The conference on thresholds und the cost of living held in Coventry agreed on the need for a uniled policy on thresholds when the existing ones run out in the autumn.
Over the past couple of months Coventry has seen some important struggles by ditlerent factories to secure the full threshold payments. As John Fisher, ASTMS Divisional Officer and one of the sponsors of the conference explained: 'By resisting the claims for a threshold agreement, British Leyland have served to unify the trade union movement. They may have done the moveBut not all the recent struggles have been successful and there is no doubt that il any substantial increas es or threshold agreements are going to be won in the untumn then a contral wages policy with a united offensive against the employers is going to be secessary.
The failure of the local bureaucracy to take any sort of central initiative made the conferenco, although hot large in numbers, an important first step. At the end of the conference a committee was set up with several of the leading trade unionists in the aren. The committee will organise a much broader-based conference in the auturn.
If successful that could be a launching pad for a really determined united struggle in the Coventry district for wage increases and thresholds agreements that really can protect wage-packets from rocketing