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British labor movement faces

a wage freeze

By SAM RUSSELL

HE BRITISH government’s

White Paper of July 29 is

a bill envisaging a wage
freeze until the end of this
year and restriction of wage
rise for at least another. six
months,

Seeking to surmount the eco-
nomic crisis, the government
plans to reduce home consump-
tion and deliberately send the
unemployment figure soaring. It
also intends to take penal mea-
sures against unions and. per-

sons participating in strikes or

urging action to force employers
to raise wages. These measures
provide for fines of up to $1,400
or imprisonment.

The measures proposed by the
Wilson government have been
given support by international
banking circles and its friends
across the ocean.

President Johnson, praising the
British Prime Minister’s step,
has gone so far as to hail him as
a second Churchill. This may
prove to be only too apt a de-
scription, for it was Churchill
who, as chancellor of the exche-
quer, initiated the policy which
led to all-round cuts in wages in
1925 and the general strike of
1926.

The international banking cir-
cles, however, believe that even
more drastic measures are re-
quired to freeze wages and re-
duce public consumption.

The Tories, while welcoming
the measures, are trying to make
party capital out of the unpopu-
larity of the measures under-
taken by the Labor government.

The government’s proposed
measures have caused a storm
of protest in the British trade
union and labor movement. Many
of Wilson’s followers have been
severely shocked since there
were still illusions that the Labor
government was waiting to de-
clare its “Left” views and it is
probable that the Prime Minister
and the Right Wing of the Labor
Pary are still hoping to play’ on
these illusions. But the past few

weeks have seen a growing”

realization in the Labor move-
ment of the truly reactionary
Nature of the wage-freeze.

In questions in the House of
Commons and during the many
debates on the Prices and In-
comes Bill, the Left has focus-
sed opposition against the pro-

‘posals to increase unemploy-

ment, freeze wages and tie the
trade unions.

The Left has demanded as an
alternative — cuts in arms ex-
penditures, renunciation of mili-
tary commitments both East and
West of the Suez, a review of

- the question of the role of sterl-

ing as a world currency, and the
extension of public ownership

with modernization of industry.
In the discussion there. has

been an increasing coincidence

of views on what is to be done
between the various sections of

the labor movement, as expres-

sed in statements by_ political
leaders like John Gollan, general
secretary of the British Commu-
nist Party; Michael Foot, MP, a
leading contributor to Tribune,
and Mr. Frank Cousins, MP,
general secretary of the Trans-

- port and General Workers Union. -

Cousins, who resigned from
his cabinet post as minister of
technology to show his disa-
greement with the government’s
‘policy, has since then played the
leading part in opposing the
policy.

In one of the debates in the
House of Commons, he declared:

“T do not see how one can put
this kind of bill down and con-
tinue to pretend one will have
free trade unions in a democra-
tic society, when the intention
of the bill is to tell the trade
unions what they can and can-
not do.”

In the same debate, Labor MP
George Perry declared:

‘J did not fight the last elec-
tion on this kind of policy.
Whenever I was asked what a
Labor government would do
“about strikes, my answer was
we would not declare martial
Jaw. This is almost tantamount
to martial law being declared in
this country. I cannot see how
you can call this country a de-

‘mocracy if this (penal: clause

against workers) goes into the
DING ee. ed,

Michael Foot denounced the
government’s measures because
“the principles of: collective. bar-
gaining have been utterly rup-
tured and the promises made to
great. sections of the community
are being abandoned.”

Growing concern has been
voiced in the labor movement at
the fact that the government’s
measures appear to have been
made more ‘ferocious with the
inclusion. of penal _ clauses
against workers as a result of
American pressure.

This was brought out very

Prime Minister Wilson

Unions fight back

A fight-back against the wage
freeze policy of the British
labor government is growing
among the country’s trade
unions.

A packed Glasgow rally re-

cently unanimously condemned
the government’s Prices and In-
comes Act and called for a mass
lobby against the measure at
both the Trade Union Congress
and the Labor Party conferences
which are coming up soon.

The 500 angry trade unionists
at the Glasgow rally called re-
peatedly for attempts to be made
to get Labor MP’s to oppose the
wage freeze policy. The meet-
ing was sponsored by 11 trade
unions.

The protest rally followed re-
cent announcements in Britain
of layoffs and plant closings fol-
lowing introduction of the wage
freeze policy.

The pattern of closures began

with the firing of 1,000 ICI
nylon workers and 1,500 at ENV
Engineers.

Workers at Lilford Weavers,
Bolton, were told that the cot-
ton mill labor force was to be
cut by 100, a quarter of those
employed. —

An electronics firm, Erie Re-
sistor, announced 130 layoffs.
Singer Sewing Machine Co. an-
nounced that between 300 and
350 of its 10,000 jobs are to be
made redundant in the next four
months.

Some 1,300 workers at Brit-
ish Light Steel Pressing — a
Rootes subsidiary — are fight-
ing for their jobs at Acton, Lon-
don.

Soon after the pay freeze was
announced, unions representing
more than 114 million British
workers said they would fight
the policy.

clearly by MP John Mendelson,
who pointed out that when the
government first tried to get the
trade unions -to accept a wage
freeze it insisted that this was
to be voluntary. But after a visit
by the USS. Secretary of the
Treasury, Henry Fowler, compul-
sory measures were introduced.

From the moment that the
main _provisions of the wage
freeze were known, 59 Labor
MP’s put their names to a mo-
tion calling for its rejection. This
motion reflects the mood of Bri-

 tain’s nine million ‘trade union-
ists and their families who did

not fight for the election of a
Labor government to have such

“measures imposed upon them.

The general secretary of the
Amalgamated Engineering Un-
ion, Jim Conway, writing in the
AEU journal, declared that un-
employment was no solution -of
the economic problem and was
the one thing “we are not pre-
pared to accept and will not
stand for.”

The Tailor and Garment Wor-
kers Union, the National Union
of Public Employees, the Nation-
al Union of Mineworkers, the
Technicians Union, and the Elec-
trical Tradés Union have also
ees the government’s po-
icy.

A number of trade unions
have already declared that they
intend to go ahead with their
wage claims.

Already, the preliminary agen-
da for the annual conference of
the Trades Union Congress, to
be held in September, contains
20 resolutions opposed to various
aspects of the government’s in-
comes policy and it has to be
remembered that these were sub-
mitted long before the Prime

Minister’s announcement of July

20.

People recall that in July,
1961, the Tory chancellor of the
exchequer, Selwyn Lloyd, im-
posed similar measures. They in-
creased unemployment from
298,500 to 427,100 in December,
1961. It grew steadily through-
out 1961 and reached 644,700 by
April, 1963.

And not a single problem fac-
ing Britain was solved. The
Labor Party fought them tooth
and nail and Harold Wilson
made the following devastating
criticism of Selwyn Lloyd in
Parliament:

“He had to satisfy the inter-
national banking community by
masochistic cuts in our stand-
ards of living . . . He believes
that international speculators
are impressed by actions which
in the long term harm the eco-
MOMMY. -5- 52

History repeats itself. Wilson
could now say the same thing
about himself,

September 9, 1966—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 3