With scarcely a few weeks! office, the Labour Government has had a foretaste of the opposition it is going to get from the unions. The National Union of Seamen have made a official strike call (whether there will be some wriggling from certain .sections after the union's conference remains to be seen) and has told Mr. Gunter that it - will not agree to its claim being referred to the Prices and Incomes Board, The Scottish T.U.C. gave the incomes policy and early warning legislation a drubbing at its conference, And although U.S.D.A.W. went ‘on record for the incomes policy it followed this by a call for a £15 a week minimum for shopworkers, U.S.D.A.W., which made 128,009 new members last year but lost even more, will surely have to. reconsider, especially as the incomes policy hits, as gill, the lowest paid workers most. (in passing, it should be noted iene decision on Vietnam shows that it is possible to win wide support for an anti-Government line).
But there is more than this: the way the technical unions organised at Aberdeen indicates more than mere verbal gestures, These unions - headed by A.S.S.E.T., which recently won an 85% wage increase for some of its members «- are fighting back, Because of this, and the continued and highly vocal opposition of the T.G.W.U., it is possible for trade unionists in unions which officially support the incomes policy to also fight. We understand that steps are being taken to set up an organisation which will advise and help workers, or organisations, which fall foul of the punitive sections of the early warning bill, This excellent initiative will help to draw the lines clearly: either the Government will have to abandon its punitive measures or it will have to intensify them. What is clear is that we are in for a big fight which will have repercussions throughout the movement. In this process the objective - but not necessarily subjective, that is up to the people like ourselves - conditions for the building a big left wing inside the Labour Party sre likely to emerge.