Port Talbot Sell Out

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It's Phase 2 for a second year. This is the reality that emerged when Denis Healey put forward the government's line on Phase 3 of wage controls at the Nottinghamshire miners' gala.

Healey stated that the government's workings were:

"based on the assumption that the nation's earnings as a whole, including overtime and • so on, do not rise more than 10% in the next round."

That is exactly the same as Phase All the trade union leaders have been in regular talks with the government. They have all known that this was the government's position from the start.

All the talk of flexibility and differentials has been nothing but a cover for an unchanged position; that there must be a definite limit. How the small amount available is distributed can, of course, be arranged 'flexibly"

Even the talk of 'self-financing' productivity deals is left vague to leave open the question of whether this is included in the 10%.

It is in this light that we must look at some of the recent union conferences and meetings.

At the NUPE conference a resolution opposing Phase 3, whatever the conference to Fisher's position but the manoeuvre was successful.

At the APEX conference a resolution was passed supporting a Phase 3 amid a mass of talk about price controis, reduction of taxation and productivity deals. This went alongside a witch-hunting resolution stopping any special payments to the Labour Party unless they dealt with 'extremists' Even here the leadership was unsuccessful in trying to oppose a resolution calling for a restoration of the cuts in public spending.

The most important, numerically, for the right-wing, was the conference of the 926,000-strong General and Municipal Workers Union.

Despite the fact that this union is dominated by the right-wing it was still necessary for the resolution passed to contain a mass of conditions-none of which will be kept.

Basnett, GMWU General Secretary, called for more action on prices and a reflationary summer budget. Living standards must be maintained, he said.

The resolution adopted called for an "orderly return" to free wage bargaining-which means a continuation of the Social Contract.

It was carried by a 6-l majority.

Even the equally right wing dominated Iron and Steel Trades Confederation conference, which represents 112,000 members, called for an "orderly" return and listed conditions for a Phase 3 of productivity allowances and restored differentials.

This resolution was passed, committing that union to a Phase 3 and a resolution opposing it was defeated by 104 to 17.

As the union votes line up it is clear that the conferences are coming out quite evenly for and against Phase 3, while all those supporting Phase 3 are calling it an "orderly return"

The importance of the TGWU Biennial Delegate Conference in July, which commands nearly two million votes at the TUC is becoming clearer.

The Executive Committee last week took a unanimous decision to back a so-called "orderly return" resolution. This unanimous vote includes several members of the Communist Party After 11 weeks of bitter struggle against employer, union officials and the press, the striking Port lalbot electricians voted 3-2 last Friday for a return to work.

The decision is described as "almost total surrender" by the Tory Press-but it is clear that the electricians were not so much defeated as betrayed by a conscious intervention of EETPU national officer Edward Linton-who fought for a return in opposition to a unanimous strike committee recommendation to stay out.

Electricians' •convener Wyn Bevan told Socialist Press three factors had combined to produce the vote for a return The mass meeting had been poorly attended; Linton had put forward a series of "outrageous assertions and promises", which he claimed to have extracted from BSC management; and, in a stage-managed move he had been able to announce that payment of a £120 arbitration award to 170 of the strikers, held up as "against the Social Contract" had been sanctioned by the Department of Trade.

The strike committee had pressed for Linton's promises to be rejected as a con-trick, and for • workers to stay out for the original demand across-the-board pay increases for working new but had been defeated.

"These officials have no interest in the rank and file" , commented Bevan. "Much more could have been gained if the men had listened to the strike committee instead of their national officer.

He went on to agree that successful blacking of strikebreaking imports of steel by dockers and railwaymen would have enabled them to win the strike.

Such blacking had been actively opposed by officials of all unions concerned-EETPU, TWU, ASLEF and NUR.

The matter is not over, however. "We have fought them hard outside the gates. We must now fight them inside the gates. We won't hesitate to let all hell loose if our demands are not met" , said Bevan.

"We would like through your paper to thank rank and file workers throughout the country for their magnificent support"

The Port Talbot strike both in its tenacity and its eventual conclusion has strongly pomted both to the readiness of the working class to fight wage controls, and the ruthless determination of the officials to maintain it.

This contradiction can only be resolved by the building of a new leadership in the workers' movement.

stop and the Newspaper Society.

On the first day of the strike the scab editor joined the Institute of Journalists whose members are now well into their strike breaking routine.

The NUJ has now a fight on its hands which could make the 23 week struggle at Kettering seem small beer.

The immediate aims of the union must be:

Win solidarity action from print workers in Darlington.

Stop all agency copy reaching the papers.

Call for supporting action from other Westminster Press chapels.

The omens are not good. A group chapel meeting to be held in London in two weeks is to consider what supporting action will be given, but the NUJ President, John Devine, is already arguing against putting pressure on the Press Association.

A meeting held between officials of the NUJ and other print unions succeeded only in delaying the start of the strike for a week. So far no sign has been given by print union leaders that they are prepared to help the NUJ members Darlington and Durham win cards.

Oxford Trades Council has se up a defence fund but all TGWI members should demand tł at thei union takes responsibili fo defending those arrested.

ÇOUNTRYWIDE The Campaign for Democracy i the Labour Movement is pressin ahead with a countrywide series c meetings on the lessons of the hott strikes.

Birmingham, Wednesday Jun 15, Australian Bromsgrove St.!

Hurst St. and 7.45pm.

Sheffield, Thursday 16 June. London, Wednesday 22 June :

7.30 at Caxton House, St. John way, Archway.

Liverpool, Friday July

8.00 pm at the Feather Hote Mount Pleasant.