mary to roil back the bosses' offensive.
ok back at last year's progress ters" incomes, the picture is too toly. Some groups, like 1, suffered cuts of 8% in as maatha. Overall the decline in liv. dards for an average industrial er was running at about 5-6% All those figures, which don't look to the bosses, look worse to the her when you add the rate of unoyment. This is now running at bout 800,000. The most 'optimistConcasters say that it will be difwit to keep it under one million winter. So despite the defeat of Heath fell, despite the tremendous power of the trade union movement, employment is increasing and livang standards are falling Fords, at the time of writing, have still not netded. Finally, as well as all these, this cater's pay strugies have still to NEXT ROUND A glance at the next 'round' of ma shows a mixed bag in terms of the strength of the workers involved. The starting date for dis union on the building workers dalm a 1 November. After a tattle at the UCATT conference last summet a demand was lodged for 87% foe unskilled and 107% for skilled wotkers on the hasic rates.
George Smith, general socretary of UCATT, has already scabbed on no rise since 1972, after their bitter national strike. But Smith now suys That he doesn't want the whole claim because he agrees with the social contract. Smith is trying to use the sump in the trade (only 9000 private houses were started last Augusc-a half of the total for the same month last year) to defeat his own rank-and-tile.
The Executive of the NUM (whose claim is one to be settled at the end of October) refused to accept the divsive and miserly productivity offer of the NCB only after a sharp battle executive finally voted by 21 votes to four to reject the deal.
The executive's decision was a vital op in maintaming the coity of the net. The Coal Board's offer introduced vide discrepancies in pay threatening the unity which the miners used so effectively in the last tam national mikes. But the picture is not as rosy as SAME the catcuave resoldan moved by but Scargill stated that the NCM might ta productivity deal if it were "hased verall output per manshift and e same amount of bonus to everycoal mining industry, irrespoo" job performod" from Coal Bound an to the tea ladies in his office, wendment was accepted from president Joe Gormley calling un a war ma wo meet the a targets which we have jointly our objectives for this year The NCB has set a target fot next at of 120 million tons of deep-mined sal. This target stays until 1985, With and prodoctivity this means pit land todundances ty 12 October 1974 Page 8 with militant representatives of the rank-and-file.
Already Agricultural Workers Union representatives, whose ciaim of 42% (a minimum wuge of L35 per week) goes to arbitration on I January, have announced intentions to retreat. NALGO and the Bank Clerks Union leaderships positively crowed with triumph at managing to keep their members wage increases down below 14 per cent.
Still to come are 1 million local authority manual workers (1 November): 220,000 hospital ancillary workers (15 December); and garage workers. The ancillary workers, ruling class's political strategy when and the local authority workers are botl seeking an extension of the threshold agreements.
TASKS
Several important tasks fact militants if the coming struggles are to be victorious:
The fight against the bureaucrats.
If Labour is returned, the national strugele against the bureaucrats will be decisive, In most cases the social contract will be used to flout the democratic decisions of last summer s WHORE CONTECEIG doing what the 'social contrap' pretends to do. We need protection of our living standards, Demands for a 'nil-norm' chreshoid, plus an increase to raise our scandards since the last claim, will undercut all the hot air this claim. Building workers have had about whose henefit the social contract is in When the National Committee of the AUEW meets in Norember to discuss its claim for 1975 the demand for a nil-norm threshold must be coupled to the 50 per cent increase in basic rutes now being discussed by militants. In that way the rank-and-file engineering worker will see a positive policy that gives partmount protection against inflation.
Low pay and equal pay. The pattern of the sectlements over this win ter will set the stage for 1975. A glance at the list of claims shows big ... The Coal Board's productivity deal is dead, writes BOB MURPHY. After a campaign by the left-wing, the National Union of Mineworkers' All discussion on the claint must take tbis into account. Orberwise all talk about unity is simply hor air. Before any talk of a productivity deal the NCB are ruaning down some pits and shiftine production to more productive ones.
The question is who is going to benefit froes increased productivity. With pit clasures on the way, miners should demand work sharing with bo productivity.
Such a plan would protect the miners from tedundancy and are a lead to workers in other industries faced with redundancis. The miners led the strug Behalf of alf workers against the Coyurn- spinst the Tories, fighting on ment's incomes policy. Now they can gro a lead on bow to fight redundancies.
This is all the more lotpor lant whin the latest news of the coal producLic figures The NCB has unnounced that coal stacks are down to 6.5 million tons, exacty half what toy wore this time last year;
LARGEST The two largest consumers of coul, the Contral Plectrocity Crenerating Board and the British Stoel Corporation union soutarity built now. A big wave of industrial action is needed for the implementation of a E30 minimum wage as a first step to a t40 minimum. All The furious regrading of women wor.
ed by trade union action For one, organised push. The strength of the bureaucrate in unions like the Agricultural Workers and UCATT will make its impact.
