Wilson's First Pay Laws

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1966 Seamen's Strike: Young Socialists Lobby of Parliament in supporı of the strikers, demanding the left MPs fight Wilson LL. onma citnatinn amain The Musen'c continuously receding prospect. Many sections of the left have also become obsessed with predicting exactly when and where the upturn will begin.

For revolutionaries, however, this is not the crucial question. There is increasing evidence that for a time at least, the recession may abate. But the recession is not the crisis.

An upturn in production would temporarily raise the rate of profit by increasing the use of industrial capacity but it would further exacerbate the more important constraint on profitability, the relative strength of the working class.

When discussing the world recession of 1921, Trotsky rebuked those who predicted that the recession would continuously worsen . until it ended in the revolution. It is necessary to do the same today - and equally to counter those who place great weight on predicting the timing of an upswing.

short-term both limited upswing and a continuation of the decline are possible. Capitalist governments can have some effect on this through their policies and it is impossible to predict short-term developments with certainty.

However, although they are not irrelevant to revolutionaries since they will affect emphasis and tactics, they make no difference to the direction or strategy of the revolutionary struggle.

What is certain is that no government tinkering with economic policies can resolve this crisis. The capitalist class needs to massively defeat the working class over living standards, jobs, and social services, to achieve that.

The short-term deflationary and inflationary policies between which bourgeois governments oscillate, contain huge dangers for the capitalist class. They represent different ways of attacking a working class which refuses to lie down and be beaten.

Yet, while the working class in all the major countries has remained undefeated through 5 years of severe capitalist crisis, workers are now suffering increasing material hardships and uncertainty, which in a crisis are all that capitalism has to offer.

The working class is undefeated not invincible.

It can emerge victorious from the present crisis only if armed with a leadership fighting for the Transitional Programme. This programme alone furnishes a set of consistent, internationalist demands which offer both a way to defend its existing position, whatever economic policies capitalist governments pursue, and a way forward towards the only possible solution to the current crisis which does not involve a major historical defeat for the working class - the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism and the construction of a socialistssociety.

The task is to build the to carry this programme into practice.

The introduction of state pay laws through the f6 wage limit by the Labour government means that a new period of struggle is opening up for all workers. Together with this decisive attack on workers' living standards, Wilson has obtained unprecedented collaboration with union leaders in witch hunting in the unions and Labour Party all those who try to lead a struggle to defend wages, and against accepting record unemployment.

Wilson's Labour government is being revealed as absolutely anti-working class and the fight to defenc wages and jobs can clearly now only be successful if it is turned into a political fight to remove Wilson, Healey and the right wing and a fight for the transitional demands that this paper alone puts forward, demanding that they be implemented by those who replace the right wing.

It is necessary to understand that no Labour politician will carry out such a programme since the fight for demands in defence of jobs and wages immediately starts workers on the road to the revolutionary ending of capitalism itself, which even the 'left' in the Labour Party are pledged to defend. But the struggle against the Labour Government is essential to demonstrate its reactionary, cowardly nature in a concrete way to the largest number of workers.

The successive Labour governments have always behaved as poor relations, feeling themselves barely tolerated as guests in the employers' house, and frantically careful never to offend their hosts.

This does not come from the individual position of Wilson or any other MP but rather reflects the politieal position of the reformist: the tolerated guest will never take over the whole house.

Pay laws were used against the working class by the Wilson Government of 1964-70, and to look at this period helps us to understand how to campaign against the present pay laws.

CRISIS

The Labour Government of 196470 was dominated by the emergence of the economic crisis which has now turned into world recession and the beginnings of mass unemployment. The weakness of British capitalism especially came to the fore with massive balance of payments deficits (£800m in 1964) and continued speculation against sterling which resulted in its eventual devaluation.

Wilson attempted to detend capitalism by helping it wring more value from the working class and immediately appointed George Brown at the Department of Economic Affairs to discuss a prices and incomes policy to hold down wages and increase productivity: ie speedup. The Mutual Declaration of Intent on Productivity, Prices and Incomes was signed in December 1964.

Wilson's own memoirs show where the pressure was coming from for these attacks. In August 1965 he met Fowler, American Secretary of the Treasury. He " ... was afraid of an inflationary situation developing and in particular doubted whether the voluntary prices and incomes policy which George Brown had negotiated would be able to withstand the pressure for wage increases to which we were subject. Whilst he did not attempt in any way to make terms or give us orders !!! he was apprehensive that if further central bank aid were required it would be difficult to mount if we had no better safeguard against inflation than a voluntary system. It was in these circumstances that we began first to think in terms of statutory powers". (Wilson, The Labour Government 1964-70: A personal record p131)

MANAGERS Accepting that their job is to manage capitalism, the Labour Government must accpet the dictates of bankers and employers, the dictates of capital seeking profit!

