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intemational Marxist Group Educational bulletIn no. 1 Sliding scale of wages
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LEON TROTSKY from the Transitional Programme SLIDING SCALE OF VAGES.•••.•• Under the conditions of disintegrating capitalism, the masses continueto live the meagerised life of the oppressed, threatened now more than ever with the danger of being cast into the pit of pauperism. They must defend their mouthful of bread,if they cannot increase or better it. Thore is neither the need nor the opportunity to enumerate here those seperate, partial demands which time and again arise on the basis of concrete circumstances - national, local, trade union. But two basic economic afflictions, in which is summarised the increasing absurdity of the capitalist system, that is, pnemployment and high prices, demand generalised slogans and methods of struggle.
The Fourth International declares uncompromising war on the politics of the capitalists which,to a onsiderable degree, like the politics of their agents, the reformists, aims to place the whole burden ofmilitarisn, the crisis, the disorganisation of the ronetary system and all the otherscou: ges sterning from capitalisn's death agony upon the backs of the toilets.The Fourth International demands employment and decent living craditions for all.
Neither nonetary inflation nor stabilization can serve as slogans for the proletariat because these are but two ends of the same stick. Against a bounding rise in prices, which with the approach of war will assume an ever more unbridled character, one can that collective agreements should assure an automatic rise in wages in relation to the increase in price of consunor goods...... •...Property owners and thir lawyers will prove the "unrealinability" of these demands. Snailer, especially ruined capitalists, in addition will refer to their accou: ledgers. The workers categorically denounce such conclusions and references. The question is not one of a "normal" collision between opposing material interests. The ques:ion is one of guardiry the proletariat from decay, demoralication and ruin. The quest mn is one life or death of the only creative and progressive cl is, and by that token of the futre of mankind. If capitalism is incapable of satisfying the demands inevitably arising from the calamities generated by itself, then let it perish. "Realizability" or "unrealizability" is in the given instance a question of the relationship of forces, which can be decided only by the struggle.By means of this struggle, no matter what its damediate practical successes ray be the workers will hest come to understand the necessity o. liquidating capitalist slavery. ¿rom Discussions on the ransitional Programme May 19th 1538. - ....We must combine politics with mass psychology and pedagogy, build the bridge to their minds. only experience can show us how to advance in this or that part of the country.For some time we must try to concentrate the attention of the workers on one slogan: sliding scale of wages and hours.
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The empiricism of the American • rers has given political logans, single tax, bimettalism, parties great success with one or two they spread like wild fire in the mas 3. When they see the panacea fail then they wait for a new one.Now we can present one which is honest, part of our entire programme, not demagogic, but which corresponds totally to the situation. Officially we now have I3, maybe I4 million of unemployed, in reality about I6 to 20 million, and the youth are totally abandoned to misery. Mr. Roosevelt insists on public works. But we insist that this, together with mines, railroads, etc., absorb all the people.And that every person should have the possibility to live in a decent manner not lower than now, and we ask that Mr. Rooseveltwith his brain trust propose such a programme of public works that everyone capable of working can work at decent wages. This possible with a sliding scale of wages and hours. Everywhere we must discuss how to present this idea, in all localities. Then we must begin a concentrated campaign of agitation so that everybody knows that this is the programme of the Socialist Workers Party.
I believe that we can concentrate the attention of the workers on this point.Naturally this inly one point. In the beginning this slogan is totally adequate for the situation. But the others can be added as the development proceeds. The bureaucrats will oppose it.Then if this slogan becomes popular with the masses, fascist tendencies will develop in opposition. We will say that we need to develop defense squads.I think in the beginning this slogan (sliding scale of wages and hours) will be adopted. What is this slogan?In reality it is the system of work in socialist society. The total number of workers divided into the total number of hours. But if we present the whole socialist system it will appear to the average American as utopian, as something from Europe. We present it as a solution to this crisis which must assure their right to* eat, drink, and live in decent apartments. Itis the programme of socialism, but in very popular and simple form. Question: How will the campaign be conducted? Trotsky: The campaign will go somewhat in this fashion. You begin agitation, say, in Minneapolis. You win one or two unions to the programme. You send delegates to other towns to the respective unions. When you have come out with this idea from the party to the unions you have won half the fight. lou send it to New York, to Chicago, etc., to the corresponding unic .When you have some success you convoke a special congress. Then yo agitate that they force the bureaucrats of the trade union to take a pos ition for or against.A wonderful opportunity for propaganda opens up.
