Scotland Conference on Wage Control

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Part of the CDLM March 27 Conference in Birmingham Hard on the heels of the now almost universally suppressed revelations that British Leyland operates a multi-million pound "slush fund" paying massive illegal or semi-legal cash bribes to secure overseas contracts, a report has been published detailing the shady dealings of the state-controlled oil giant British Petroleum.

The firm has admitted payments of nearly £1 million over the three years 1972-75 to overseas tax officials, minor politicians and agents.

There is as yet no way of discovering how many unrecorded payments have been made. Certainly workers should note the deceptive ways in which many of the admitted payments have been accounted for. described as genera" commissions"" ot, In handouts were more vaguely, "distribution expenses"-though the firm admit some were classified as "repairs" and "car hire"

In other words, seemingly innocent labels conceal the network of behind the scenes bribes and rake offs that grease the creaking wheels of capitalism's "free market"

As with the British Leyland case, these figures are being brushed aside as run-of-the-mill by BP management. "Everybody does it" shout the Tory press and other spokesmen for the ruling class.

But for workers confronting plunging living standards policed by the reactionary Liberal-Labour coalition in tandem with the TUC such revelations can only fuel their determination to resist the imposition of another year of wage While droves of "agents" corrupt tax officials, police, customs officers, bankers and leading executive cream off taxfree perks and back handers, the Phase Three guillotine on the living standards of workers who produce the wealth is poised to descend-holding wage increases to Leyland and BP, Lockheed and Du Pont have been forced to open a slight chink in the armour of secrecy which surrounds their seamy day-to-day wheeling and dealing.

Trade unionists in every firm must demand the full accounts and secret files are opened to the inspection of elected trade unionists.

In exposing the corruption and waste which capitalism fosters, such committees will point to the need for the nationalisation of major industries under elected committees of workers' management, as part of a planned socialist economy The Campaign for Democracy in the Labour Movement is holding a Conference on Wage Control and Union Democracy in Scotland on Saturday June 25.

Sponsors for the conference already include the Central Scotland Federation of Trades Councils, and Stirling and District Trades Council as well as stewards and branch officers from the main public sector unions, AUEW and TGWU.

The statement introducing the Conference includes the following points:

"June and July are crucial months for the trade union movement. Individual unions such as the NUM, TGWU and NALGO will be holding their conferences to decide whether to reject wage controls or to support a third stage of wages policy.

TOOLROOM

Struggles such as the Leyland toolroom workers, the electricians at Port Talbot and the British Airways engineers show a growing determination for trade unionists to defend their living standards.

However the TUC is still hoping to get a Phase Ill by the back door. Jones, Scanion and Fisher fraudulently emphasise the 'looseness' of a third stage where everything will be possible.

Nobody should be fooled by this. These same TUC leaders won the argument of their individual unions for the Social Contract by emphasising the "safeguards" in the agreement.

They have since used these Over 60. parents and called "safeguards" to give whole hearted backing to the massive attacks on the working class living standards pushed through by the Labour government.

The Scottish Wage Control and Union Democracy Conference is designed to give trade union activists a forum to organise a socialist alternative to incomes policy.

It is a conference for trade unionists interested in organising now to deleat wage restramt and defend working class living standards.

From this conference it is hoped to wage a campaign in the Scottish labour movement for the policies outlined in, the programme of action and to organise support for struggles such as the Laird Porsch strike in East Kilbridé where 450 members of the National Union of Tailor and Garmet Workers are in dispute over equal pay and low pay.

The Scottish TUC has : not provided the necessary lead to the Scottish trade union movement.

In Stirling Trades Council motion 17 at the 1976 congress the STUC rejected the opportunity to campaign for a working class alternative to the social contract.

The Stirling motion included many of the main points of the CDLM programme of action.

In defeating composite A of this years congress the STUC have been left without a coherent position on incomes policy and are unable to provide Scottish workers with a fighting leadership in the next few crucial months.

The CDLM Scottish Conference can provide activists with that much needed lead and can begin to fight to see that next year's STUC adopts a fighting alternative to, the Social Contract.

The major issues confronting the working class, the Social Contract, wage control, the cuts, unemployment, the struggle for equal pay and women's rights and the use of racialism to divide the working class cannot be separated from the increasing trend towards bureaucratic control by trade union officials over the union membership.

Democracy in the labour movement is more than ever a crucial question for the working class where it is the trade union leaders and the Labour government who are policing policies which are making the working class pay for the crisis of capitalism.

IGNORED

The Labour government constantly ignored Labour Party conference decisions in following its present policies.

Without consultation with the labour movement they have entered into a parliamentary pact with the Liberal Party, David Steel, the Liberal leader has boasted: "Socialism is the_one thing this country is not going to have"

The CDLM is committed fighting for an alternative policies such as this through programme of action."

The conference is at 10.15 am; on June 25 at Cowane Centre, Cowane St., Stirling. All details, credentials and sponsorship forms from Stewart MacLennan, 18 Carrington St., Glasgow. Phone 041-332-8728.