Harsh anti-inflation move by Germany

Key decision on Merseyside casuals LIVERPOOL dockers face a key decision tomorrow, which could affect the future of jobs and conditions not only in the port itself but in the area as a whole.

On of the face of it the issue they will vote on is a simple one: they will accept recruitment of 500 'casual', supplementary dockers to meet the port's crippling labour shortage.

But in the background lurks a major threat to security of employment and trade union organization on the docks. If supplementaries are accepted, under whatever conditions, both could be seriously undermined.

Members of the port shop stewards' committee, which by a majority vote is recommending THE WEST German government has announced a tough 21 point programme in an effort to beat back the rocketing inflation which is undermining the economy:

Higher taxes and cuts in government spending are aimed at reducing investment and consumption. Economics Minister Hans Friderichs told Germans: "All will have to tighten their belts.' He appealed to trade unions and employers to show restraint in wage demands and price increases but the measures stop short of a freeze.

The Brandt government hopes to take money out of the economy by a state bond issue to be frozen in the central bank and by swingeing cuts in public spending.

Depreciation allowances for taxation are to be suspended and surtax and corporation taxes have been increased.

The measures are not expected to have much immediate effect but they open the way for an economic plunge, pricking the inflation-boosted West German boom.

The vital• export trade is threatened by the effects of the international monetary chaos which has resulted in two major revaluations of the mark.

The West German government is putting pressure on the Common Market to reduce tariffs to keep down food prices.

The mark has lost 7.5 per cent of its purchasing power in the past 12 months and in five years it has lost one quarter.

Germans fear a return to the runaway inflation of 1923 when workers collected their pay in suitcases and found that it was valueless next day. acceptance, say they have been caught between two fires.

On the one hand the loss of almost 3,000 men from the labour force under the Jones-Aldington special severance terms has caused big delays in handling cargo and led to ships being transferred to other ports. Port employers threatened that trade could be lost permanently.

On the other hand the Tory government is firmly committed to allowing no new recruitment to the permanent register of dockers, where men are protected by the 1947 Dock Labour Scheme from dismissal.

Both Maurice Macmillan, the Employment Secretary, and Transport Minister John Peyton have made clear they welcome the growth of the supplementary register nationally. One Merseyside firm which wanted to A court has just ruled that pensions paid by private firms must be increased to take account of the fall in the value of money.

This is the first time that a fall in the value of money has been used to justify a change in the basis of a commercial contract.

21-point programme. Allende extends military THE ALLENDE regime in Chile has clamped military rule on the province of O'Higgins, where the strikebound El Teniente copper mine is situated.

The capital and province of Santiago has been under military control since a state of emergency was declared last weekend following clashes between supporters and opponents of the government.

Miners at El Teniente have been on strike for three weeks for higher pay. On Wednesday over 9,000 marchers clashed with OUR LABOUR CORRESPONDENT recruit permanents, Liverpool Maritime Terminals, has actually been prevented by the government from doing so.

Unlike permanent registered men, supplementaries can be fired at a week's notice either by their immediate employer or the local Dock Labour Board.

To most dockers this smacks of the old casual labour system, under which employers enforced ruthless speed-up under threat of the sack. A groundswell of opposition recently forced the docks and waterways committee of the Transport and General Workers' Union to declare it would fight the growth of the supplementary register. THE WEST German Bundestag yesterday ratified the good neighbour treaty with the German Democratic Republic signed last December.

The treaty, one of the fruits of chancellor Willy Brandt's 'ostpolitik', consecrates the division of Germany into two states and opens the way for trade and economic links on a larger scale with eastern Europe and the The Christian Democratic opposition opposed the ratification as well as a Bill providing for West Germany to apply to join the United Natio ns. They did this because it wi is linked with the admission of he GDR.

rule police and 20 workers injured in the nearby town Rancagua.

SOUTH KOREAN army court martial has sentenced a number of high-ranking officers to long prison terms and heavy fines for bribery and corruption. Former Commander of the Seoul garrison Maj-Gen Pil-yong and his Chief of Staff, Brig-Gen Soh Yong-kil both get 15 years and were fined heavily. Five other generals and colonels were involved in the case.

But, with Tory patronage, the register keeps growing.

If the Liverpool recruitment goes ahead supplementaries will comprise almost 8 per cent • of the docks labour force nationally. In the important container port of Southampton, supplementaries already outnumber the permanent registered men.

This is a powerful weapon in the hands of the employers for pushing through speed-up, breaking down dockers' traditional solidarity and ultimately attacking the Dock Labour Scheme itself, which the employers hate fiercely.

The Liverpool stewards say they will make sure whatever supplementaries are recruited are quickly made permanents.

But there are powerful forces ranged against such a possibility. If this could not be achieved at LMT, where even the employer wanted permanents, what chance is there of achieving it after recruitment in the port as a whole?

In any case, since the real issue whenever a fight takes place is a confrontation with government policy why not have the confrontation on grounds of principle now?

The time for 'left' talk is on Liverpool docks.

Jones-Aldington was a bitter lesson, and the rot it started must be stopped now. Dockers must throw out the supplementary register, defend the Dock Labour Scheme and demand their leaders fight to force the Tory government to resign.

The Tories must be replaced by a Labour government pledged to complete nationalization of the entire port transport industry without compensation and inder workers' control.