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rest mandel from red weekly 30TH MAY 74 PERMANENT INFLATION is one of the principal characteristics
catastrophic proportions such as the one of 1929-32. of capitalism in decline. It is by means of inflation that presentday capitalism tries to prevent inevitable, periodic crises (today modestly called recessions') from developing into crises of It would be pointless to try and name the 'main agent responsible for inflation. The ruthless profiteering of the monopolies? The armaments trade? All these aspects of present out the world. Examples of struggles for the sliding scale, either within single fums or branches of industry, or on a national trade level,are numerous. Experience has shown workers that the defence and protection of theit buying power through ast of the sliding scale represents he first (and most indispensable) means of self-defence when faced day capitalism have their place and are intimately linked with or: another.
Dangerous illusions would be spread if workers were made to believe that the dragon of inflation could be vanquished if finance ministers who are the 'monopolies lackeys' were replaced by progressive finance ministers; or if the "politics of dis. armament and detente' were followed through; or if profit margins were reduced, The unpleasant truth is that there is no way of haiting inflation without suppressing the capitalist system. The only conditions in which contemporary capitalism, if really pushed, could moderate inflation would be conditions disastrous for the working-class: massive unemployment and the freezing of wages. But experience has taught, that even in this casc, the internal inflation eneine would only slow down, and not come to a stop.
INCOMES POLICY A particularly pernicious idea that is expounded by bourgeois experts and taken up by the reformist wing of the labour movement is that workers must be prepared to make certain sacrifices to stop inflation, as it hits them harder than any other class in society. This piece of mystification produces concrete measures: incomes policies and the compulsory limitation (or one made with the consent of the trade union bureaucracy) of cash wage increases, supposediy matched by a 'control of prices •and bosses" incomes.
In practice, the bourgeois state can only effectively control wagesand this only if the unions and the wothers let them do so. No how-. geois government has so far succeeded in efectively reducing prices or profit margins. in the capitalist economy, the bourgeoisie has a thousand different ways of cooking its books, of manipulating profits and of raising prices, in spite of all the legal measures of a freeze. The scarecrow of prices and profits control' is only put up to cheat the workers, to push them on into exchanging their birth-right -the freedom to negotiate wages with the bosses, backed by their organised Torce-for Inflation is undoubtedly a sickness whose effects hit the workers.
But the workers must not sacrifice their immediate interests on the altar of the "fight against inflation, for that would mean becoming caught up in a redistribution of national income to the detriment of wageearners and to the advantage of capitalist profits.
All incomes policies that ciaim to control 'at the same time, wages. prices end profits, inevitahly becom under capitalism, a means of polici wuges, pure and simple. Workers art unions must rejeet, unconditionall and without reservation, any appe. to a "fight against inflation, because it is a weapon of capital in the class Inflation wil be linaily throttled when capitalism is overthrown and workers hold economic and political power. But until then, the task is not to sacrifice workers' interests in The name of an abstract principle (li iting inflation) but of defending ki firs buying power against the effects o intation Sliding Scale Seeing that inflation is inhereat an capitalism today, capitalists, in spite of all their anti-inflationist airs, stine for one thing oniy: that the advantages of inflation fall into their strongboxes, while the workers pay for its costs. The attitude of the working class and its organisations must be diametrically opposed to these persistent efforts (often successful) on the part of capital; they must aim at a complete refusal to pay for the costs of inflation, and try to protect thei real wages against all its direct and indirect effects.
Since it was founded in 1938. the Fourth International has defende! the idea that only the shding scat of wages constitutes a fal defence a workers baving mower against thi consequences of inflatich and the rising cost of living. Resisted by hoth reformists and for a long time al raleftists, this idea has nevertheless heen applied by the working-class through- •g of prices. *ith the more and more rapid rocket-
The argument according to which iding scale would "defuse the ekers" struggles, through removing / •stinsulus for a fight for wage • eases, is contradicted by practice. maties like Italy or Belgium where 1 anting scale is in operation, either in whole or in part, are certainly no: naces where the number of strikes and other struggles is lower than that of countries where the workers do not yet enjoy a stiding scale. in reality, a sliding scale does not act as a substitute for strugeles over wage • increases. On the contrary, it creates the neressary conditions for such struggles. What is today, in the age of permanent inflation, called a struggle for wage increases' is nitie › times out of ten, an attempt to catch up with the rising cost of living, that is to say, it is a struggle to re-establish and not to increase the buying power of wages. When this re-establishment" becomes an automatic process. through contracts guaranteeing a sliding scale, then the struggle for real increases in buyine power can begin.
