KENT TOWN DEFIES RISES

COUNCIL tenants in the small Thames estuary town of Gravesend in Kent are the first to defy Tory plans to double their rents with the so-called 'fair rents' Bill.

Well over 1,000 of them on several housing estates have refused pay an extra 50p on the rent imposed by the Tory-controlled council before the Bill is even law.

Most tenants pay two weeks TU8l advance on their rent. But when the rent collector called early last week to collect the new rent for the week beginning April 1 he was told 'We will pay the old rent but refuse to pay the extra 50p Gravesend tenants prepared for their action by first forming defence committee. On it sil representatives of the tenants' association, the trades council and the local Labour Party.

They then organized their own referendum among the town's 5,000 council tenants.

It asked. three questions: would tenants pay increased rent as direct result of the 'fair rents' measure? Would they allow rent assessors in their homes? And would they fill in the means test forms? for their support. And it is said The trade unions were asked that Kent miners, many of whom stayed in Gravesend on picket duty, have pledged their assist. ance in case of any evictions following the refusal „to Dav the new rent.

A pledge was sought from the Labour Party that they would refuse to implement the Bill if they took control of the council after the local elections in May. composed moniz tory the council is composed LOTY and Labour councillors But the Tories have four aldermen which give them overall control.

At first the Labour Party said Union chiefs back wage curb they would give such an assurance.

But now they have backtracked and say they will have to see what the situation is when and if they win the elections.

Nevertheless the tenants remain firm spoke to one of their leaders, Charlie Robins, secretar) of the Gravesend Tenants' Association, formed in 1957 out of an earlier rent struggle with the council.

for his house on the sprawling-Denton housing estate It's not that I can't afford to pay the extra 50p—it's matter of principle,' said Charlie showing me his rent card with 30 Pim sura tht webt elunk ed an entry in the debit column of hard for all my life is not going to be taken away just like that 'In my personal opinion the only way to defend ourselves now is for the trade unions to fight this Bill on a national basis 'If you could get the unions to ay they would come out on.

General Strike against it we could squash the Bill.

'The miners' strike '- that's Poles Dur ir everone nad one when I reckon we missed the Cories out if everyone had come out in sympathy on things like the Common Market and rents.

'But if this Bill goes through we might as well go back to the 1930s:

'As far as I'm concerned I won't go through with the means test. My form went straight in the dustbin.

'Our association is pledged to go round to any tenant when the rent scrutineer comes and tell him he's not coming in.

'These men know what a house s worth the bricks and mortar t's made of. What they want.to come in for is to see what we've got to sell,' said Charlie. who had lived the house for 2 years. When he first moved in the rent was about fl a week 'The Tories round here say to US what about your cars and things like that. But aren't yo entitled to what you've worke for all your life? "Tories must go', says tenants' leader • Last year Gravesend council ended up with a huge surplus on their housing account. *'The tenants' association went along to the town hall and suggested there was enough money to give everyone a rent-free two weeks. BY OUR INDUSTRIAL CORRESPONDENT DAVID MAUDE A POWERFUL axis of trade union leaders is building up around the bankrupt, reformist and widely-suspected idea of 'threshold' pay agreements.

Carried away by their own fantastic illusions of economic expansion following the Budget, union chiefs are desperate to talk turkey with the Tories on wages.

Just how fantastic these ideas are can be seen from the employers' own evaluation of the subject.

But the idea of trading threshold deals for a promise of price restraint has apparently caught bureaucratic fancies of the right and 'left'.

Both Victor Feather, TUC general secretary, and Transport and General Workers' Union leader Jack Jones have been quoted in favour.

In theory, thresholds work like this: workers get a wage rise-lower than it would otherwise have been—which is increased again during the life of the agreement if the cost of living goes up more than a set percentage.

Figures mentioned for the sort of initial rise acceptable to the scheme's advocates range from 5 to 8 per cent.

