4s we go to press the report of the 0O.E.C.D. study on policies governing prices, profits and other non-wage incomes is about to appear. We shall comment on it in our next issue. But the interest with which it is awaited in the business press has already been stimulated by a neat little apertif, in the shape of the report of the Brussels Commission on the economic situation of the Common Market, published on Tuesday 18 Auguste
The Commission has cause to lament. The strensth of the labour movement, in a situation of full employment, has been sufficient to defeat all sorts of attempts to constrain wage ‘pressure on the economy. The labour market remaining tight, wages and profits rose throughout the past year, and "the overall rise in production costs again ‘greatly surpassed! the overall increase in productivity," as the sombre summary in the Times was quick to stress. The force of union pressure, however, has been sufficient to compel the Commission to seek some rather deeper explanations than those normally canvassed, about "wage inflation." "There is danger," it says, "that with _ information on other clase; of income being less accurate, or_ even non-existent...the weizht of a restrictive measures may be concentr=ted on wazes,."
In fact, of murse, this hits hard at the nub of the argument about ‘incomes policy! which has been the centre of attention in every European country during the past period. Neo-capitalism has desperately been trying to foster state regulation of waves, in order to overcome the market pressure for higher wages which naturally accompsnies full-employment. Last year, hourly wage rates rose by 18% in Italy, and increased substantially in every country in the Common Market except Germany, where there was a slight increase, and Holland, where there was an actual setback, Since employers tend to pass on the cost of wage increase, with interest, by raising prices wherever possible, the cost of living index rose by 201% in Belgium, 2.9% in Luxemburg, 3.1% in Germany, 4.8% in France, and 7.5% in Italy. The actual rise in livitiz costs, of course, will prove to be | greater that that reflected in these figures, because they are carefully computed in such a way as to minimise the effect of rising prices and inhibit trade claims. In this context, a showiow with the unions, on the issue of incomes policy, becomes more and more imperative for the employers and their state,
Britain can in no sense stend aloof from this pattern of events. All the pressures on the Common Market countries exist here in the same degree, or to an even greater extent. Two response are clearly obligatory if the unions are to defent the employers' maneouvres. First, it becomes absolutely necesssry for the European and British unions to co-ordinate their activities. Since they face the same onslaught, it is criminslly stupid to meet it in an unco-ordinated way. Not only must links be formed across national boundaries, but they must also be forged across the redisious and political schisms which rend the labour movements of almost all the European countries. The British movement, with its long non-sectarian traditions, and its comparative flexibility, can help in this direction, Second, but -no less urgently, we must develop a common offensive strategy to beat the employers on an international scale. This involves a programme of deep structural reforms calculated to erode capitalist power across the whole European continent. There is not much time for left if these things are to be done, Active union membersishould begin to demand that the work starts now,