EXPERIENCE The experience of many collective contracts, in many industries and several countries, shows that in the age of permanent and accelerating inflation, any delay in the adjustnient of wages to the cost of living is synonymous with i fall in the buying power of wage-corners. The Institute of Social and Economic Studies at the very conservative University of Louvain in Belgium has calculated that Belgian workers, even though they enjoy a sliding scale. have still lost 35 of their buying power in the last two years, due to the fact that wage adjustments have not kept pace with the price index To be sure, an antomatic adjustment of wages to prices each time the latter rise above a certain threshold' level is a step in the direction of a sliding scale that musn't be dismissed.
But these measures do not yet represent an effective sliding scale properly speaking In the first place because any price increase lower than the threshold does not lead to any wage incrcases, even though it of course means a loss of buying power for
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ers. Secondly, because it tes a real invitation for Gov: in and th: bourgeois state aprar manipuiate the official price ex, Keeping it just below the reshold that would set off an aut: matic adjustment of wages.
A tree sliding scale thus means the automatic adjustment (say cach month) of money wages to all price increases, witliout the interference ot any kind of threshold limitation. In this way, the integrity of workers' buying power can be preserved, as the Belgian gas and electricity workers have shown after their last wage negotiations.
Taxation and State benefits Howover, for this integrity to be wholly safeguarded, the effects of taxation upon workers tuying power have alen to be taken into account.
At one time, the labour i.ovement stood by the notion that indirect taxes hit poorer people more, whereas direct (income) taxes tended to hit the rich, The first part of this notiog is still correct to-day but the second is less so. The growing burden of direct taxation in the last decades has abore all operated through increased taxes upon wages and sajaries. At present, in a lot of capitalist countries, warkers not enty puy for most indirect taxes. Lncy also pay the majority of direct ones This is all the more true cow that direct taxes on wages and salaries are usually paid in fall by the bosses to the State, before workers themselves receive any wages, wirereas taxes on capitalist profit and on the mcomes of those in the so-called hiberal", "independent' professions are paid ¡afterwards and without any real control. Thus the bourgeoisie gains twice over. First by paying taxes late they benefit frem the loss of /buying power of currency-a fixed amount of tax on a capitulist profit paid six months after its realisation. is a tax lowered by 5% if the rate of inflation is 10%. Secondly, to pay taxes without any effective contr on the real amount of profits opens the flood-gates to tax evasion and fraud.
The graduated scale of tax uper wages means that each time the sliding wale causes money wages i+ rise to an income level that is mo: heavily taxed than the one beneat" it, the increased tax payable is gren- , er than the wage increase itself.
What interests a worker is no: gross wages, a purely fictional notion, but real ner wages, that i say the total amount of goods an services which he can effectively see buying power of pays in
on. wration demanded by the abou movemont in several countrie (especially Beleium) is the complet : indexing of the scales of taxatica upon salaries. Each time the no in! salary is increased to make an. djustment to the rising cost of living. the tax-scale is increased by the sanse percentage.
For example, if the ceiling on wages and salaries for which a ax of 154 is paid is 25,000 Francs, it would automatically rise to 27,000 by 105.
DIFFERENTIALS It is sometimes objected that through the use of such a common the gap between the lowest and highest wages, while remaining the same proportionately, continually increases in absolute figures. argument. First, it is only tight t
that the indexing of tax-ceilin
ween low and hugh wages.
ycar bonuses, and for true 1 age
equat ray for equal work,
pir ofapplication of the
ruin for all. It is in workers'
be used. inoncy he pets at the c' + A diding-scale must se ted and must in some was e effects crested by incies
Francs. if the cost of living incieasca
indexing of salaries, wages and taxes.
Two replies can be given to :: 3 limit the tax indexing to a defin te ceiling, based upon the income of skilled workers. In the above e ample, it could for instance be supposed ирот wages or salaries would stop a 30.000 Francs a veer. Beyond this celing incomes would be hit even hand, thus reducing somewhat the sp bet- After this, the best way of Ghting the excessive gup caused by differences it income levels, is to sni gle for cost-of-living allowances end of increases (beyond the slidin see sphere of application) that c 12e same for everyone on the baris f The real struggle against c* - 3iv diferences in wages and sal mies be waged by limitin maid lut only by winning alb-wa • l wage increases thai. are Hit. pos to have a simple sliding mple and automatic, that war peavent them from being gro nd losing their buying por ig scale serves this end, ant it against the inequality or sfor which other weaguns
SUCIAL ALLOWANC S * tis, on the other ban, th e for the protection • working class against the effects of inflation (and nc just workers at work) is the extension of the principle of the sliding reale for all those who receive su, promentary henefits and other soci! allow ances Superannuations or pursions. sick and unemployment pay. mea.us and child allowances ete must sho be indexed and automatically adjusted to the increase in the cast of living in the salac way as wages and salaries should he. This demand is all the more necessary when small wage earners on lixed incomes are the most hard hit by the rise in prices of essential goods, and are thrown into poverty by inflation.