The Labourites then went to order to stifle and render leaderless any opposition from the working class, and to spread confusion over the nature of the wage cuts.

First they convinced Frank Cousins, General Secretary of the T&GWU, who sat in Wilson's Cabinet as Minister of Technology yes had opposed the voluntary traint' on wages but apparently 'took it calmly". Brown went round to have long private talks with George Woodcock, the TUC leader, before the Brighton Trades Union Congress to get him to agree to statutory wage control.

At the Cabinet meeting on September ist 1965 Callaghan explained the plan for statutory powers. The existing National Board for Prices and Incomes was to be made a statutory Doay ana ine secretary of State (Brown) was to have power to refer any price or wage issue to it and enforce its decisions by ministerial order. Price or wage increases could be deferred while the Board held an inquiry, and there was an early warning system for such increases.

Price control is of course always talked about to make the deal seem 'fair" but never gets off the ground because of nameless 'difficulties', admitted by Wilson in 1965 and by Shirley Williams in 1975.

COVER

Just as today, the TUC leadership put up no opposition to the introduction of pay laws. Today o course it is the TUC's plans which are being legislated, and they hide behind the cardboard defence that the £6 limit is voluntary and that workers will not be jailed - both completely meaningless when it comes to the shrinking value of the wage packet. In 1965 the General Council agreed with Brown before that although the legislation was passed by Parliament it would only be activated by a specific Order in Council requiring the assent of both Houses so that the voluntary system could "prove itself. Woodcock proposed further that all wage claims be submitted to the General Council for vetting'. This behind-the-scenes deal was accepted by the Congress the next day and opened the door for the TUC to intervene and collaborate in holding down workers' wages.

Although the bureaucratic leadership had carried out the betrayal, the pay laws were never accepted by workers.

FIRST CLAIM In January 1966 the Prices and Incomes Board faced its first major pay claim, that of the NUR and joined with the employers in recommending a mere 32% on basic rates for some of the lowest paid workers in Britain. Wilson did not consider living standards of workers, however, but rather the bankers' confidence in sterling: "to yield incontinently to strike threats would mean the end of any meaningful prices and incomes policy, with serious effects abroad" (Wilson, ibid. p199)

But the NUR rejecte 1 British Rail's final offer and an nounced. for a General Election in March and wanted to avoid at all costs an election campaign during which the Labour Government would be confronting a large section of striking workers fighting for wages against Labour.

On February 11th Brown came up with the idea of ante-dating the settlement, which was defeated by only one vote by the NUR. Wilson, who was telling everyone he wasn't asking for money or more backdating, made a last-minute personal plea to the NUR executive including a future productivity dea (which meant, as always, wages in exchange for jobs) and managed to get the strike called off.

Immediately after the election, HAR -which Wilson won, they forced the same situation again.

Speech in April announced what was to become the Prices and Incomes Bill and Wilson embarked on a tour of • trade union conferences and the Scottish TUC to argue wage restraint and productivity. Then in May 1966 the seamen put in a claim including big changes in their conditions of service and higher overtime pay, amounting to a 17% increase. The snipowners oner was go, witn 4% in each of the next two years.

Gunter, Minister of Labour, met the NUS executive and urged them to accept the employers' offer promising an inquiry into conditions of employment. This was rejected on three occasions and the NUS was ready to strike on May 16th. Wilson made a personal intervention on the 13th, arguing to the NUS the damage a strike would do to the economy, the benefits of Gunter's enquiry and so scott eati on, but was unable to get the "Their reaction was militant and bitter, and with many offensive [!] comments on the shipowners' methods and their excessive profits, and with political attacks on us for backing the bosses against the workers" (Wilson, ibid. p227)

Having failed to get betrayal, Wilson went into all-out attack on the NUS, while the Navy stood by to take over if voluntary strikebreaking failed, and while he prepared a State of Emergency, declared a few days later, he appeared on television to spread the hoary old lie that he was really protecting jobs, familiar to us now and even more incredible now with over a million on the dole.

"I had to re-emphasise our incomes policy, and, stressing that maintenance of that policy was the only means to full employment, made clear that we could not accept an inflationary settlement."

The Court of Inquiry report, under that noted friend of the working class, Lord Pearson, hardly made a Peer for services to striking seamen, was rejected by the NUS at the beginning of June, and Wilson brought another big gun to bear on the seamen. Woodcock flew back from holiday to tell them that the TUC refused to support them, an unbelievable stab in the back. Even Hogarth, "moderate' General Secretary of the is a fight with the Government, the shipowners.' So a Labour Governn ent emerges as more capable of fighting the working class than the employers, and is used by the latter for that purpose.

