Pay Upsurge Confronts Tuc

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Government policy on wages is now clear. Callaghan and the Liberal leadership are determined to impose a third year of rigid wage controls on the working class.

Chancellor Healey has spelled out his unilateral demands:

restrict pay settlements to 6% and stick to the 12-month rule.

And regardless of union conference decisions opposing a Phase 3, the coalition government will use all the means at its disposal to enforce it against growing militancy on wages.

As part of the preparations the Confederation of British Industry has sent a circular to all members telling them not to publicise pay claims because, they say, if other workers realised the size of these claims it would have a snowballing effect.

WAVE OF CLAIMS

And Foreign Secretary David Owen has pleaded for the press to "take individual wage claims off the front page of our newspapers."

Employers and government alike both know only too well that even though the main publicity has so far been focussed on workers lining up to break the 12-month rule on pay increases, behind these workers is a wave of pay claims that threaten to burst asunder the 6% limit.

These claims are building up despite the fact that the TUC though officially abandoning their plans for a Phase 3 of wage control-are straining to hold the fort for the Lib-Lab coalition The government itself has for this reason adopted the policy advocated by the Liberal Party -using sanctions against any employer who breaks Healey's 5-6% limit. These sanctions include refusal to allow price increases, refusal to grant emergency credit, and cancellation of government contracts.

And in tha nuhlin cantar The policy support for all action to regain living standards, ing action.

Healey's strategy is to impose rigid cash limits, in order to create the threat that wage increases above the limit could cause unemployment.

Meanwhile the TUC is working just as actively to enforce the 12-month rule as it did to police Phase 2's 5% limit. At Heinz unions have been called to the TUC, while at General Engineering an agreed increase has been stopped.

FLOUTED

The main TUC leaders continue to flout their own conference decisions. Clearest example is the Finance and General Purposes Committee of the TGWU, which has sent out a cırcular to officials telling them to respect: the 12-month rule-a policy specifically defeated at the TGWU conference.

Now the committee has said that the letter "only applies until the TUC Congress" in September, and that after September the TGWU-while itself voting against the 12-month rule-would accept the TUC majority vote.

The Communist Party's daily paper, the Morning Star hailed this scandalous statement as:

"a considerable shot in the arm for the fight to win a majority [against the 12-month rule at the TUC."

This is a clear sign that the Communist Party will give no support to those sections of workers who correctly reject the idea that the TUC bureaucrats should override the conference decisions of individual unions, and who decide to fight, regardless of the TUC vote, against both the 12-month rule and against any interference in free collective In just the same way the Communist Party scabbed on actions like the Leyland toolroom strike which could have broken Phase needed is full those who take and defend their and for supportFIGHT BEGUN Akeady some sections have begun the fight. At Export Packing Services, Banbury, TGWU members are out on strike demanding £15 a week increase, at Lucas in Birmingham toolroom workers are still out for £5.

Other claims include Chrysler skilled workers (f92 per week), dockers (£100 per week) and miners (£135 per week) as well as railwavmen (67%) for Spanish Civil War. Pag Split in British Com nunist Party: First Part Inflation Contrick.

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