The Index As soon as workers have gained a slidine scale for wages, the centre of gravity of the struggle to prevent • the working-class from paying the costs of inflation shifts towards the calculation of real price rises.
Everywhere, bosses and the bourgeois State try to get accepted an index of prices (or of the cost of living) established by the public administration system, as the base upon which wage adjustments can be calculated. Everywhere, expenence has shown that these indexes are faked and only help bosses slow down wage adjustments, that is, 1o increase capitalist profits.
The means most widely used by the hourgcoisie to reach this end are 1. The dishonest doctoring of the goods that are taken into accoun when calculating a cost of living - index. In effect, this monthly index • is an average arising out of the fluctuations in prices of a largo number of goods and services. If one lets slip into the total mass of these goods a senes of articles that are her ly ever consumed by workers ane whose price increases are loser that the average. ar inder will he abtamed that does not honestly tellect the reai rise in the cost of living Thus, the Belpian trade minn anc ment has for 3 tong time denounced what ir calis the "tep but index" becare poods sech ay ton-hat. were taken tate consideration when calculatmy the sector living indes.
Those in e distane last for ens doc of home infes
-cheated hy suit security orle melet them bar turn per them 1e: wowk than they as bell: ite in household hudacis. 2. The dishonest sclection of real prices. In capitalist saciety the same articles are often soid at widely divergent prices, this is especisily so for foodstuffs. To continually select the prices of such goods in places where working class housewives do not on the whoie do thei shopping (c.g in markets) producea price-andes which has very httle " de with the achtal expenditure of working class housenold
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ne mampulation of the over. tomme of the index through ing lack the price of certain reles. This is known in Belgium the politics of the indext and is only profitable tof hosses and the bourgeois State if there are thresholds heneath which no wage adjust ments can take place. If this threshold is fixed at 25, for example, a government can, by arbitrarily blocking the • price of certain widely consumed goods it g. bread), artificially maintain the index at 1.9% or 1.8%, hereby creating for some months a loss of buying power on the part of workers of up to 2%. blatant in couatries such as leely various Institates of Statistics ha-a even denounced it themselves, and in calculating an honest" index.
mission next fo the bosses and the government's representatives, they can refuse to recognise as valid tire index published each month by the has a purely propagandistic value, as it does not mean that the increase in silaries that a more honest index could produce are automatical, obtained.
This fiddling of the index is so or France, that functionaries frosa the
have offered trade unions their help • led by teams of housewives and In Belgium, the unions have won the right to veto any officially recogmisco index. Sitting on a price com-
: government. But this suspending' veto
rapitalist system.
Trade onion calcuiations of the monthly level of prices shoulda't be carried out in the shadows of offices, even if they are union oftices. Information on prices should be collecwotkers, in the shops, through pricecantal committers Fins informatop should he puts discussed an• debated before the working tasses Trasociate the mass of walistenou with the applicattor it the sliding scalers to ensure later twidest hosed working class -h: Fland the read self-organsmed workers when they have won satical power and overthrown be
¡NOSTRE SALAN PERDONO The demand for a 'sliding scale of i tes" has frequently been in the forefront of Italian workers' struggles against inflation. So eral groups have actually won this demand. red weekly 16:H MLY 74 ...N JoNES WAGES are supposed to be pro- • tected against price increases at present by the "threshold" agree ments, which are permitted under Phase 3. These do give some smitt protection. but there are many things wrong with them: * Less than 4 million workers, out of 22 million, are covered by *They do not come into operation vatil prices have stready gone up by 7% *They are based on an antiworking class price index *The rises under the fareshold agreements are too smal.
The Guardian newspaper has made this last point: "Of themselyes threshold agreements wil only provide complete compensation for the • lower paid (who are least likely to be covered by threshold agreements!) For someone on the average industrial wage an increase of 40p fc = every 1% rise in prices will provide less than adequate compensation for inflation' (20 Agril).
