Low Pay Rally

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ca From the very beginning of the Low Pay Campaign the Workers Socialist League has fought for all-out indefinite strike action with strike committees deciding on emergency cover.

A meeting last Sunday of our public sector fraction took the decision to call a rally to present our policy for fighting for the full claim, for fighting the cuts and for a socialist health service as part of a planned socialist economy.

This requires a new leadership in the trade unions and we will have stewards and strike committee members from London and Oxford speaking as well as a period for discussion.

RALLY

SATURDAY 3 MARCH Small Hall, Conway Hall Red Lion Square, Holbor London Raily starts at 2.30 p.m.

Credentials 25p

Pay struggles have reached the point where they worry top union bureaucrats almost more than the employers.

This is the clear message from last week's reactionary ''Concordat'" between TUC and Labour leaders, through which each side declares its willingness to attempt a further determined stand to stop the forward move, ment of the working class prior to the 1979 election.

Sabotage Already the militant struggle by public sector workers for their £60/35 hour week claim and the pay claim by 20,000 busmen have been subjected to sabotage in line with the policies of the 'Concordat"

Included in its tactfully vague proposals is the concept of some form of mechanism to settle the wages of key public service workers while denying them the right to strike.

This has been seized on by leaders of NUPE and the other Callaghan three "low pay" unions, who are now stretching every muscle to drop the £60 claim exchange for a miserable 9%, a job-cutting productivity deal, and an. : "inquiry" into comparable rates of pay.

And TGWU bus officials are planning an even more brazen sell-out, with a 6% "interim"' offer and the promise of an "inquiry"

Wage controls

But whether or not these manoeuvres succeed, the aims of the "Concordat" extend much further than the current pay round.

Its objective of cutting inflation to 5% by 1982, coming from leaders who have always blamed inflation on wage increases, is an unmistakeable implicit pledge to permanent wage controls.

Home Secretary Merlyn Rees is only the latest of a saries of leading ministers to declare his absolute opposition to free collective bargaining: and this anti-socialist government clique is backed up by the twelve right wing TUC leaders who recontly signed the document A Better Way, explicitly defending wage The main motive behind these opportunist approaches to imperialism has however been the search But TUC leaders who have seen mass struggles trample Callaghan's discredited 5% limit underfoot know that such policies can only be achieved if the power of their members is held in check.

This is why the "Concordat" significantly includes "advice" designed to hamper effective picketing in disputes, to further outlaw unofficial strikes, to impose secret ballots prior to strike action being called, and to break the power of the closed shop.

No mandate Not one of the TUC leaders that assented to this anti-working class "Concordat"' (no vote was taken) had any mandate to do so from his members.

Every one of the policies. contained in this squalid deal amounts to a complete conces. sion to Thatcher, the Tory Party and the CBI, • If not thrown out this 'Concordat" means that in the 1979 election workers will face a "'choice" between open Tories threatening anti-union legislation, or this gang of cryptoTories planning to impose similar measures "voluntarily" through their bureaucratic control of the unions.

The TUC Congress and Labour Party conference must be recalled as a matter of urgency to throw out the 'Concordat" and the Callaghan leadership and tó offer those who claim to oppose Callaghan a final opportunity to spell out a socialist manifesto for the 1979 election.

Any would-be Labour "left" that shirks such a responsibility must be exposed as helping Callaghan to open the door t the near certain electoral victory of the Tory Party.

The crucial issue in, this situation is the building of a principled revolutionary leadership for the working class which is prepared to fight tooth and nail against the betrayals of all wings of the labour bureaucracy.

That fight is being waged at present only by the Workers Socialist League.

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eport PHOTO: Andrew Wiard, Report Wiard