The spontaneous fury of the postmen at the Government's derisory offer of a 4% wage rise, which resulted in the most dramatic actions and the most solid determination to resist that have yet been seen in that ficld of government employment, will have the instinctive and active support of every socialist. We are very glad to see Mr. Wilson supporting the postmen in his television broadcast, and to see the extent to which opinion is rallying behind them in even wider fields, Mr. Snith, the leader of the UPW, seems to have been in considerable difficulty in the last few days. Reweyer hard he has run, he has not been able to catch up with his members in their determination to fight for a decent living wage. Somewhat plaintively he told The Times that the actions of the PMG "were destroying the modern, moderate trade union leader, and he could not let himself be destroyed in relation to his membership." A serious lesson hangs on these words, which should be carefully analysed in relation to Mr. Smith's actions in the next daySe
Meantime, with more than 28 million letters (and several hundred copies of The Week) hung up in unopened sacks in the London region alone, with ii than 90 of London's 25,000 postmen: at work, 4 attending in Nottingham, 2 in Edinburgh, and an infinitesimal number in even rural districts like Devonshire, the men are carving out patterns of union policy which will clearly not bend easily to conform with the wishes of Mr, Bevans, If, as is likely,and much to be hoped, the movement quickly escalates to strangle the telephones, the Government will have no option but to collapse with as much grace as it can summone But there are other important lessons to learn from all this than that of the efficiency of militant action, which in any case will not be lost on anyone.
What the postmen are complaining of is eg entially the principle of percentage increases as the standard for dotertins levels of wages. Four percent of not much is not much: and four percentage of a lot can be a big lot. Since they can count, the postmen can see that if they accept the Government's criteria for ‘awards, they will remain in a permanent low-priority and low-paid enclave, Of course they are right to kick, and must kick hard against this principle,
The problem for socialists is that just such problems as this will be used by the right-wing to justify the need for accepting and incomes policy. Millions of low-paid workers will listen to such arguments unless they are countered with more persuasive slogans than the simple word "No," Saying no can be interpreted as supporting the continued poverty of the low-paid. It is for this reason that if the left is to win this vital battle against state-castration of the unions, it must pose the question of power against what is a question of power. The UPW is traditionally a stronghold of support for workers' control. Its present fight ought to lead us on to demand that protection for low-paid workers should be secured, not by allow= ing the state to carve up better=paid workers' pay-packets in the name of an incomes policy, but by allowing the workers to determine a real incomes policy which dips into the vast undeclared resources of capital.