The only real answer to this problem is a sliding scale of wages. This is an automatic monthly increase in pay to compensate fully benefits to be gained.
So that compensti
of living. for every increase in the cost of living. Agreements along these lines, although not fully adequate, have been won by workers in Belgium and Italy. The question is, how ure we to get from the existing threshold agreements to a teal sliding scale of wages?
EXTEND The first thing is obviously to extend threshold agreements to the whole of the working class. A good basis for this exists. Existing threshold agreements will almost certainly be triggered off by price increases next month. Obviously those workers not covered by such agreements wili see the In all forther sgreements the 'threshold maist be pushed downward from 77 to Cr increase in the cost of living. The payment for each rise in the cost of living must be raised to give real compensation. At present, for someone on the average wage, this means an increase of at least 60p for every 1%% increase in the cost Of course in some unions the right wing tries to use threshold agreements to obscure the issues. The right-wing Cumberland area of
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stead of'e big wage increase the tada ra shock sik for a three year contract and a threhold agreement. Bai this type of trick is easily dealt with by insisting on big wage demands in addition to the demand for cost of living clauses, and the maintenance of yearly contracts. The manoeuvres of the right can • be easily exposed and are now far less of a danger than the threat of the working class becoming exhausted from having to run faster and fast er to stay in the same place.
TERRIFIED We should be under no illusions that this will be an casy programme to win. The ruling class is already complaining about the cost of the present, inadequate threshold agreements and is holy to scrap then. According to the Financial Times. There can be little doubt that the impending implementation of the cost of living! threshold agreements is now one of the major worries in Whitehall'.
The ruling class is even more terrified that! the rest of the working class will demand cost of living increases.
The Guardian has reported fears that,'Most of Britain's 22 million workforce will now press for threshold pay agreements".
Not much help is likely to come from the Labour Government. In his budget speech Dennis Healey, instead of proposing plans for extending cost of living increases to the whole of the working class, went out of his way to denounce them because they prevented him from increasing direct taxes!
MANY TIMES in the past Red Weekly has criticised the International Socialists for economist, for failing to take up issues other than the wages struggle.
But what is now clear is that with the economic and political situation in Britain gettimg more and more serious the polities of IS are becoming dramatically inadequate even on the wages front. This is vividly shown in two recent major articles in Socialist.
Worker.
INFLATION In an article in the 1 June issue Tony Cuff draws a most extraordinary conclusion from what he calls the present situation of hyper-inflation". He says: "Hyperinflation can become a locomotive drawing workers towards unity and struggle.' but hail a nomont's thought, and the direct practical experience of every worker militant, shows thit thi, statement is totally one-sded and therefore in practice false.
Infation can be a spur to putting in wage increases, but it also tends to fragment the working class belween low paid and high I paid, between the worker and his wife, and even berween the worker secing himself as worker and the worker seing himself as COnsuTner.
What Chiff is correct in pointing to is that the working class, for whom unity is a vital condition in any struggle, attempts to find way, of overcoming the danger of disunity. But this process is not spontan: eous, and the whole of the werking class, or even the majority of it, will not arrive at an adequate solution without any conscious interventions. The danger therefore exists of sections of the working, class, even large ones, falling into passivity or even becoming prey to reactionary proposals on incomes policy and so on. long the runner will become exhausted.
* those to:
of working class income--both
compulsory under law. the fareshe J at 0 (tins making the cost of living). settine threshold increases at a in the cost of living. trolled co t-of-living index.,
Cliff Uges refer to this danger nt a tew? points in his article. But the parci, propagandistic solution which Chiff gives is that of putting Forward argumess which show that it is capitalism and hot the working class which is responsib: for in- Nation, and which demonstrate that no section of the working class will can by holding back wage demands trom any other soctions.
All this is necessary. But it revides simaply an explanation and the only for
papers and discuss such questions. What the masses want to know, and therefore • what the vanguard has to supply, is not explanations about inflation but practical measures to stop it or cope with it. "Tects.
RANK AND FILE The second answer Cliff gives is p-ircly organisational. He says a central rott must be played by rank and file organisatirns which gencralise the struggle, But howe ure rank and file organisations to plas this role? By simply existing? No, only by the policies they fight for. Simply saying build rank and file movements, without - ving what policies they should fight fo:, is no answer to anything.
What policy does comrade Clif ay can defend workers incomes, unite the working class in struggle, and overcome the outgers, as well as seizing the opportunitie. Sie says: The way wages are won under capitalism is simple: workers in the strongest sections •- win increases - then it is up to the rest of the working class to keep up by comparing their own wages with thos received by the strongest and best paid.