Victor Feather says the union leaders are prepared to respond to any serious initiative by the government to meet us in this way'. He believes threshold clauses would guarantee workers' wage-packets against his prices -or so he says.

Jack Jones favours such clauses on the grounds that they would remove cost of living from the argument without freezing normal pay negotiations.

These men are speaking-and ssend tenants, with They scoffed at us and said the money belongs to the landlords, which in this case was the council itself, said Charlie.

Nevertheless the council was swift to move into action under the Housing Finance Bill.

Although it remains a Bill and it seems, acting on their wordsdespite a large body of opinion in the trade union movement which wants nothing to do with class-collaboration of this order.

On February 4, the TUC itself held a discussion conference involving full-time officials of most unions at which the mood was predominantly hostile.

And if good reasons for this mood are needed, a recent study made by the Confederation of British Industry gives them.

Aimed at pointing to the safeguards employers would need to incorporate into such deals before they should consider the idea, the study said that TUC claims that inflation would be reduced should be 'treated with caution'.

Said the study: 'There appears to be no way of ascertaining in advance whether an individual to be inflationars, largely threshold agreement will prove operation depends largelv on external economic factors which are outside the control of the company.' Any possibility of an overall contribution • to control of inflation could only be assessed in terms of a universal system of threshold bargaining. But even in this case a number of assumptions about costs, prices and the growth of the economy would have to be made.

The : study said that while there was evidence such agreements could have a disinflationary effect, the same evidence showed it was equally possible for them to work the other way.

Concluded the CBI: 'If threshold agreements are to reduce the rate of inflation, the increases in real wages to be guaranteed must be matched by the overall rise in labour productivity What is more, the rate of price increases current when thresholding was introduced matter of principle'. is not, therefore, law as yet, there is a provision for councils to increase their rents in April. The Gravesend Tories seized their opportunity quickly.

'Democracy is finished in this country, isn't it? Look at the way they've guillotined the Bill in the House of Commons.

"There really ought to be a law against men like Heath!

"The fight against this Bill is not over yet. But only industrial action will get rid of the Tories and their Bill,' said Charlie. would have be low enough to facilitate initial payments which were within the bounds of future improvements in The CBI, in other words, will only consider talking to the union leaders about holding down their members' real wages if it is already understood that whatever meagre cash rises are granted will be paid for through speed-up.

And the employers spell out their arrogant, ruling-class message even further.

It is crucial to the value of a threshold agreement that it includes an initial payment which is lower than would otherwise be the case, says the CBI study.

But it is questionable whether it would always be possible to prove that this criterion had been satisfied. It is also open to question whether the inclusion of a threshold clause would in every negotiating situation be sufficient to persuade unions to accept a lower initial payment.

"Threshold agreements have the disadvantage that their ultimate effect on costs cannot be predicted and that they involve companies in a commitment to pay further wage increases regardless of their future ability to do so.' What the CBI wants is clearly threshold agreements without thresholds-or, to put it more plainly, just good, old-fashioned wage-cutting. Its final conditions Agreements should last for a specified period and should include an initial payment which is significantly lower than it would have been without the. threshold provision.

Calculations relating to the real increases in income to be guaranteed should take account of wage-drift and of Feather any improvements in fringe benefits which are conceded.

'no further claims, mandatory Evasion of the through the claims at a different negotiating level must be specifically ruled out.

The pressure on the union leaders for such deals is coming not from the ranks of the trade union movement, but from the Tory government and the employers.

A careful public relations campaign has been launched over the last two weeks suggesting that the government is eager to get an extension of the CBI's so-called price restraint policy.

Talks on the subject between the CBI top brass and member firms started last Tuesday, and a final decision will be taken at the Confederation's council meeting in a fortnight's time.

Meanwhile. W. O. Campbell Adamson, the CBI director-general, has deliberately let slip that informal soundings, suggest a good number of industrialists are against continuing the policy.

According to the rules of the old class-collaboration poker game, therefore, the union leaders are supposed to do exactly what they apparently want to do: make a grand concession.

They must be prevented doing so.