By penalising the service industries price are bound to go up for us as consumers wherever we are served by the middleman or retailer, This means higher prices, especially for food, fuel, clothes and the like, whether you are a business tycoon, a worker with a family to support or an old-age | pensioner, Therefore the Payroll Tax will be an added burden to the poorer sections of the community = Point One. Point twos The Middleman and Productivity Employers in the service industries will think they now have a cast-iron case for putting up their prices to pay for the payroll tax of 25/- a week on each man they employ. This is just the part of our economy where prices already run away with themselves quite unrelated to the costs of production and distribution, The middleman already makes a vast profit; he now has the green light to push up his profit margins even further, This leads, or should lead, to: Point threes PRICES and Incomes Policy Price increases such as these envisaged above should bring the prices side of the incomes policy into play. Yet this has been the weakest side of the incomes policy so far, We have yet to get down to a rational pricing policy whereby the method of price-fixing by manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers will be scrutinised and related to production costs. This would be the beginnings of a genuine socialist prices and incomes policy, Instead we hayes: Point four: The Great Divide The Payroll Tax drives a wedge right through the workers; i.sce, Men: _in manufacturing industry Men in the service industries 1) Eqch man is worth plus 7/6 to 1) Each man is worth minus 25/- to his his employer, I.H., the employer employers; I.E., employers pay a payroll pays a payroll tax of 25/=| a week tax of 25/= a week per man, but receives for each man, but receives a nothing back from the Government. The Government subsidy of 32/6 a week result will be higher unemployment in per man. (No strings are attached ‘ this sector. The result may well be the "hoard~ ing of labour," 2) Men in this part of industry 2) Men in this sector are poorly paid have a higher take-home pay with with fewer chances of overtime working more chances of overtime and = i < with pay or bonuses. bonuses. 3) A higher prqortion of industrial 3} Fewer men are onganised trade unionists. workers are organised in trade 4) Some workers are not allowed to join unions with long experience of a union, eee, bank clerks, wage negotiations and redundancy 5) For many there is still a long tradite agreements. ion of individual wage settlement with
the boss, Finally, What about the women? Point Four: Women workers in manufacturing industry will be worth only a subsidy of plus 3/6 per week to an employer against a man's plus 7/6. Whereas in the service industries. an employer will pay a lower payroll tex for his women workers than for his men, Net result? Could mean even fewer opportunities for women in the manufacturing side of industry, and even more women used as cheap labour in the service sector, Is this what we want in the socialist Britain of the future? One answer must be greater union organisation of women workers in both sectors of the economy to put a stop to their use as cheap labour anywhere,