But, Jespite all the obstacles, the fight for real protection of wages against inflation is a vital one. At the moment the working class is on 2 treadnul having to run fester and faster just to keep where it is. Already people are falling off the edges as they cannie reach thie 20 or 25%5 wage increases nelessary to safeguard their wages. If this situation goos on for The fight to protect working class incomes against mounting inflation is tirus a decisive onc. Central demands in this fight will be
*Extend the threshold to the entire working cless and all forms tercugh including such a demand in all wage claims, and by forcing Labour to make such protection *Protec: all wage gains by fixing rises automatic for every incresse in *Provite 100% protection by minimun of 60, for every 1% rise *Estab ch a trad: union con-
RED WEEKLY 4TH JULY 1974- But this policy will not at ath achieve the : task Cliff wants it to. At the moment the rate of inflation is 15-20%. With tax deductions, a pay rise of 30% is necessary to keep up with such a rate of inflation, Few of the strongest scetions of the working class, let alone the weakest, are going to get anything like such increases. In other the few thou nds who read socatise news words Chiff propuses a strategy which will protect the incomes of only a tiny fraction of workers while leaving the rest of the trade unions, let alone the twelve million workers who are not in unions or the uncoployed and the pensioners, with no policy at all. And comradeChff seriously proposes this as a strategy to unite the working class in strugglet.
RETHINK.
Somcone on Socizlist Worker seems to have been doing a rethink however. In the 29 June issuc, instead of the task being for workers in the strongest sections to win and then for everyone else to follow them, we are presented with four class-wide demands. These are for: 1. threshold agreements 2. a 30% wage increase 3. equal pay for women 4. a 35 hour week.
Although key demands, such as a nationat minimum wage, are missing from this programme one might think better late than never - particularly as two of the demands, equal pay and 30% ircreases, also appeared as part of the four point propramme which the IMG put forward nearly two months ago. • Unfortunately appearances are deceptive. The most decisive of all questions on.
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+ .
Resent, how to protor them ation, is not dealt with adecuateco cica inswer is paven as to the ay to fight for these class walle ands.
The key demand which the IS omit om their latest programme is that-for toe sliding scale of wages. The rcason for this is doubtless that a couple of years ago IS rejocted the slogan of the sliding scale. The argument given then was that it produced "passivity'. This always was a stupid argument (in Italy for example various forms of automatic • cost of living increases exist but no-one could accuse the Italian working class of "passivity"). But now, in a situation of roaring inflation, the position of 1S is not merely felse theoretically, but is drastically wrong in practice.
The IS position is based on a belief that you can project the practice of the 1960's into the mid 1970s. When inflation was only at five or six per cont then most of the working class could gain, by sectoral struggics, wage increases which kept up with the rate of inflation. A few groeps of varkers tay succeed in this in 1974. But the trend now, and one that will increass in the future, is for the working class not to be able to keep wage struggles.
SLIDING SCALE Of course, revolutionaries must be in a the forefront of struggles for all wage demands put forward by the working class - even where these demands are inadeqoate - but revolutionaries also have to begin to introduce into the movement demands which come to grips with the needs of the new situation. The demand which is above burning question.
dawn on IS - which is why the demand for thresholds is included in their programme. But thresholds are not adoquate index and so on. (in fact they must precisely be turned into a sliding scalc.)
The demand the IS raises is The thresholds now. Don'tlet the bosses stop you getting what you're entitled to. But is entitled to anything under thresholds.
Isn't it necessary to propose a campaign - for thresholds to be extended and inproved - in fact improved into a sliding scale of wages?
GENERAL STRIKE on the sliding scale of wages the IS also falls between two stools on the question of what action to propose to gain key ahead of indetion by the old partern of demands, Cliff's original position is at least reiatively coherent on this.
Workers do not acilieve unity in struggle samply on moral grounds. Sometimes a particular sectional struggle is so Important for the working class that - workers will support it quite regaritess of any immediate pain of their own. But, in general, ighting unity is created by common goit and common aims.
But Cliff's position is one of sectoral strugeies withoot common roals or aims.
Of course, on that besis all that can be • called for is simple sclidarity. It is jost » all iraportant is thit o? the sch a male of wages This i ways was a correct propage ca contact, bat now it becomes an urgent an-t Not to saise it will leave revolutionaries sliding slong in the tail of events and not playing a politically leading role in them.
