Neddy Report hits at construction

FOLLOWING hard on the ending of the Grange. mouth boilermakers' strike, in which half the strikers were left outside the gates and the other half were left with special penal clauses, the report of the government-sponsored working. party on large industrial sites aims another major blow at construction workers.

The intended victims of the report's proposals are the 40,000 construction workers who build power stations, chemical plants, oil refineries and steel works.

Already highly exploited, these workers erect plant to a total value of £800 millior a year. ioned by the oned bye the National comaintains must be ex ploited even - force cen curse chiptine parnal wage sand a tee national agreement Apathy would, the report mato ins memely wear tol that the balance of o shifted To remedy this situation -gain it •Ned with the arbara Castle end d Cecasualize repor construction first similarity to stage Devlin cheme on the docks, and is ist as dangerou separate dements serin, construction worapplyins without variation on all con struction sites.

Decasualization

1972, sing bond anger, the have enabled until now to win wage rises at site Rost orce. Pubished By orkers Press, 186a Clapham High Street, Printed by Plough Press Clapham 51, scel, London London, S.W.4. level-thus abolishing at one stroke most of the power of the shop stewards.

In addition, the decasualization proposals place very great disciplinary powers in the employers hands through the national register.

Blacklisting

Like the Joint Industry Board in the electrical contracting industry, such a register could be used to discipline militants by methods even more effective than the present 'blacklisting' widely practised by construction employers.

The report is quite frank in its criticisms of existing bonus payments.

The present schemes, it says, 'are a continuing source of industrial disputes and wage inflation [i.e., they allow workers to raise their wages] are ineffective in securing greater effort (1) and sometimes operate in the absence of work measurement'.

The eradication of bonus schemes is unlikely to save construction workers from the stopwatch threat, however.

Quite apart from the proposed 25 per cent cut in the labour force over two yearsin an industry where unemployment is already high due to capital investment cutbacks — the working-party

JOHN SPENCER

wrkers, like those at one of : largest sites in Europe, amesmead, face tremendous :ed-up with little in the way increased wages if the latest offer is accepted. states that its decasualization 'the introduction of the enlightened personnel policies that will be pursued more and more in industry generally'.

In the light of Mrs Barbara Castle's latest recommendations on the wider application of work-study in industry, this oblique phrase can mean only one thing.

Faced with serious crisis as the economic squeeze bites into their profits, construction firms desperately need to step drive against their workers.

2313 been Co-operation moved without tear enter all prodreinite deals. a formality, comes at the end of some 12 months' bargaining and several interventions by Prices and Incomes (PIB) reports, and is just another in a long line of betrayals of the hard - worked building Meetings of building workers in London, Manchester and Iverpool have all condemned he employers' offer as being an insult to the men on the sites.

The London and Manchester men propose to lobby the joint NFBTE (employers) and NFBTO meeting to tell the assembled union leaders to reject the package deal.

Many thousands of Merseysecretary, saying:

"The employers at long last have accepted the fact that building-trade rates should relate to reality.' The writer, Mike Ambrose, somehow forgets to mention job-evaluation in his report; nor does he mention timestudy nor any of the other strings attached to the deal. the employers have Minimum making this latest offer the proposed new Earnings Level' (MEL) and increased the hourly rate.

The trade paper 'Construction News' tells us this was because of some powerful opposition among prominent employers, but I feel it was only brought into the negotiations so that when it was eventually dropped it would seem as if the NFBTO leaders had won a victory over the employers.

Let us now look at the 'strings' included in this 'improved offer'.

The NFBTE feels that al-