Fine words indeed! And there were more to be had at the engineers conference, where delegates had already voted by 39 to 29 to reject any Social Contract. Almost unanimously - which means the right wing supported the motions as well - delegates instructed the AUEW leaders to get the TUC to use the full strength of the trade union movement to secure the immediate release of the Shrewsbury building workers.
It will be remembered that numerous instructions of this sort have been given to the TUC for more than a year.... and the Shrewsbury Two are still in jail. But no resolutions came from the Communist Party members and supporters at the cor conference on how to mobilise themovement to get the jailed pickets UNANIMOUS Likewise the AUEW conference unanimously called for lower interest rates, control of capital exports, and cuts in arms spending to finance better pensions, state benefits and social services.
More was to come on public ownership. The AUEW re-affirmed its demands for public ownership of offshore oil, docks, shipbuilding and ship repair, natural gas, aircraft, land,. atomic energy, computers, machine tools, banks, insurance companies and other financial institutions. The The decision of the national conference of the Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers, meeting in Hastings last week, to throw out any form of social contract is a clear blow against Labour's wage-cut plans. The next day the Scottish miners followed the engineers lead: so long complete nationalisation of British Leyland was called for and industrial action to fight redundancies threatened.
ONSLAUGHT
It's fair to say that such an onslaught on the power of the ruling class would bring about a near revolutionary situation. So why did the right hardly bother to oppose these resolutions? Why did only the Social Contract debate generate so much heat? The reason is that only that decision committed the union leaders to anything that was actually going to have an impact - voting against Social Contract Mark 2 at this year's TUC.
All the rest remain so many pious resolutions to other bodies. The right knows that neither the TUC nor the Labour Government will do anything unless independent working class action is being taken at the base which threatens their own necks.
NO ALLIANCE While the decision to reject the Social Contract in any form is an important step forward, the AUEW conterence failed to propose an alternative strategy for the working class. Above all, it refused to put out any call for an alliance with other unions against the Social Contract. Instead it passed a series of resolutions which would seriously damage the power of the capitalist class if acted on, and called on the very same TUC and Labour Government who are botching together new wage cut-plans to carry them out!
in place of the Social Contract the AUEW conference simply reiter ated its faith in 'free collective bargaining. It's true that the skilled sections of the AUEW can defend their interests on this basis because of their strategic positions in industry, but the non-skilled and low paid are not in a position to defend themselves through gut militancy. It is these real fears and divisions that Jack Jones exploits when he calls for flat rate wage increases.
CLASS-WIDE
These divisions can only be overcome by a series of class-wide deme ands which cut across the divisions that exist inside the working class and unite all workers in a common struggle. The sliding scale of wages, benefits, and public expenditure would defend all aspects of working class living standards against inflation Not only that. By uncompromisingly asserting that the working class takes no responsibility for the capitalist crisis, and that the ruling class can pay for every last penny of it the struggle around these demands opens up the way to workers power and socialism. But in the AUEW as elswhere, a fight for these demands requires breaking from the parliamentarist conceptions of the Communist Party and Labour left on how to achieve socialism.
contraception and abortion free ÁTIONAL red weekly 26 june 1975 LEI THE CHUKL
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as the capitalist system remains in Britain', declared Scottish NUM executive spokesman, Mr John Phillips, 'no trade unionist can accept the Social Contract or wage restraint'.