Wilson then resorted to the lowest and most vile form of "It is difficult to appreciate the pressures which are being put on men I know to be realistic and responsible (now they are called moderates), not only in their executive capacity, but in the highly organised strike committees in the ports, by this tightly knit group of politically motivated men, who, as the last General Election showed, utterly failed to secure acceptance of their views by the British electorate..." and commented, "I did not use the word In fact there were no members of the Communist Party on the NUS executive and Wilson, called upon to explain himself after an outcry in the trade union movesmears. He mentioned Jack Evard, chairman of the London strike committee, as a CP member and referred to Joseph Kenny and James Slater on the NUS executive: "over the past few weeks, when attending the executive council in London, they have stayed at the same flat as Mr. Jack Eward. Of course, they are free to stay where they like, but Mr. Ramel son (CP Industrial Organiser) has visited the flat while they were there...

On the basis of this witch-hunt the right-wing outvoted the militants on the NUS executive and the strike was called off.

Some detail on the seamen's strike has been necessary to show how far Labour is prepared to go to stand in the front line for the employers against the working class, and how low they will sink, to smear campaigns and their logical conclusion, expulsion of anyone who stands on principle against pro-capitalist policies. Ther are signs of this coming again in the aftermath of Newham N.E.

After this defeat for the seamen, Wilson felt strong enough to announce on 20th. July 1966, a six-month standstill on wages, and a further six months of severe restraint. In the face of such an attack, the TUC had to express reservations, and Cousins, who had resigned from the Cabinet in June (not because he was opposed to wage control, but he wanted the impossible price control too) declared that the T&GWU would not observe the freeze. This move of Wilson to the right, dictated by a growing run on sterling made other union leaders join Cousins with even a right winger declaring: "You asked us for voluntary restraint to avoid a freeze, and we agreed. Now you're asking us for a freeze to avoid unemployment.

But the babble of noise was made just to cover their tracks, and even if they resented being hoodwinked, they allowed themselves to bè taken in again. The Labour Party left-wing challenge amounted only to a motion, signed by 47 MP's and calling for import controls (ie. let workers be unemployed abroad) and the TUC eventually said they would acquiesce, with the meaningless proviso that "social equity was preserved."

LAW After this collapse, wage-cutting • became law in August 1966. It is clear that the Labou Government act in the interests from the weakness, collapses and betrayals of working class leadership, and from the defeats of workers.

We demand: Make the 'left' MP's fight! Sack Wilson and the right wing as preparation for removing the whole rotten amalgam, and for an alternative leadership in the unions for a socialist transitional by R. Ro

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British Batal lion International Brigade SOFT E control of it. Within two hours the workers were throwing up barricades throughout the city.

The Stalinists in the PSUC who supported the attack on the exchange were forced to withdraw, and the Left sections of workers from the POUM and the CNI issued calls for the seizure of power by the workers through the development of democratic organs of defence.

But the leaders. of these working class organisations refused to heed the call. Instead they decided to negotiate with the government who insisted that the streets be cleared first. With the greatest difficulty the CNT and POUM leaders cleared the streets of the workers and ordered a return to work.

They followed this up with instructions to allow state forces into the city and to vacate the telephone exchange. The negotiations were ended and the the government and the Stalinists control over the whole telephone system.

Whereas under workers' control the telephones had been open all anti-fascist forces, the Stalinists and the government used their control to prevent CNT and POUM communications.

This story was repeated Wednesday September 3rd, 1975 Republican Spain in half, and not Barcelona were forced to surrender to the fascist forces. The InterPaom spin ades witte the har on Madrid early in 1939, the civil war came to an end.

What then are the main lessons to be learned from the terrible defeat of the Spanish working class who had fought so heroically and so desperately against fascism?

The first point is that when the bourgeoisie is posed with the tasks of the bourgeois revolution and is too weak to complete them, the only alternatives-are the fight for workers power-or the victory of reaction.

It is not possible to fight for the establishment of a bourgeois democracy and then at a later stage, socialism, as the socialists and Stalinists argued. The material conditions did not exist in Spain upon which a stable bourgeois democracy could rest.

Secondly, in the fight against reaction and for the basic demands of the democratic revolution the working class must base itself on its own class organisations and a programme which represents its own class interests. Any other organisation, any other programme must be that of another class which, however friendly it may be at a

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telephone exchange immediately occupied by the police. This gave