In fact the understanding that the o! way is no longer adequate is heginning t
in their present form - they must be made mil-norm, based on a workers'cost of living
what about after November? Then no-one
But as well as getting into a bur langle second. hot possible to serlone cony tarough the iosk of raifym, the working class in strugelo on Cat bacts.
Bat once you propose class wide dem unds, such as Socialiss Worker is now dressing, fhen the logic of the situation as very offerent, For what is the ingical culmination of unified struggies for class wide demands? It is obviously the roost class-wide of actions -the general strike.
It is quite clear that in its policics on the wages fight the IS is vacillating between two different positions. The first position, clatively concrent but profoundly wrong, is that of Chff's articte. The second position - the one the IMG has fought for - is that, in addition to their work in the sectoral struggles, revolutionaries must begin to campaign for classwide demands - of which the most important at present is the sliding scate of warcs. But this latter postion also has e iogic at the level of what form of struggle is proposed. It leads to the demand for the waification ef struggios, the extension of which is clearly the demand for a general scike to gain tlicse class wide demands. A section of IS clearly sees the indequacy of the first approach.
But it does net yet soe the logic of the We know IS comrades are discessing many things in their organisation at present.
One thing they should certainly discuss is the lack of coherence of line which their leadership is putting forweid even on the wages struggle. The line they stonld sdopt is that in addition to fighting in the sectoral struggle revolutionaries shinald push forward the line of immediate classwide demars of the working class. The first practical application of this must , se a campaign for onited industrial action to defend and extend the thresholds tato a sliding scale of wages.
APPENDIX: Ceneral situation for the working class with a special section on the low paid, as of late spring 1974.
In all their proposals since the election, the TUC and the Labour Government have made it clear, in practice, that they want the working class to bear the brunt of the economic crisis of capitalisn.
Fractically the first thing thit the TUC did after Labour took office was to accept Phase 3.A circular sent out by TUC General Secretary Len Murray on wages said: 'The general pattern of settlements which has been established in recent months should continue for the present period.'
But, because of the retreat of the trade union leaders, all important wage settlements, with the exception of the miners' had been within the limits imposed under Phase 3. Therefore what the TUC is actually saying is that the policy laid down by the Tories must now be accepted.Nureay spelt this out even more clearly at the conference of the white collar union AFEX when he said, 'There will be no nore special cases'. What is more the Labouz Governrent has been prepared to back this position up with vicious action. Foot's refusal of the just the NAL workers, supported even by sections of the demand of ruling class, for an increase in their London allowance is a good example.
The future looks no better. The TUC is calling for 'reasonable: wage claims, which will only allow most workers to keep un with the -
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cost of living. But in practice they are not even prepared to fight 1 Metal not see sting anything merely to tale Be 8500020 like that sort of in rease at all.
The official justification for Labour's incomes Policy 15% that everyone will benefit from it.Minister of Sport, Dennis Howell, for example, speaking at the AFEX conference, said that the Government had 'given concessions to the unions' and 'the unions must now make their response'.
The real situation is totally difterent.Something is taking place which should, if people thought about it,be seen as absolutely astounding. In an industrialised country, in the second half of the twentieth century, the ciisis of capitalism is such that the living standard of the working class_is actually falling.
This fall has now reached tiuly & amatic proportions. Even the working class consumption of healthy food is declining!last yeat each person consumed on average 7lb less meat than the year before, nearly Ilb less of fish, and eight less eggs, This fall was obviously families with low incomes. Meanwhile consumption even more dramatic for of potatoes, beans, peas and carrots rose.
The situation is very clear. The falling standard of living of the working class, caused by price rises, is now forcing workers to cut back on decent food and substitute stodge and vegetables.
Labour's tiny food subsidies, which are paid for out of taxes on the working class and protect the profits of the monopolies, are just pinpricks in this situation.The standard of living of the working class this hear, by all estimates, will continue to fall. The only question is by how much it will go down. The Financial Times expects it to decline by I}8.Economists of the London School of Business Btudies expoct it to drop by as much as 58 this year.
This is the reality which cuts through all the Labour Government's sweet talk about 'reasonableness'. What Labour is actually proposing is that the working class should allow its standard of living to be slashed in order to help the capitalists overcome thier It is estimated that this year inflation will be running at ISso on, pay rises must be much bigger than the increase 208. With tax and in prices to protect real wages. The Guardian calculated that 'to preserve their real standard of living unions would need wage increases at least 20-25% above the increase in prices'.