Many of the most bitter struggles over the winter will be only factorywide or company-wide. be for the extension of the threshold.
Issues other than wages will dom. inate many fights. We know we need to protect our living standards. We know we need extensive nationalisafion to protect jobs in many industries. We know that by spring millions of workers will have been involved in one fight or another.
This fight must not be allowed to wear itself out in small rushes as the enemy. We need lo organise towards a genera strice to impose our own programme of demands; including a nil-norm threshold, nationalisation of firms declaring redundancies. equal pay and a decent minimum wage, These are all issues on which we will have to fight anyway.
at Fords, It's obvious ro any trade unionist, in any car plant in Britain. that a united light over wages--coupled with the demand to nationalise the car industry-would have tremendous power. But at the moment there is no orginisation even to begin to discuss such a programme. We must work for a rational conference of represcatWe need a reply to the buroaucrats atives of the main car plants in Britwhich strengthens our resolve by regily ain to deal with the erisis in the industry:
would mark a turning point in the fight against the capitalists and the socta contrap.
No matter which party wins the election, the next Government will be forced by the cconomic crisis to try and introduce a statutory incomes policy, to make the workers pay for the ills of British capitalisin.
A campaign should be mounted now throughout the labour movement around the slogan "no incomes policy under capitalisat'.
The trade union movement should make it clear that any attempi-by whatever Government to impose a wage freeze or incomes policy will be met by a general strike .... are worried aboot their positions. The CEGB set a target of 14 million tons and already they are one million down on this figure This is a drop of some Gve mülion from last year's socks BSC have not announced their figures, but two months ago they were 15 per cent down. The capitalist crisis Is seriously affecting the energy industry your was just the beginning It forced the employers to rethink their whole merge policy. The coal crisis is making the think yet again ENERGY The NCB's proposed producevity deal was important for the ruling class not just because it would weaken the unity of the miners, hut beenuse it wen! part way to solving some of their shortteren energy problems. The emplayers will be looking for new ways la solve their problems-both inside and outside the energy industry. The miners when discussing their claim can give a lead 10 the working class counter-offensive.
Not by Joe Goriley's friendly sttogether with the employers, nor be productivity deals The answers tie in an integrated workers energy policy fought for by united artion of all workers in the energy industry.
Some will on women workers, We can start by taking up the fight AUEW itself.
Such meetings, in many industries No incomes policy under capitalism of affairs' and Eddie Loyden. section of the workforce. ers eTs.
Until two years ago the women at Wingrove and Rogers on Merseyside had never dreamt of joining a union.
It was only after a strike at the Kirkby branch that they realised the trade unions could work for their benefit. So they joined the AUEW But it's a long road to travel between joining a union and really currying out an effective struggle against a firm that has, for 50 years.
lined its pockets by imposing had conditions and appallingly low pay The accompanying interview with a shop steward from Wingrove's tells its own story. At first, Marion's answers may seem to be those of any militant trade unionist. But they are more than that. They show how women workers learned through a long and bitter strike that only through their own activities will they organise suppurt from, not only oth et trade unionists, but even from the POLICE The strikers have heen contronted by large numbers of police on a scale not seen in any other recent workers pickets? struggle in the area. They have exper ienced a vicious, slandering preas campaign which charged them with beat- OR YOU ing scabs, threatening them with acid and putting ropes across the rates.
They have heen dragged into the local election debate by a Conservative candidate, who has tabled a question in the Commons on this sinister state And they have fought back-by in vading the Express offices and dem anding an apology, and by going to a major Labour clection meeting, dem- workers?
anding support from MPs Heffer, Foot At first the women believed they could 'go it alone" and rely solely on the scrength of the AUEW. During ee happen? their 17 week struggle this attitude has changed. They realise that they cannot win on their own, and after six weeks they appealed for support from fellow trade unionists: financial belp, blacking and picketing But though the women have learned how crucial this support is, unfortunately the labour movement as a whole has yet to learn that women are a vati • CHEAP LABOUR Forty per cent of the workforce and full-time women workers not including part-time workers-and, of these, 90 per cent earn less than 120 per week. Many earn less than 25p per hour. This state of affairs would not be tolerable if they were male workers. It is not only a disgrace, but it is suicidal for the labour movement to ignore these vast numbers of work The lack of concern by unions for women workers means that women can he used as cheap labour, keeping all the wages down-including men's. It means that they can be made to scab and strike-break in disputes involving both men and women workThe unions are thus allowing the State and the hosses to exploit the ingrained divisions between men and women workers. The working class movement has not yet understood that women have exceptional problems because of their place in MARION WINSTANLEY, a shap steward at Wingroveland Rogers gave the following interview to Red Weekly.
