[TAST MONDAY natener LApped the wets From her…]

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TAST MONDAY natener LApped the wets From her cabinet and replaced them with hardline monetarists. She replaced James Prior with Norman Tebbit at the Department of Employment with instructions to put the boot into the trade unions.

24 hours later the government announced a new 4% guideline for public sector wage settlements in the coming wage round.

These moves bring a new dimension into the already full-scale attack being carried through against the working class by the employers on three fronts - wages, jobs and trade union rights.

Steps In the last few weeks a number of major employers have taken steps which can only be seen as a qualitatively new stage in the attacks on the standard of living.

The latest and most vicious example is the proposal made last week by the USowned domestic appliance multinational Hoover. They told the trade unions that they intend to proceed with a 10% cut in the existing wage rates to be followed by a four-year wage freeze until October 1985.

These proposals were part of a nine page document which also calls for the introduction of work sharing and for severe restrictions on trade union activities and facilities in the factories.

Hoover, who claim to nave lost £6.1 million in the His SIX months of this year, have backed the document with a threat to close either its plant at Cambuslang, its plant at Perivale, or both.

They also threatend cuts at Hoover's major plant in Merthyr Tydfil, South Wales.

Impasse

These unprecedented proposals. are designed to actually cut the wage rates rather than impose small wage settlements and allow inflation to cut the standard of living.

It comes hard on the heels of similar cuts in the wage rates by Pan Am and British Aurways.wnere man- wan agement are calling for 9,000 redundancies as well.

At Vauxhall Motors, 16,000 hourly-paid workers have been offered a 4% wage rise tied to productivity strings and a big redundancy programme.

Similar

BL management are likely to make a very similar offer on Friday of this week and have embarked on vigorous programme designed to effectively smash the power of the trade unions in the corporation.

Senior shop stewards at Longbridge and elsewhere have been ordered back on their jobs; shop stewards meetings are being constantly refused and facilities to operate curtailed.

British Airways management have arrogantly informed the unions that there is no point in negotiations since they have stated their position there is nothing left to discuss.

Mr John Collier, TGWU National Officer for Civil Air Transport responded to this diktat which wipes out the basic function of the trade union at a stroke, with the following words:

"We are getting very close to the situation where we will have no alternative but to start fighting"

The fact is that the working class is getting "very close" to the situation where they cannot afford their present leaders and will have "no alternative" but to replace them.

Weakness

There is no doubt that the arrogance and boldness of the employers stems directly from the weakness of the trade union leaders at every level.

The airlines are encouraged in their attacks by the disgraceful conduct of the unions, in that industry in refusing to effectively support PATCO.

They see the TUC go on bended knee to Downing Street two weeks ago to talk to Thatcher and emerge saying they had "made progress" and thought they had been "listened to"

Hoover's announcement came in the final days of the TUC conference which despite a welcome swing to the left on a number of issues such as unilateralism, the EEC, and sanctions against the South African apartheid regime, and support for SWAPO were paralysed when it came to action against the Thatcher government.

They passed important motions against any form of pay curbs but did nothing about the vicious pay curbs now being introduced by the government in both the CBI