T&gwu Conference: Jones Launches Pay Guts Programme to Defend Jobs

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The authority of Jack Jones, right wing General Secretary of the Transport and General Workers Union, was shaken at the union's Blackpool conference last week. A few hours after he had swung the vast majority of the 963 delegates behind the social contract and flat rate increases, arguing that this was the only way to avoid statutory wage controls, Labour Chancellor Healey announced imminent state pay laws.

Now, as Socialist Press predicted prior to the conference, the Jones plan has quickly become the main lever for ramming the pay laws down the throats of the working class.

By reducing the debate from wage controls or free collective bargaining, to wage control by the unions or the state, Jones opened the door to state laws.

CAREFULLY PREPARED

Jones' conference platform was carefully prepared. Three motions emerged from the battle in the composite committee room on Monday morning.

The conference would debate an Executive composite supporting the social contract, a composite proposed by the Stalinists with giant loopholes for Jones to go through if it were adopted, and a motion from Cowley explicitly re jecting the social contrac.

On Tuesday morning the final details of Jones' tactics emerged. An additional motion was to be brought into the debate - on flat rate increases. The other motion on wages, a sliding scale, posing the only alternative to the Jones plan, was left to a later part of the agenda.

JONES Speaking in support of the social contract Jones said the T&GWU should give a lead to the nation. This meant accepting a 'temporary' retreat on wages in order to advance again later.

The social contract was presented by Jones as the only alternative to statutory wage contról. The conference was told that North Sea Oil will come to our rescue and we will return to free collective bargaining. A vote against the contract would lead to "massive unemployment"

His other main plank was the Labour government, arguing that the only way to protect the Labour government and avoid the return of a right wing Thatcher-Joseph administration was to support the social contract.

Moving the Cowley motion rejecting the social contract Alan Thornett defined the two positions being proposed. The first is that workers should tighten their belts to break the inflationary spiral, the other is that the trade unions should do the job they were built for and protect their members against inflation.

He said that the conference had earlier discussed the history of the trade unions, and the fact that they were built in order to protect and improve the living standards of the working class, not as an instrument to reduce them to solve the problems of capitalism.

Inflation, he said, is not caused by the working class. It derives from capitalism and can only be solved by ending capitalism. To talk about breaking the inflationary spiral today is meaningless. Everyone knows that during the last Tory wage freeze and the previous one imposed by a Labour government, prices rose just the same..

He said that when we talk of the trade union making sacrifices we should look at Chile. In Chile real wages were reduced to something like one third of their previous level, yet the cost of living index rose by 376% last year, and by May this year had risen by a further 125%.

This shows clearly that inflation is a part of capitalism and to deal with it by tightening your belts is an employers' argutient.

ONLY ALTERNATIVE Replying to the discussion Alan! Thornett put forward the only alternative possible to the Jones plan. The only way trade unions could fight inflation, he said, was to do the job they sere built for -defend the living standards of their. members.

This could only be done with a! programme containing the demand in step with the full amount of the for a sliding scale of wages to keep On Wednesday morning the conference was shocked by Healey's announcement of state control of wages the previous afternoon.

After voting in favour of the social contract on Tuesday morning delegates found it had been abolished only a few hours later.

This created a dagerous situation for Jones. He wanted to make a statement: but there was a lot of opposition from the conference. That Jones should make a state ment was put to the vote, and agreed, but with a big abstention.

Jones had to clutch at straws. He said that Múrray had rung him and told him that he had been assured by Healey as TUC General Secretary that there would be no state control öf wages.

Jones said that the policy of the T&GWU would remain the same - opposition to statutory wage control.

As this was going on the Stalinists, who were trying to move an emergency motion on Healey's statement, were isolated from the conference in the standing orders room.

The first item on the agenda was unemployment. There were two resolutions - one a general one moved by the Stalinists - the other calling for a sliding scale of hours and factory occupations, submitted from Cowley.

It was important that a statement was made on Healey's announ cement: if opposition was to be effective. Jones knew this and played for time.

In line with these requirements, neither the mover nor the seconder of the first motion even mentioned state control of wages.

TAKE THE HEAT OUT Harry Urwin, for the Executive then made an incredibly long statement about almost nothing taking the conference up to 10.30 and the heat out of the situation. Only after this had taken place was Alan Thornett called to move the resolution on a sliding scale of hours.

He said that the day before the conference had been asked to vote for the social contract in order to avoid state control of wages - but only hours later the social contract had gone and what was left was -whatever delegates chose to call itstate control of wages.

This made the discussion on unemployment even more important, he said. "We were told yesterday that support for the social contract was the only alternative to massive unemployment. But Healey's measures will directly increase unemployment - from a starting point of almost one million. This is not the way to keep the Tories out. What would be the result if there was an election tomorrow?"

It was clear, he went on, that the policies of the Executive had failed. We now have to examine alternative policies if we are to defend jobs.

Such an alternative was contained in the resolution calling for a fight for a sliding scale of hours which was before the conference. "We are talking essentially about the principle of work-sharing on full pay," he said. 'It is time this union began to challenge the 'right' of the employer to put our members on short time or the dole whenever it suits them."

"The only way to fight for such a policy, when faced with redundancy or closure, is to occupy the plant."

Often a strike was not effective in these conditions, because the employer did not want production.

In such cases, he said, the union should give automatic backing to such an action. This policy would be a powerful weapon in the hands of members whose jobs were threatened, and something the employers would have to take account of.

He went on to say that workers faced with losing their jobs should demand that the company books be opened to clearly establish the case for full nationalisation of the firm - not state participation.

Urwin, replying for the Executive, urged the conference to vote against the resolution because it "tied" the Executive to "a specific form of action" , and could "land workers in the courts"

Once again therefore the weight of the Executive was thrown behind a pro-capitalist policy - bringing the conference to reject the only programme capable of defending jobs.