it is to assist in breaking down the class structure—it must redistribute the nation’s wealth. The degree of priority given to community needs over private profit-making must therefore be demonstrated by an expansion of the public services. And this in turn must be reflected in the wage packets of the workers in those services. These are the kind of standards our Union will apply as it examines the details of an incomes policy as they emerge in the coming months. The degree of enthusiasm we accord that policy will depend on how far it satisfies those standards.” The fact that public employees’ wages are frequently scandalous, even in cases where they are working under Labour controlled authorities, is only one of the results of the ideas of ‘mixed economy’ which dominate too many people in the Labour Movement. Instead of using the public sector to make the economic pace, to undermine the private sector, and to advance the interests of labour, it is held back as a sort of perpetual Cinderella, or handmaiden to the capitalist order of things. Both local enterprise and the nationalised industries should set the standards of employment in our country, taxing private industry in order to do so. If incomes policies are not prepared to move in this direction, they are certainly unworthy of support.
ei)