democrats and agents of capital.

When a Il was bad lt has since even further Congressional Order uncritical Fraser, assorted delegate

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EVIEW

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cuts are deep" commented Gerry