THE PRICES AND INCOMES BILL

wages;

on February Mr. Ray Gunter has been the principal spokesman.

In the so-called 'national interest, the independence of trade unions and of the working class would be abolished.

In the last year, earnings increased about five times as much as national production. The employers, and their representatives in both the Tory Party and the Labour government, are preparing a two-edged reply to this strength of the working class.

State control

On the one hand a tough Budget and new financial cuts will create unemployment and cut purchasing power; on the other, definite steps, beginning with the Prices and Incomes Bill, are taken towards state control of wages.

Look first at what the Bill actually provides for:

The Bill gives the government (Labour or Tory) the power to demand notification of any wage claim or any wage settlement or price increase. Furthermore, the government will have power to forbid implementation of any increase for up to four months. Failure to comply with these requirements will make offenders liable to fines of £50-£500.

In more detail, this means precisely that: 1. Any wage claim (local, district, or national) must be notified to the appropriate Minister within seven days. Failure to do so will mean a fine of up to £50.

Any settlement agres for a wage increase must be notified to the Minister within seven days.

SLL pamphlet on antithat is the presented to 24.

According to the press, some formal reading of the Bill as 'a mild ('The Guardian', February 25). impending General Election means form, will be scrapped.

kind. It was no 'humorous occasion'.

of the F House of members treated the ly humorous occasion' This is because the the Bill, in its present The agreed wage increase must not be paid until the Minister gives permission. He has 30 days to either grant permission, or refer the increase to the Prices and Incomes Board. If the increase is paid during this 30 days, then the employer is liable to a fine of up to €500, except for business corporations, whose fine may be unlimited. The same penalty applies for the three months during which the Prices and Incomes Board considers the settlement.

%. Here is the most threatening part of the Bill: If any person takes, or threatens to take, any action, and in particular any action by way of taking part, or persuading others to take part, in a strike, with a view to compel, induce or influence any employer to implement an award or settlement, he shall be liable:

(a) on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding f100, and (b) on conviction on indictment to a fine which, if the offender is not a body corporate, shall not exceed £500.

£500 fine Mr. George Woodcock, General Secretary of the TUC, has suggested that the Bill as it stands removes most of the doubts of the trade unions about the legislation.

And yet the government takes powers, if the Bill goes through, to fine up to £500 anyone striking guts the Since last year's TUC, union leaders have finally the decided to support Brown's Bill the outcome of years of work or encouraging a strike, or any other action, directed at making an employer pay out an agreed increase or improvement in conditions.

As "The Guardian' noted, imprisonment 'could be the consequence of the non-payment of a fine, just as under any other law of the land'.

The draft Bill gives the impression of imposing harsher fines on business corporations than on workers. However, trade unionists will not be misled by that clumsy device-they have a good idea just what the likelihood is of employers rushing impatiently to grant increases before the Board decides!

The fact is, as "The Times' summarised the penal clauses, 'an individual worker, shop steward, or union official is liable to as big a fine as a trade union or an employers' association'.

The press has attempted to present the Bill as responsible' and even harmless. Thus the 'liberal' 'Guardian', in its editorial, says:

'All the Government is asking is that, if necessary, it should be able to insist on a period of delay before wage or price increases are put into effect in order that these can be examined from the standpoint of Government serves employers' interests ANALYSIS BY CLIFF SLAUGHTER the public interest. ... If, at the end of the day (four months), employers or unions disagree with the Board's verdiet, they will still be free to disregard it. This is surely reasonable. It is no more than industry has already been asked to accept voluntarily!

The last sentence is remarkable! If it is 'no more' than what has been asked for voluntarily, why take government power to enforce it?

This is like saying universal conscription is only asking men to do 'no more' than they were free to do before voluntarilyjoin up!

There is clearly more to it. Brown presented this Bill, and he will press again if successful in the election, because the capitalists whom he serves demand it. They insisted on it in 1965 before making renewed loans to the Labour government. It is not a question of what is reasonable. Corporate state Trade unionists should consider above all the long-term plan of the capitalists behind this Bill. It is a try-on. Brown knew when he presented it that the General Election would necessitate a later presentation of an amended version.

What the Bill says, as stands, is serious enough, but it is a definite step towards corBill porate state control of unions and wages. The present draft is not enough to satisfy the employers. As 'The Times' said on February 25:

'The merit of the Bill is that it has the power to hold up a wage rise. Its defects are that it has no power to enforce such a delay permanently, were that desireable' Go further By bringing the Bill forward, Brown and Wilson hope to swing the middle class vote in the General Election on March 31, because the middle classes will accept the promise of a 'tough' line against the unions.

Once returned at the polls, the Labour leaders, unless challenged and defeated by working-class resistance and the struggle for a new leadership, will go further than this Bill.

Ever since the Trades Union Congress of September 1965, the TUC leaders have been pretending to have doubts about the legislation, finally giving their open support. But Brown knows he must 'box clever with them, because of pressure from the rank and file, expressed most clearly in the response to the Lobby of January 26.

The defects noted by. 'The Times' are only temporary, to avoid a frontal battle with the Continuous threats of legal enactments from Gunter unions before the election. Thus Brown and Wilson are juggling to keep the working class anti-Tory vote, as well as the 'liberal' middle class, just as they did at Hull, while at the same time, pressing ahead firmly with the employers' interests.

The task of socialists and miliREAD How the Labour Party began Obtainable from tant trade unionists, following the lead of the Socialist Labour League and the Young Socialists, is to expose this fraud in a mighty struggle to defeat the legislation and build a new leadership which can unite the working class on socialist policies of nationalization.

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