What stage has the dispute reached?
I think it's great now, he's reached a stage now where were all more militant than ever. We're determined ta get back.
Do you think there is a chance of winning the t2.80 thresholu?
Definitely. Either that or be | Wingrone] will have to close his factory down What has the role of the police been in this disporte?
Absolutely dispusting. When you get 39 policemen, plus inspectors and three police women for about 50 pickoters, I Why do you think the police have turn ed up in sach numbers?
1 tink they've been asked fram inside the factory to do it, Hocause there's been no bother on the ourside line at all.
Do you think the police have boen neut Definicely not. They've been on the mon agement's side alf along. They po up to the top of the road every morning to meet the Bahs coming in to work and escort then down, yet it we put our toot off die pave ment we're told to get back.
Have the police intimidated any of the Well, not verbally, but physcially by pushing them with their sticks and what What has the Union done for you so far?
Outwardly dey don't sect to have done very much but on the quiet they've done: great deal. They've blacked every thing that's possible. The Trades Council got onto firms to black work and helped us in that way Now there's nothing going out or coming in except what the little fellow Bill la scab worker| brings out in his car.
Do you think the Union would have acted more quickly it ibe dispute had been of male Definitely, the management wouldn't have been able to last so long if it had been Wat do you think the strike needs now to take it forward? What would you like to Well, T'd like to see a lot more of this mass picketing. The first mass picker we ever had frektened the daylights out of him [Wingrave] because half an hour later he was trying to negotiate with us Since then the pickets seei to have dwindied down a bit Mute mass pickets I think would be a great help.
lems before they can expect women to participate fully in strugele. And women must light to raise these is sues themseives within the unions.
JOHN GRAHAM, AUEW branch delegate, Birmingham Trades Council. BIRMINGHAM TRADES COUNCIL hus piven the go-ahead for the organisation of a conference on women's rights later this auton. Marie Paterson, Chairperson of the TUC and TGWU women's organiser has been invited to speak, along with a representative from the Working Women's Charter Campaign in Birmingham Several ALEW branches have been campaigning in the local labour morement for such a conference, and four union branches wrote to the Trades Council demanding that the Working Women's Charter be discussed. The hext step forward for the campaign Will be to ensure that the conference is as broad-based as possible, involving women who work at home as well as in the factory and the office.
The only regrettable feature of
Ar Wingrove and Rogers in Liverpool and Salford Electrical Instruments in Heywood, Manchester, women workers are fighting a battle for At both factories men are crossing the picket line. In both areas support from the local trade union movement falls far short of These strikes confound those who say women are not interested in trade unions and that women do not know how to fight, But they also add a note of warning that unless the new upsurge of fighting trade unionism amongst women workers is taken seriously by the entire trade union movement, then only the bosses will gain. For the women workers at SEl and Wingrove and Rogers are the tip of an iceberg.
cutbacks in social expenditure and increasing redundancies hit women-who are trying to cope on an average wage Although joining unions at twice the rate of men, women have never been as integrated into the life of the unions. Therefore, they are often more willing to disregard the policies adopted by the trade union leadership in this period. The spate of recent struggles launched or er equal pay, grading and low pay show a disregard for the social contract that the trade union leadership is trying desperately to maintain Isolated strikes-like the cleaning women at Vauxhall's in Luton, and the national actions of the nurses and the teachers —have been imp Increasing numbers of struggles by women are on the agenda for the coming months-not only on the wages front, but also around ques tions of rising rents and prices, discrimination in education and job opportunities, ete. The gains made in these fights must be consolidated This means that male trade unionists must support struggles launched by women on all fronts. If they fail to do so on their own accord women workers will adopt militant action to force them to do so. And any support organised must take into account the double oppres sion of women-arising from responsibilities in the home and their position in the workforce, The decision by the strike committee at SEI The Working Women's Charter Campaign has been launched nationally to organise support for women's strikes. The Charter includes de mands relating to women's position in the family alongisde ones for better work conditions and opportunities. Any trade union branches, trades councils, tenants associations, students unions, or women's groups who have adopted the Charter can begin to demonstrate their ser what it should be. men, for less pay.
'I we de work faster to make extra we are moved to another job. Once you have got the knack of a Galloping inflation that is just over half of men's- harder than any other group of workers.
with the Labour government.
ortant examples for the rest of the working class. to organise a creche is a step in this direction.
Heywood firm was clocked out, all the women walked out and held a mass meeting to protest so that women become an organised fighting force within the ranks of the workers' movement. inusness about these demands by mobilising to the fullest for a national picket at SEl on October 19.
When a woman worker at the
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la the latest Government figures are released, proving that workers" wing standards have been slashed by 4 per cent over the past year, PAUL SMITH looks af the coming wages fight and the tactics nec-