"Concordat" paves way for Tory come-back
Socialist Press1979 1979-02-14Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 12 →
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The decision of water workers employers to concede a 16% pay increase to their 33,000 workforce has driven the Tory press into new Nobody could be more secretly delighted at the wretched proposals of the new TUC-cabinet "concordat' than Tory - leader Margaret Thatcher.
The whole content of this document, drawn up behind closed doors by TUC bureaucrats without the slightest mandate from: their members and completely against their interests, is a capitulation to Tory propaganda.
The draft proposals last weekend include:
*Agreement To cut to 5% a year by 1982.
*No-strike agreements for key groups of workers.
*New TUC guidelines restrict picketing..
*Secret ballots prior to strike action.
*'Flexibility' on the closed shop.
*Energetic action to end unofficial strikes.
in other words the TUC and the strikebreaking Callaghan cabinet are proposing voluntarily to undertake almost ali the anti-union policies that Thatcher has pledged herself to legislate if reeiected.
Rejected
All this takes place at the very point where millions of workers have shown unmistakeably their determination to reject such class collaboration and defend their jobs, wages and working conditions.
Seldom has the contrast between the willingness of the working class to fight, and the determination of their trade union and political "leaders" to uphold the interests of the employers, been so starkly exposed.
Union officials and reformist politicians jealously guarding their privileged positions are as terrified of the power of the workers' movement as are the Thatcher gang.
This is one reason why, sooner than map out any socialist answer to the crisis, based on the necessity to nationalise major industry with-" out compensation under workers management, these bureaucrats lamely echo the policies of the bosses' own party -the Tories.
This latest betrayal, on top of Callaghan's years of sustained attacks on the workers' movement, can only serve as a further guarantee of a massive working class abstention in this year's General Election.
Now noone can dispute that the only way to halt these Tory plans is to combine a fight, for the removal of the scab Callaghan cabinet with the struggle in each area to press forward the public sector and other pay strikes with mass picketing and the building of councils of action.
Thatchel