Deflation in U.S. Living costs and unemployment rising continually

NIXON'S measures af according to the US Lal They now stand at 4 per cent of the working population, an increase from 3.5 per cent in only one month.

This sharp increase what the US government, Gainst inflation are at last beginning to 'bit our Department's unemployment figures.

SUPPORT FOR MINERS employers and bankers have worked for over the last year or more.

Treasury secretary David Kennedy told the Congressional Joint Economic Committee that this rise was acceptable. He refused to regard a level of 6 or even 7 per cent as 'unacceptable'.

RESULTS

Kennedy listed the following results of the Nixon government's anti-inflationary measures (high interest rates, tax surcharges etc):

A slowing down of the growth rate from 5.1 per cent in 1968 to 2 per cent in the first three quarters of 1969.

• A sharp drop in the sale of goods and services from 20,000 million dollars in the first quarter of 1969 to 16,000 in the second.

• A drop in industrial production in August.

• A fall in the same month in the volume of new orders received by manufacturers for durable goods.

A fall in unfilled orders for durable goods.

A 4.6 per cent fall in August for new machinery, 'suggesting that the demand for capital investment has begun to ease'.

• 'The reported 4 per cent unemployment rate for September, suggesting that the long period of extreme tightness in the labour market may be ending.' These statements are sharp warning to the US working class.

Unemployment is now going to be used as a whip to drive down their hard-won wages and working conditions.

WEAPON

Though obviously afraid of a large scale recession, the US ruling class is forced to use the weapon of deflation and the sack in its fight to hold up the rate of profit.

(This is already undermined by the steadily spiralling interest rates that have been the outcome of the fight to defend dollar parity.)

This twin fear of inflation and recession is multiplied by the tensions building up in the working class.

'Fortune', US business has just busines magazine, figures that reveal the real position of the US working class:

'After an unparalleled economic boom the average American worker in private industry is slightly worse off today than he was four years ago' 'Fortune' feels:

'Deep forces are gathering that could make the coming year a time of epic battles between management and labour.' REBELLIOUS The magazine speaks of the working class as being in an 'acquisitive and rebellious frame of mind'.

wage man and I have to wage man and I have to stay on overtime so I can go out on Saturday-and then I've nothing left for Sunday.9 Many of the miners are bitterly hostile to the local and national union leadership.

As Wheldale belt maintenance man Bill Turner pointed out:

& We ought to sack the lot at Barnsley [Yorkshire NUM headquarters]. Pittop men should have the same hours as those underground, and £17 on the surface. We get 50s. a shift — a button lad gets £48 a week. We're the worst paid men in Yorkshire.

Poor leaders Trevor Parsons, underground development worker at Glasshoughton said surfacemen were fed up with a total wage of £13 12s. 6d.

& They see strikes of dustmen, dockers and car workers for increases of £5-£10 and they think of the poor leadership of the NUM.

'Cadeby has been on strike for four weeks with no support from the Yorkshire panels.

U.S. oil

barons face price-fixing charges SEVEN of the USA's largest oil monopolies will have to stand trial shortly on charges of fixing petrol prices in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware.

The companies involved are Gulf, Humble (a' Jersey Standard subsidiary) Mobil, American (an Indiana Standard subsidiary) Atlantic Refining, Sinclair Refining and Cities Service.

Since the action was begun in 1965, Atlantic and Sinclair Refining have been absorbed into Atlantic Richfield.

Conversions

The US government charges that there were bilateral conversions between representatives of the named ompanies, which infringes US legislation.

All the firms deny the charges. They claim that they • being tried for an act vhich in a previous case ha‹ een found legal If this precedent is upheld, the oil firms can expect to escape without any penalties.

And this was written well before the government's antiinflationary measures begin to bite.

Price rises have overtaken wage increases for most working-class households. Examples given are 20 per cent for hamburgers, , 24 per cent for eggs, bus fares 12 per cent, medical care 14 per cent, with other foods and essentials up by similar amounts.

'Fortune' fears that the working class will now take strike action to catch up on what they have lost in prices over the last four years' inflation.

But in doing so they will run full tilt into the employers' counter - attack, backed up by very real threats of mass unemployment and recession.

These new developments in the US economy and class struggle will trigger off struggles demanding completely different leadership to- that offered by 'left' bureaucrats such as Reuther in Autos and Bridges on the docks.

Faced with defeat in Vietnam, an unparalleled strike wave in western Europe and the break-up of the Bretton Noods monetary system, the US ruling class will still fight to the end.

The struggles of the US working class now assume great importance for revolutionary work everywhere, and urgently require Marxist leadership.

'While we are on strike the union should demand payment of their claim for £15 on the surface and £16 underground. Also the market men should be paid a minimum of 5s. 2d., no matter what job they are sent to.

'Men on the surface should work the same hours as those underground.4 Brian Lavery, ¡round craftsman, Whellale:

«Rank-and-file miners are putting enormous pressure on their leaders.

"The Cadeby miners rejected all appeals to return to work and the area council called a strike on surface hours as a way of heading off a big wage demand throughout the coalfield.

'But this will develop into a broader strike. Demands for a bigger basic wage for surface and underground day wage workers must come.

'Every other section of workers is demanding wage increases of £3 and 'Day-wage mine workers, like farm workers, are on a ridiculously low wage.4