Job Figures Deceit

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Public ownership is •back on the agenda again" according to that one-time darling of the Labour 'left' Tony Benn.

Now a pillar of the LibGovernment ministers may deceive themselves with their smug optimism every time the official unemployment figures get worse.

But they can hardly fool anyone else.

•This month the total of jobless once again surged up above 1½ million (over of the workforce).

Of course, as the statisticians always say, the figures "always rise" between December and January-as if that makes it alright that last month 60,000 more people were sacked than got jobs.

In any case the figures rose even more than usual at the time of year and so the underlying trend of total unemployment still, despite Healey's promises, shows no sign of falling.

But further below the surface there are trends which look even more alarming.

First, there is evidence that, but for the government's various temporary "job creation" schemes and job subsidies the jobless total would be 250,000 higher than it is.

These measures are no immigration controls that stand as a major concession to the racists and fascists.

All of a sudden Benn announced his disagreement with the policy that has stood at the base of government economic strategy.

It is wong, he told a baffled audience, to think that public spending cuts and higher profits will lead to increased investment by private industry.

more than a cosmetic measure which conceal the true size of the mass unemployment problem created by capitalism.

Alarming sign

The second alarming sign from these latest figures is that although the number out of work for a short time fell during the month, the number of workers under 60 who were unemployed for a month or more rose by 70,000.

This and the overal national average of 6% unemhint that Benn's theatrical opposition to Callaghan's bid to guillotine discussion on European elections might be a part of this strategy for power.

The reality is much more humdrum than this. Benn had dropped from the limelight and become regarded as no more than a menial Lib-Lab hack.

But now Benn along with other 'left' elements in the Labour Party, has spotted a growing hostility within the ranks of the Party to the leadership's brazen class collaboration-a hostility that he fears might end Callaghan's rule at the next General Election.

The 'left' words combined with support for the Lib-Lab deal are Benn's way of seeking to head off any independent opposition and smooth the path for further years of reformist collaboration.

ployed (twice the level of 1974 when Wilson's government took office) hides the fact that in several regions the problem is even worse.

In the north of Ireland the rate it now almost 11% (going close to 30% in towns like Newry and Strabane); it is over 8% in Scotland and the North of England; and over 7% in Wales and the North West (over 12% on Merseyside).

Finally, what jobs there are are less and less in manufacturing and more in services.

Manufacturing jobs have dropped by 62% since 1974 alone; Jobs in services went up by 3% but this was not nearly enough to compensate for the decline of industry.

PHOTO: Chris Davies. Report Dennis Healey, leading architect of the pro-capitalist economic strategy which has produced this intolerable level of mass unemployment, says that jobs for workers are a prize for good, self-sacrificing behaviour towards capital.

For two years this has centred on wage controls. If workers accepted the pay controls, said Healey, there would be more jobs; it they. didn't they would "price themselves out of a job"

In fact, two years of rigidly policed wage control have coincided with the doubling of unemployment.

And this policy has been pursued without any opposition from Labour's so-called "left wingers"

Even when January's enormous unemployment figure was announced in Parliament there was not a single Labourite prepared to confront the vicious attacks on jobs and wages carried out by Healey and Callaghan.

Scottish Labour Party Jim Sillars brought this clearly.

Near violence

He contrasted the near violence with which Labour MPs had greeted the Tory government's achievement of one million unemployed.

The Speaker had had to suspend the sitting.

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PHOTO: Chris Davies, Report matis it oving polites of