This would mean that workers would need a 258 wage. increase same place!™o get an actual increase in real just to keep in the incone wage rises of at least 30-35% must be won.For this reason militants must raise the demand for at least a 30% increase in wages and no retreat on the full claim. On an average wage of £40 this means a EI2 increase.
Sut even with big pay claims put in many other problems connected with wages remian. First, how are wages and wage increases to be protected against price rises?Second, how are the weakly organised workers, and those not in trade unions at all, to be protected?Third, how are all the demands to be fought for and obtained?
These problems are closely linked with the rate of price increases. Workers face a new situation when, as at present, price in a position to be rises of 15 of 20% are xpected. Very few are sure of winning the 25% wage increases necessary to maintain their standard of living. Even fewer can be sure of winning the 30-358 necessary to increase thier real income. Under these conditions it is more and more urgent that the wouking class find some more continuous way of getting protection agianst price increases.
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THE LOW PAID If the effects of inflation arebad fox moet of the working class, they are disastrous for the low paid.
Everyone knows about the terrible situation of the pensioners and the unemployed. But what is not generally realised is how many workers get less than the much quoted average' wage. The leftwing research groups Counter Information Services, in its special report on the Heath Government, revealed that three-quarters of manual workers earned below the published average earnings.
Moreover the official cost of living index is biased against the working class - and against the low paid in particular. This is because it does not take into account how big a proportion of their incone working class families have to spend on essentials such as housong and food. For example it calculates that only 8.78 of net incomes is spent on cent. This would mean that a worker paying £5 a week rent should be receiving after tax and national insurance - £60 a week.This is clearly ridiculous. Millions of workers pay E5 a week rent butreceive nothing like a £60 a week incone.This is just one reason why the TUC or s'me other working class body cost of living index. should draw up a real workers'
The situation of low paid workers 1s very dangerous for the working alass. The employers and the press are continually trying to turn these wokers against the trade unions.
Equally dangerous is the attempt by the right win g within the trade union movement to use arguments about the low paid to support anti-working class measures such as an incones policy. Tom Jackson of the Postal Forkers, for example, said on television "We need an incomes policy, the during the February election that prize must not always go to the strong'
Jackson's views are,of course, rubhish.No low paid workerever receives a penny because a highly paid group is holding back.On the contrary, it has been the stronger groups of workers pushing ahead that has pushed up wages. The Financial Times calculated that the real income (wages after prices are taken into account) of a worker with two children,earning the average eage, fell byo. 6% in 1972-3 (when Phases I and 2 were in operation), and will fall by I.48 in I374 but rose by 7.68 folloving the miners' victory in I972. FATE Despite this Jackson's views do to some extent reflect a confusion into which weakly organised workers can fall when the strongly organised do not taek up the problem of low pay. some time ago the TUC did show some understending of this by demanding a E25 minimum wage. Jack Jones comments on this in a recent article in TribumerIt is intolerable, for example, that millions of adult males in manuai work (and what about women?) should be earnign less than £25 a week.More than I2 months ago the trade union movement stated that no adult worker should be earning less that £25 per week, and in terma of its value today that must mean a bedrock minimun of 828 per week'.
Although Jones says this situation is 'intolerable' he admits that 12 months after the TUC policy was laid down the situation is still the same!He still has no proposals for action.All he can say is that 'somehow' thie situstion must ie put right. Inis will get us nowhere.Action is needed to achieve a national minimum wage a demand which can rally all low paid vorkers around the trade unicn movement.
Jack Jones' figure is in fact too low.Iwo low paid unions, the farmworkers and the seamen, have already come out for £40 for 40 hours. But even determined action for a 628 minimum wage would be better than the present inactivity.
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By far the biggose secrion of the wozking class sutfering from lov pay is women workers. Five years ago tne last labour Governent poo used be a paro note, ss then to teless of men's wages. In April I973 the two million nanual women workers earned an average gros- wage of only £I9.07.This is six pounds less than the old TUC target of a minimum wage of 125 for every worker. The situation has not got much better since either.
The failure of the trade unions to take up demands on the oppression of women poses great dangers fcr the working class.It threatens to cut off a massive section of workers from the workers' movement and split the working class family in two. These dangers can already be seen in the reactionasy acts of some workers' wives in the Cowley dispute.
Of course, equal pay alone will n: end the oppression of women. Freec tracuption and abortion on demand, twenty-four hour nurseries, and much more, are necessary. But equal pay is a vital step,and a serious fight for this demand will cerent millions of women workers around the struggle of the trade unions.