BRITISH TRADES UNION CONGRESS
By Susan Williams
London |
Against a background of increasing unofficial strikes, for higher pay or better conditions, the Trades Union Congress, representing some 8,750,000 workers in 172 unions, held its 97th annual congress at Brighton September 6-10. It is not surprising that the most controversial and important issue discussed was the prices and incomes policy.
The Labour party leadership set the atmosphere by putting great pressure on the general council (the top body of the TUC) to support the government's incomes policy. This policy is presented to the public as a means of solving the present economic. problems by limiting the rate of profits and wages. In actual fact it is designed to enforce a wage restraint.
Minister of Economics George Brown wrangled with the TUC leaders for nine hours prior to the opening of the gathering in an attempt to line up the TUC behind the government's policies. Minister of Labour Ray Gunter pleaded to the delegates that time was an important factor and that the TUC should act responsibly.,and quickly to the. government's plans, Failure to do so, he argued, would result in the
downfall of the government and the return of the Tories.
Despite this pressure, the vote on the incomes policy was only 5,251,000 for, as against 3,512,000 opposed. With a majority of only some 2,000,000 for the general council, it is dubious that the victory can be implemented.
A significant fact was the rise in the opposition vote, It was nearly double that cast at the conference of union executives last April.
More important, however, than the vote was the debate itself in which leaders of unions opposing the general council made it clear that the problems facing the Labour government could not be solved by wage restraint, whether secured voluntarily or by legislation.
Harry Nicolas, acting secretary of the Transport and General Workers Union ~- Britain! s largest trade union -- opposed the incomes policy in principle, He claimed that what had been projected as a-. programme for improving the standard of living was rapidly developing into a positive plan for wage limitation. Such legislation would give any future Tory government powers which it could never have obtained for itself from the trade-union movement, more powers, in fact, than were conceded in wartime.
Clive Jenkins, general secretary of the Association of Supervisory Staffs, Executives and Technicians [ASSET], Britain's fastest growing union, attacked the general council's analysis of Britain's economic problem as being a “pathetically and thoroughly and danger-~ ously wrong economic analysis." He pointed out that one way to tackle the deficit problem was to cut the bill for war preparations.
D. McGarvey of the Amalgamated Society of Boilermakers, Shipwrights, Blacksmiths, and Structural Workers declared, in opposing the incomes policy, that the boilermakers believed in planning. “But we believe in socialist planning."
He appealed to the delegates of the uncommitted unions to vote against the incomes policy. "If the General Council's recommendations are carried, your members will slaughter you when you return to say what you have done.!
While the leaders of the TUC worried over how much they can get away with in vetoing wage claims, the leaders of the five whitecollar unions,*+ which have put out a pamphlet arguing the case against the government's incomes policy, are planning to intensify their
*The five unions, with a total membership of nearly 160,000, are the Draughtsmen's and Allied Technicians! Association, the Association of Scientific Workers, the Association of Supervisory Staffs, Executives and Technicians, the Society of Technical Civil Servants, "and the Association of Giné and Television Technicians,
campaign.
Apart from taking advertising space in left-wing weeklies, they are planning to hold a "teach-in" on the threat to collective bargaining which they say the government's legislative plans present, This is projected for the eve of the Labour party conference at the end of September. They also hope to carry the fight to the rostrum itself with an emergency motion on the government's plans.
On the final day, by another majority of just under 2,000,000 votes, the conference amended a resolution which called for the with~ drawal of all foreign troops from Vietnam.
-Ralph Bond of the Association of Ciné and Television Technicians introduced the motion. He said that the United States had introduced troops and military bases in defiance of the 1954 Geneva agreement. “The war in Vietnam is being fought by bombing, napalm and the use of poisonous chemicals dropped on the crops on the theory that if you cannot burn them to cinders or blow them to bits, you try to starve them into submission."
The amendment, which was carried, called for "negotiations" to achieve a settlement along the lines of the Geneva agreement.
The issues discussed at Brighton will be debated again at the Labour party annual conference to be held at Blackpool. The outcome of the TUC conference clearly indicates that the Labour party leadership will carry its policies on the incomes policy and on Vietnam. Ever mindful of the government's tiny majority and fearful of the return of a Tory government, many of the. delegates will give the leadership their support at the Labour party conference.
The speeches and voting figures at Brighton reveal that a large section of the working class have no intention of accepting a wage freeze,
The government's attempt to solve its economic problems and to gain time for capitalism by legislation against the working class will meet with increased opposition from the organised workers,