[The complete contempt with which the trade union…]

Scan page 1

The complete contempt with which the trade union leaders view the decisions of their members is clearly shown by the sordid manoeuvres on pay policy in the run-up to this year's TUC All the signs are that those union leaders who failed to win acceptance of a third stage of wage control at their own conferences are hoping for a majority vote at the TUC as the basis to impose the 12-month rule on their members.

Adherence to the 12-month rule, along with arguments on the viability of the employer is currently the mainstay of these bureaucrats who are attempting to hold the line for the 5-6% limit on rises decreed by Chancellor "ISOLATED"

These officials desperately need to be able to wield some kind of authority if they are to hold out any hope of stemming the present torrent of wage struggles convulsing industry up and down the country.

They hope to use the threat of being "isolated" from "the whole of the trade union movement" as a bludgeon to force their members to accept low wage settlements.

The importance of the 12month rule to the stand of union officials is thus far greater than the rule itself-which is becoming increasingly irrelevant as sections of workers come up for regular annual reviews.

INSTRUCTION

That is why the right wing dominated AUEW Executive has now defied the policy adopted at national conference and swung to a unanimous vote instructing AUEW delegates at the TUC to vote in favour of the 12-month rule.

In this way they seem likely to provide crucial TUC votes to transform a conference decision for an end to wage controls with the end cf Phase 2 (in July) into an extension of wage controls under the 12-month rule.

And it is why TGWU General Secretarv Jack lones who the very issue of the twelve month rule only eight weeks ago at the end of the union's Biennial Conference, has now announced that if the TUC votes to endorse the policy "we would abide by that decision."

In making such a statement.

Jones speaks only for himself and for the gang of appointed officials who control the TGWU without the slightest reference to the membership-he begs no mandate from any group of workers.

DANGEROUS

These moves by top union leaders show why the policy peddled by the Communist Party -of simply pressing the TUC to reject the 12-month rule-is so dangerous.

If this policy were generally adopted the danger would be that workers would feel bound by a TUC vote next week to uphold the 12-month rule-with no alternative policy.

So while of course we are in favour of a TUC vote against the 12-month rule, we say the TUC has no right to dictate policy on wages to individual unions, or override decisions taken at their conferences.

That right belongs solely to those union members who choose to defy reactionary wage controls and assert their right to struggle in to regain what has been lost in two years of savage wage-cutting policies and defend those gains against inflation.

Even if some undecided delegations do swing the TUC vote to bring defeat of the rule, this will be insufficient.

The present policy of TUC leaders is to call on negotiatiors to make no attempt to restore living standards devastated in the last two years.

And union officials are clearly determined to do all in their power to hold rises within the rigid limits laid down by Healey. lor tear of breaking the Lib-Lab coalition which keeps Callaghan in office.

We say must reject Jones' Phase 3 "Base claims on the cise situation of the company... "We don't want to firms out of business." "We must get incentive schemes and new manning agreements." "We will abide by the TUC vote on the 12-month rule!

any attempt by the lUC to dictate limits to the level of wage claims. There must be no shackles on free collective bargaining. Workers in struggle on wages must be given full official backing.

The TUC must declare complete opposition to all forms of wage control, complete opposition to the reactionary Lib-Lab coalition, and demand the removal of the wage-cutting Callaghan-Healey Labour leadership.

For this reason the Workers Socialist League gives full support to the September 5 lobby of the TUC in Blackpool called by the Campaign for Democracy in the The Scarman report on the Grunwick strike has produced exactly what the Government ordered-a sellout couched in terms that the leaders of Apex would find it possible to accept.

They did not have to try very hard.

Even before the report appeared the only demand that the union was prepared to make was that Ward accept its conclusion. The fact that its conclusions have been to support the management on almost every major point against the strikers has not dimmed their enthusiasm.

Roy Grantham said: "We want to give the other fellow a chance to come out of a corner. If we grind his face in the dust nothing will be solved."

"There can never be a *There victory. A draw is the best result." A draw LOW Not ito be outdone Jack Dromey, Brent Trades Council's man on the strike committee chimed in: "Everything will be played at a very low key for the next seven days to allow Mr. Ward to come out of his corner. We do not want to crow, we want a settlement, and we do not want to do anything that would make a settlement more difficult.

The two central questions are reinstatement and union recognition and anything less than outright concessions on these two points by Ward must be entirely unacceptable.

On reinstatement Scarman says that Ward should be asked to take back full time employees "if at all practicable"

Part time workers would be abandoned ed altogether. Full time the union-in exactly the manner that the TGWU allowed THF to buy off jobs in the recent hotel strikes.

Grantham and Dromey are prepared to accept a deal which allows Ward to stick by his statement that certain of the strikers will never set foot in the factory again-and that will ensure that some strikers receive a few pounds buy off after a year's picketing On recognition Scarman asks Ward only to concede the legal right to individual union recognition in place of full union rights.

Time and again Scarman plays down the strikers' grievances, suggesting they may be imagined and constantly assuring the management that the tribunal accepts their integrity.

The report condemns the blacking (illegal) and mass picketing ("allows violent extremists to participate"), describes the appalling conditions as good, and treats the Asian workers with patronising disdain.

*As for the code published in June 1976. . we doubt whether many of the Asian employees read it or really understood it if they did read it. Some of them would have been unable to read or understand it. This is one of the problems of management with a workforce such as Grunwick's"

Grunwick strikers should have absolutely nothing to do with the Scarman report, except to learn from it that a tribunal set up to prevent victory in a strike will feed back exactly what its instigators wanted to hear.

Those who say 'Enforce Starman' are in reality saying 'Erforce sackings'