ABC-need for TU conference!
Socialist Press1978 1978-11-22Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 1 →
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John Berry, Crispin Aubrey and Duncan Campbell are understandably relieved at the outcome of the "Colonel B" secrets trial.
From the initial prospect of possibly 14 years jail apiece, for charges under Section 1 of the Official Secrets Act, they ended up with sentences that virtually amount to acquittal.
But while the three defendants can take a deep breath, After last week's failure by TUC and Labour leaders to agree a formula for wage controls, the government's 5% pay limit. rests on the refusal of public sector union leaders to take action to break it.
Nobody should imagine that those 14 bureaucrats who voted against the proposed "guidelines' documents were declaring readiness to fight in defence of their members' living standards.
Rather they were showing their fear of the growing shop floor militancy on wages that has given the strength to the Ford strike and the bakers strike.
Employers in the private sector have certainly recognised that workers are ready and willing to fight the 5% limit.
Above the limit
In British Oxygen and the same is not true of the labour movement. Scarcely a finger was lifted outside the NUJ to defend these victims of reactionary legislation which remains on the statute book.
And Labour leaders Rees and Silkin remain in office to launch further, similar attacks in future.
A labour and trade union conference should now be convened to draw the lessons of the case and step up the fight for the repeal of the Official Secrets Act as a whole.
Jackson-attacked