(Resolution No. 17)
ment as an economic poncy:
ment by campaigning for:
being provided;
6. in housing, education and neartn, scneme.
9.
through the Trades Councils.
Moved by Stirling Trades Council.
class The most important meeting of the workers movement since the Budget measures were announced has been taking place this week with the conference of the Scottish TUC in Perth.
The present capitalist crisis has been aggravated in Scotland by decades of regional decline, particularly in heavy industry. Unemployment runs to double figures in many areas, housing is a chronic social problem, and the social services are falling apart through neg Not surprisingly, therefore, Scotland has thrown up the spearhead of working class resistance to the policies of the Labour Government. Struggles have included the PersonThis Congress recognises that the £6 wage limit and the cuts in public expenditure are measures which help to extend mass unemployment. We have no option but to conclude that the present Labour Government is deliberately using mass unemployThis Congress rejects policies which are aimed at making working people pay for the crisis in the capitalist system. It instructs the General Council to fight unemployImmediate implementation of the 35 hour week with no loss of pay;
Longer holidays with no loss of pay:
No redundancies without adequate alternative employment at an equal status An opening of the books of any company declaring redundancies;
Nationalisation without compensation of any company unable to ensure full employment at a living wage for its workforce;
An end to cuts in public expenditure and a new programme to restore the cuts 7. An end to incomes policy measures like the £6 wage limit, and any similar Full cover of all major agreements against inflation by cost of living clauses;
Full cover in all state benefits and grants to individuals for cost of living increases.
The General Council should coordinate a campaign against unemployment and the cuts; this should be done at two levels, nationally through the unions, and locally struggle Ana occupation for jobs last year, victorious battles for equal pay at Magnetic Electrical Alloys, Hamilton, Wheway-Watson and Cockburn Valves in Glasgow (the last won after a three month strike), a half-day strike against the cuts in Glasgow, and of course Dundee's 30,000 strong general strike on 5 March.
Enough, one would have thought, to have produced an agenda bristling with militant resolutions to beat back the capitalist offensive.
But not a bit of it. The first major debate on unemployment on Tuesday morning - occurring as we went to press - reflected the division running right through the conference and through the working class itself.
Or who are prepared to fight against the policies of the Government and those who, whatever their militant words, simply advance alternative schemes of class collaboration, we were told by Stirling Trades Council delegate Roland Sheret.
heavily Communist Party influenced Scottish TUC General Council is supporting the anaemic composite motion on jobs shows exactly where we will find the CP 'leaders' when they are fased with a clear class struggle line. They would prefer to form alliances with right-wing General Council hacks like Alex Donnet of the General and Municipal Workers' Union, who disrupted a recent conference on the cuts in trend the following measures are proposed:
materials;
(d) Selective import controls;
(f) Restoration of cuts in social services (g) Cuts in arms expenditure;
(i) The creation of an expanding economy parallel ership and control;
and the Scottish Development Agency;
class It is the division between those egy against what ment'.
The fact that the whole of the inflation. (Composite B (covering motions 12-16, 18-22))
This Congress, gravely concerned at the unacceptably high level of unemployment in Scotland, insists that every effort should be made by the Government to drastically bring this down. Recognising the cost of unemployment to the Exchequer and to society as a whole, funds should be redirected to this end. Congress firmly refuses to accept the use of unemployment to regulate the economy. To reverse the present (a) Extension of the temporary employment subsidy; (b) Assistance to industry to allow it to build up stocks of components and raw (c) Increased investment in key nationalised sectors, such as steel and rail;
(e) An immediate cessation of the outflow of capital;
(h) Extension of school, hospital and house building;
(i) Allocation of substantially increased resources to the National Enterprise Board (k) Extend public ownership of the key industries and financial institutions.
Moved by General and Municipal Workers Union.
Seconded by National Union of Railwaymen, Association of Scientific, Technical and Managerial Staff, and the following trades councils: Glasgow, Edinburgh, Green ock, Motherwell & Wishaw, Clydebank, Clackmannanshire, and Cowdenbeath.
collaboration Glasgow with an impassioned defence of Healey's economic strathe called la tiny minority of the trade union moveThere is little doubt that this unholy alliance will carry the day, although last year Stirling Trades Council were successful in pushing through a motion calling for cost of living clauses in all pay settlements, state benefits and grants to defend them against the ravages of with extension of public ownBut the importance of their stand - not just on jobs, but also on housing, transport, and troop withdrawal from Ireland - is that they are advancing a programme for class struggle against the class collaborationist schemes of the Communist Party and the 'lefts". This fight must be repeated at every union conference this summer and at the TUC and Labour Party conferences. It is the key to beating back the anti-working class offensive of the Labour Government.