Car workers-first victims of US "social contract"?

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beer and banqueting-the UAW Convention, 1977 Zimbabwe from front page A much needed boost for President Carter's flagging credibility has been provided by the agreement of top US union bureaucrats to colfaborate .in an American version of the "social contract"

Reactionary leaders of the AFL-CIO. (American TUC) along with the gangster bosses of the non-affiliated Teamsters Union and the United Auto Workers, have pledged to assist Carter to impose "voluntary" pay restraint on their members in exchange for a few empty promises of White House action on unemployment benefit, the energy programme and trade protection.

Unanimous

The "national accord" was passed unanimously by a meeting of 23 of the 35 members of the AFL-CIO executive board.

It is a farewell kick in the teeth for the US working class from retiring AFL-CIO President George Meany, who at 85 is finally ending a 24-year period of office marked by proud and open class collaboration and vicious anti-communism.

And it is testimony to the continuing reactionary alliance between top US union leaders and the capitalist Democratic Foretaste A bitter foretaste of the kind of consequences that the "accord" will have for US trade unionists has been given in the moves now underway to sell-out the pay review for the giant General Motors workforce.

The expected strike over the pay claim was postponed from September 15-and now Carter dent' Zimbabwe..

This breathtaking 180-degree turn must have sent shock waves jarring throughout the rank-and-file of the Patriotic Front.

Nkomo and Mugabe have a rich experience of dealing brutally with political opposition to their leadership. But now the stakes are far higher than ever before.

The heads of the Patriotic Front are uncomfortably aware that a failure at this stage to end the war diplomatically will produce a crisis in the ranks of the Front which may well throw up a radical &r even consistently revolutionary alternative their left nationalist leadership.

And the war, of course, continues to develop as a background to the manoeuvres and deals in London.

ZANLA guerrillas last week attacked one of the major camps in Salisbury's northern defences, in what was their major operation of this type so seems likely be avoided altogether.

The strike would have been against the proposals of the GM management for a three year no strike agreement with 9% pay rises and a few fringe benefits.

This proposed agreement, if accepted, will set the standard for the other pay negotiations throughout the rest of the US car industry which are due shortly.

With current US inflation recently announced at over 14%, and with large-scale redundancy throughout the industry this proposed deal represents a real wage cut for the workers.

Yet the bureaucrats of the United Automobile Workers have called off industrial action on the basis of the most minimal gains which they are currently trying to force on the workers throughout the company.

Extraordinary methods Their methods of doing this are extraordinary by British standards.

First of all they flew the convenors of the largest plants to the UAW headquarters at Detroit and persuaded them to vote unanimously for the deal on Thursday 21 September.

Next they took out the committeemen-senior stewards -of all the big branches in GM to big hotels in Texas. During this all expenses-paid trip they el new governmental crisis is certain to emerge in Turkey following the resignation of one of the independent members of Prime Minister Ecevit's bourgeois persuaded them to support the deal also.

Finally, they are running members' meetings to 'explain' the deal before running a secret ballot to get acceptance.

On what basis are the UAW bureaucracy trying to sell this In a report published by the union on 18 September they claim "substantial increases' involved in the proposed settlement.

They state that the hourly rate of an assembly line worker will rise under the deal from $7.30 per hour to $9.13, and that for skilled men from $9.30 to $11.19.

These rates however are only worked out on the basis of a number of cost l of living increases and other elements which were due in any case.

And they cannot hide the fact that very little indeed is promised in the last two years up to 14 September 1981, when no-strike clauses will operate with all their rigour and by which time the assembly line base rate will only have gone up to $9.60.

One major retreat which the negotiators have made is to allow the management to deduct 14 cents per hour from the cost of living entitlement to pay for the company pension scheme-this had formerly been paid by the company!

Travel expenses

This is despite the fact that the negotiators claim to have deteated proposed company 'takeaways' such as taking money for travel expenses out of the cost of living increases.

It can only be said that such ludicrous notions must have been deliberately set up by the employers to give the bureaucrats something to boast about after they were rejected.

That the only way the paltry concessions On pay can be sold is by some improvements on other matters.

The number of 'paid personal holidays' are increased in the new contract from six per year to twelve and thirteen.

This is in addition to the normal specified Christmas and other public holidays.

Recognition

Another important concession is that the company has agreed to give recognition to UAW members moved from old or closed plants to the new ones they are in the process of setting up in the south and elsewhere.

Though these concessions come together with the real cuts in wages which are being proposed, they are clearly designed to make it more difficult to secure rejection from the rank and file.

Socialist League members at the Freemont General Motors plant near San Francisco are campaigning for rejection of the terms in the forthcoming ballot.

Weakness

They point out that the extraordinary lengths to which the bureaucracy has been compelled to go to sell it shows their weakness and lack of confidence rather than any real strength.

However, though the contract may well be thrown out at Freemont, in the absence of a national and conscious campaign, it is difficult to see how an overall rejection can be obtained.

Yet the leaders of both main trade union confederations remain committed to supporting the RPP, advocating no policies whatever to satisfy the independent needs of the working class.

And though three left wing