THE STATE PAY PLAN TO BE LEGAL

Just in not got spoke out ford: standards and conditions.

For the class struggle in Britain it means the point of no return has been passed. Not even the most servile trade union leaders can shift the situation back to the days of negotiation and compromise. Major political struggles lie immediately ahead.

But the working class must be warned of the web of conspiracy the Tories are weaving for them.

A big rise in the cost of living can be expected from today. It can take weeks to win a wage increase, but only seconds to put up the prices of food, fuel and Already reports from Marks and Spencers and Sainsbury's have exposed the scramble for higher prices. Now the big wholesalers are waiting on the touchline-basic commodities like wheat, wool, coffee, cocoa and copper, will all be jacked up by the speculators.

Second trick

The second Tory trick involves Victor Feather of the TUC.

He showed his colours on Friday, the day after Heath declared war on the unions. Workers may have seen their 'leader' in his tie and tails with a cigar poking out of his mouth. He was on the top table with the Prime Minister at the BBC's exclusive 50th anniversary dinner.

case the Tories had the message, Feather on Saturday at Brad'This is not a time for provocation, ; he said. 'It is time to keep level-headed and keep our tempers and I hope nobody, nobody, will take any other view.

'We shall not go out looking for trouble. If trouble comes our way we shall have to cope with it like we always do. But we are not the ones to stir it up!

This kind of grovelling is nothing new from Feather. Indeed workers would be amazed if he acted any other way. But in this situation it is a signal that he Praise for TUC chief Victor Feather came yesterday from Anthony Barber, Chancellor of the Exchequer, in a BBC-radio interview (the two men are seen together, above, in Downing Street last week). Feather had spoken about the tripartite state pay talks most responsibly, he said. On Saturday Feather pleaded with the Tories for a 'joint effort' to manage the economy. and the bulk of the TUC are preparing to head off the mass movement developing against the Tories and their plans. By confusing and demoralizing workers the TUC hopes to snatch this government from the fire once more.

The so-called 'left' in the TUC are impotent. The breakdown of the talks has been portrayed as a victory for Hugh Scanlon and Jack Jones. But what it has really revealed is the alarming lengths both these men went towards the corporate state.

They agreed to control over wages and to drop their demands for legal sanctions of price rises. Only the knowledge that it would be impossible to sell such a Tory package to their militant members stopped them signing.

The working class therefore faces months of struggle both with the government and TUC rotten leadership.

Wage fights will automatically escalate into political confrontations with the government. These will link directly with the battle against the anti-union laws which threaten to break out this Wednesday between the Industrial Relations Court and the engineering union.

Councils of Action must be built in every area of Britain to unite all sections of the working class in the fight on prices, rents and wages.

The Tories are presenting the working class with a simple choice. They say: "Accept the principles of the corporate state, remove us from office, lights, or This is the political the working class must pick up. This government has no mandate for wage control, anti-union laws and measures to give the speculators millions. It must be driven from office and replaced by a Labour government pledged to socialist policies.

is no other way to defend wages and democratic This political battle demands revolutionary leadership in place of the bankrupt reformists of the TUC.

This is the call the Socialist Labour League makes today. The task of the hour is to campaign for the resolution passed by over 2,000 trade unionists at the Birmingham conference •of the All Trades Unions Alliance to transform the League into the revo utionary party of Britain.