from Janet Blackman Hull CSE held a very successful inaugural public forum on the Incomes Policy on April 24th in the Co-operative Social Hall, The organieing~secretary of the local CSE, Colin Stoneman, had done an impressive job in obtaining so mich literature on the incomes policy. The audience was drawn from trade union branches, various left wing groups in the city, the Labour Party and the University; and on every seat there was a copy of "A Declaration of Dissent" from the five Technicians' Unions (ACTT, AScW, DATA, STCS), and DATA's evidence before the Royal Commission on Trade Unions, as well as leaflets on local meetings. Particularly useful was the way in which this meeting enabled ideas and plans for future strategy and policy to develop. The first session was spent in destroying the case for an incomes policy. Don Major, of DATA, emphasised the importance of shop stewards and their role in challenging management on the shop floor, and went on to question the whole concept of productivity as a solution to our economic problems when we continue with a vast defence burden and an East of Suez policy, Jom Saville then effectively cut the ground from under the incomes policy by showing, from the work of Titms and others, that there had been no increase in equality of incomes since the 1940s, rather there had been a shift towards greater inequality. The second session was opened by Jack Ashwell (T&GWU), author of the Humber— Side Voice pamphlet on workers' control of the buses. He outlined the development of the T&G's opposition to any kind of wage restraint since 1947. Norman Lewis, a lawyer at Hull University, posed questions as to whether we want an incomes policy at all, and emphasised his conviction that it was a criminal act to bring criminal law into labour relations as envisaged by the penalty clauses of the aerly warning bill. In the discussion which developed there began to emerge a well defined programme of practical and immediate activity which should form part of the left's strategy. The left's opposition to capitalign mst include structural reforms, but these themselves should form the beginnings of an alternative policy for the Left in this country. Immediate action was suggested on the following lines :- 1) Help to stiffen trade union opposition to the incomes policy. 2) Support for the use of strike action where workers have taken this step;
i.e. the dockers' recent action in Hull, Here the Left can help with
leaflets, information, funds, etc. 3) Assistance in developing a shop stewards' movement, but one which is not
left isolated; instead it should be linked with the Labour Movement. 4) Challenges to managerial prerogatives, i.e. demands to ‘open the books’. ) Equal rate for the job regardless of sex or race. 6) Continued demand for an extension of public ownership with workers! control. The forum reached this point in its discussions with contributions from various quarters, in particular from Tony Topham, It was then that Jom Saville took the argument further in a concluding suggestion that the Left should begin to formulate its alternative policy to capitalism. To do this we on the left must begin to discuss and decide whether we want a national minimum wage, how we are going to relate wages to social services, what we are going to do about differentials, whether we want a /free for all" which goes against unskilled groups, etc., etc. What is needed therefore, the the forum corpluded, is a co-ordinated policy for the Left in this country set out as our next step, like the miners in the 1920s. As yet we are only in the very early, but hopeful, stages.