FREE WAGE NECOTIATION ENDS
1973Stephen JohnsWages and prices Read the scan at ETOL (PDF) →Read from the scan by machine and not corrected: headlines and words can be misread, and a caption or advert can run into the text. For anything you quote, read the scan.
faces the entire trade union movement under Phase Two of the so called anti-inflation policy.
Beyond Phase Two looms Phase Three. Tory Chancellor Anthony Barber confirmed two things when he spoke after Thursday's summit with the unions. • UV:19%:1 • There • would be no return ever to the days before autumn when workers had the right to take action to defend their living standards. • No new legislation would be needed for Phase Three- in other words the penalties for exercising the basic right to fight for higher wages will remain.
This policy is nothing less than a Tory conspiracy to • which the TUC chiefs are willing partners.
Barber says this attack on basic rights is needed to stop inflation. But it is the Tories themselves who have encouraged the enormous inflationary rise in food and raw material imports At the end of June 1972, they floated the pound. This meant devaluation and a 10-per-cent increase in the price of imports. This sent British prices rocketing ... at a stroke.
The pound was devalued because the City and the respectable' banks unloaded £207m of empire, is not to go ahead sterling in the three months before June.
Add to this the activities of the commodity exchange sharks and the mysterious men who profit from record meat prices and you have the culprits responsible for inflation-the government and the capitalist class themselves.
But what is Barber going to do about this "scandal'. The EMPEMSE PR05IY Sparks march over pay hold up — see JOINT SHOP STEWARDS COMMITTEE NO FREEZE HEATH MUSTGO