Idustrial News Lift Pay Deal Plunges to 10%

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The fact that the Glasgow section had voted against a return was not mentioned, the unanimous vote of London shop stewards to refuse the offer was played down. The summing up centred on an impassioned letter from a small Kent branch threatening withdrawal from the union if the strike continued.The letter from General Secretary Frank Chapple himself was the key poison.

He warned that to continue would involve a fight not just against the employers but against the Government itself.

This line was backed up by other right wing speakers. They said the fight against the Government was one they couldn't win and to carry on would result in winning nothing.

Fraudulent arguments Now the employers recognised heir muscle next would get i big increase time' The fraudulence of these arguments was clearly seen by other speakers. Several shop stewards spoke strongly.

They said the strike was really hitting the employers now and they should carry it through.

With the firemen on strike and fights by NUPE and powerworkers well as miners coming up, they were bound to win.

In a move clearly designed to take the heat out of local pay battles and bring about a national level sell-out, engineering union leaders last week decided to revive the moribund national pay agreement.

The national agreement has been suspended since Phase 1 of the Social Contract, and currently specifies a laughable £42 as the basic rate for craftsmen.

The Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions will on Monday submit a claim for a new basic rate of £70, and the phased introduction of a 35hour week.

They do so knowing that the rates now reflect the earnings of almost no workers in the industry, and that with the obstacles created by plant agreements and the TUCimposed 12-month rule the chances of launching any Chapple's letter was received with a storm of shouts, 'Well then let us bring them (the Government) down'.

These speeches showed that growing sections of workers do see the need to bring down Callaghan and Healey and are willing to take action to bring that about.

The bureaucrats see this move, are desperate to forestall it and place themselves solidly before the Government.

Meeting stalled

It was on this key question that the meeting stalled.

The offer accepted a derisory 12-15% to bring a mate's pay up from £43.40 to £47.48 and senior fitter from £56.10 to £63.24 Further negotiations Actor Andrew Faulds, Labour MP for Warley East was confronted by a picket of firemen when he arrived to speak to a Young Socialists Meeting in Smethwick last weekend.

The picket was organised remote.

So confident were they that the Confed President, Marie Patterson of the TGWU felt able to denounce the 10% pay limit as a Government figure in which we have no part"

This was all part of the act designed to give the impression of a fight on wages while in reality throughout industry officials are manoeuvring to pressure workers to accept settlements of 10%.

Workers must place no faith in this conscious fraud orchestrated by right wing They must insist that plant claims are submitted, big enough to restore living standards eroded under two years of wage controls, and linked to a cost-of-living clause to protect against inflation.

They must fight for action on these claims in defiance of the 10% limit and the 12month rule. the 1 mention‹ of self-fi deals.

30% were not id, except o1 rms nancing prod rity Lays bare Promises of 'negotiations' on lodgings allowances, the provincial daily allowance, visits home while in lodgings, sick pay schemes and holiday credit schemes were all the leadership could offer.

The outcome of this dispute exposes just how seriously Chapple's militant turnabout at the BEPTU Conference pledging strike action for the power workers-can be taken.

It lays bare his position of defending the Government at all costs and placing himself as the main obstacle to any gains.

the emergency committee labour organisation set up Warley Trades Council.

The only workers' organisation not supporting the firemen in • Warley is the local 'Extremists' After an impassioned attack by Andrew Faulds on 'extremists" . and 'wreckers' who wanted to destroy the 'Labour' Government, the Warley East GMC narrowly voted down a motion to support the firemen.

The •YS meeting was invaded by the firemen's picket and members of the emergency committee.

Faulds, who gave a talk on the future -of the Labour Party, began his talk by attacking the Clay Cross councillors and the Shrewsbury picket, typical examples of how extremists claiming to be heroes of the Labour movement brought the party into disrepute.

Astonished

'Democratic centralism' must, he said, mean acceptance of the law and of unpleasant decisions of the Government. This was the case with the firemen. Struggles could achieve nothing but the fall of the Astonished local trade unionists heard Faulds go on to say that lower living standards, industrialism had and the industrialism come to stay in Britain.

He and eminent academics were agreed that many people were fed up with industrial society and would progressively move out to the conreturn to acting full-time. But it is doubtful if anyone in Warley would be taken in by his performances again.

Capitalist farmers are none too ple ased that the Agricultural Wages Board has resisted pressure and insisted on a 12.5% pay award for farmworkers.

About 11,000 farmworkers, paid the statutory minim um rate, will now receive this amount by law.

But the remaining , 99 1,000 farmworkers may well find themselves fobbed off by 10% of their already abysmal pay packets.

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Farm itta