[Those present heard Chairman Gerry Casey (Oxford UPW…]

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Those present heard Chairman Gerry Casey (Oxford UPW, speakling in a personal capacity) stress the link between the attacks by union officials on democratic rights of the membership and the attempts by the TUC to enforce the social contract" with the Labour government and the CBI.

Highlighting the fact that the repression of democracy within the unions, while definitely growing as a threat to the jobs and living Gerry inability of others to fight wage control:

"Who can call a conference on wages today? To call such a conference your own record is called at once into question.

The social democrats could not Outlining vies of the ] vies of the TUC leaders and particularly at the T&GWU Biennial Delegate Conference to produce the stage-managed 17-1 vote in favour of the 4½% policy, Comrade Thornett went on to examine the conditions which drive the working class into collision with this policy and those who support it.

Inflation was now acknowledged - despite cuts in wages - to be again rising and already standing at a 15% annual rate, while interest rates have also soared. This had to mean a disruption of industria investment, fresh attempts to impose speed-up and closures, and another round of spending cuts as the conditions of the latest IMF loan were felt.

The result of this crisis was to drag the bureaucracy further into line with management - arguing Also from the platform, Peter McIntyre, a delegate from the Oxford NUJ Branch, outlined some of the bureaucratic manoeuvres that paved the way for the disaffiliation of Oxford Trades Council by the TUC, and the setting up of a right-wing dominated "Trades Union Council' with the most repressive possible rule book - includthe "viability" of the company.

"This also runs right through the Labour Party" Comrade Thornett stressed. "At the Blackpool Conference there were really only two decisions made. The first, on the first day of the Conference was support for the Social Contract. The other was the vote on the last day to support Healey's economic policy. In between was all the left' phrases and pious resolutions - but these were the policies endorsed by block votes of the big unions » the block In fighting back to defend living standards, the central demand had to be for increases linked to a sliding scale of wages, rising to match inflation. And in the fight for this demand, workers must demand that the account books of British capitalism opened up so

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CE Outlining some of the manoeu-