NALGO The editorial of Public Service, the monthly journal of NALGO, received the news of the second stage of Mr. Brown’s Incomes Policy with the following statement: The general secretary of the TUC has already told the trade unions that the General Council has impressed on the Government that the whole policy and the machinery for operating it will be subject to the approval of a conference of union executives, to be called together by the TUC. This, surely, will be an opportunity to prove the value of NALGO’s recent affiliation. Apt comment on this approach appeared in the letters column of the’ journal: “We have been looking at the diagrams comparing local government and civil service salary points on page 15 of last month’s Public Service, and we are absolutely astonished that NALGO should have the effrontery to publish such damning evidence of its inability to negotiate satisfactory salaries for its members during the last 20 years. “Here are some of the figures given in the diagrams. To them, we have added percentages, and we feel that these add up to the biggest possible indictment of NALGO policy since
Grade 1946 1965 Per cent
increase LG gen. div. £360 £700 94.44 CS equivalent 1 £350 £800 128.57 LG. clerical 1 £420 £810 92.85 CS equivalent £413 £935 126.63 “Byen at first glance, these figures look too bad to be true. They are even more appalling when seen against the report, on your back page, that the cost of living index has risen by 96.8 per cent. since January, 1947 —which means that the pu i power of the general division and clerical 1 grades is less now than it was in the days just after the war.
“So, in these days of so-called affluence, our negotiators have failed not only to improve the living standards of most of their members, but event to maintain them at the immediate post-war level.
“Tf the current downward trend is maintained, we shudder to think what the position will be im another 20 years’ time.