Checks Cashed

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Unemployed cash their Social Security cheques-Michigan, (right) PATCO striker led in chains from "Ronald "Reagan's new Budger-projecting storm of protest even among his fellow REAGANOMICS deficit over $90 billion next year and deficit of over $90 billion next year and deficits until at least 1986-has unleashed a deficits until at least 1986-has unleashed a UNLINI. VI U..I J storm of protest even among his fellow His initial 'honeymoon' period as President His initial 'honeymoon' period as President is now definitely over, and he faces a tough is now definitely over, and he faces a tough tiøht to torce his new nronosals inrouen con- fight to force his new proposals through Con- AUE TN ILJ - - dn only one-third of the US WORKERS because it has a Democrauc majoniy. bur Democrats are no great defenders of Federal spending programmes as such. The stronger reason for the House's intractability at present is that it has to be reelected in its HERE Republicans. Republicans.

LIБIAE gress.

The House amenable than entirety in 1982, while Senate faces re-election.

This political problem for 4 AAIOn ... .... ntagal 1 unr vt hIr davevro which have exacerbated differences in strategy and tactics within the Reagan administration.

As one of his hardline supporters Jack Kemp put it:

"It's no secret that there is a healthy and rather fierce debate going on in the Administration about whether there be a should U-turn."

"Not an inch"

But with so many back seat drivers, the Reaganomics vehicle is still careering dangerously all over the road while the captain maintains, Thatcher-like, that he will "not give an inch". '. In fact, he is preparing a renewed offensive.

In particular the Reagan administration has realised, perhaps faster than Thatcher did, the protound obstacle to its programmes which 1s posed by what in the Us is called "entitlement": the legal right to receive certain benefits such as free or subsidised health care and education, unemployment pay, old age pensions, and welfare benetits.

Despite the efforts of Reagan so far most of this entitlement-the essence of the so-called "welfare state" -is still intact. And yet his programme calls for budget cuts of hundreds of billions of dollars over the next three years. This can only be done by a basic attack on all these kinds of entitlement. And that is what is now being prepared in detail by the of Representatives is less the Senate. Inis Is paruy agencies of the Federal government.

But it is one thing to think of what to do; it is another to have the political power to carry it out in a bourgeois democratic country with trade unions and periodic elections. That is why a host of planned attacks on entitlements this year-such as reduction in the real level of pension and the Ketchup proposal-were proposed by Reagan. and then later withdrawn as it became clear that they could not politically be carried.

It is why the administration's economists are searching for underhand ways of reducing entitlement programmes such as the proposal, now in a fairly advanced state, to alter the composition of the Federal price index on which many benefits and also millions of workers' wages are adjusted upwards. The new indes would exclude housing which is one of the fastest rising elements.

Compared to the billions of dollars of needed savings, however, these are marginal. One of the things which has pierced the bubble of self-confidence in which Reagan floated into office is the realisation that all the measures direct and indirect which it has so far managed to implement do not stop its computers from predicting a bigger deficit every time they are consulted. The latest estimate for 1982 is $109 billion instead of the $43 billion to which Reagan is committed.

This problem lead to one the most revealing statements in David Stockman's recent notorious interview in Atlantic Monthly. The budget, he soberly observed, "isn't something you reconstruct each year. The budget is a sort of rolling history of decisions. All kinds of decis ions made five, ten, fifteen years ago, are coming back to bite us unexpectedly. Therefore, in my judgement, it will take three or four or ive years to subdue it. Whether anyone can maintain the political momentum to fight the beast for Strike at trade unions Politically, fighting the beast of public spending means in reality fighting those interests which benefit from it. Up to now the cutbacks have hit the least organised interests most. If there is no U-turn, then a deeper incision will strike at more organised interests-in particular the trade union movement.

On its showing so far Reaganomics is neither consistent monetarism, nor classic deflationism and fiscal conservatism, nor born-again militant supply side economics. At present its contradictory and, by its own standards, incomplete policies seem headed for the same sorry fate as those of Thatcher in Britain: the aggravation of economic slump without any signific ant lessening in the travails of capital: and the loss in court in the first days of the strike this process of electoral support and the gaining of a reputation for giving the corporations and the rich what they want while imposing cruel and unusual economic tortures on the poor.

There are some possible signs that Reagan is learning something from the pitiful experience of Thatcher. Her attempts to curtail government expenditure, while they have managed o destroy some valuable social services and create considerable hardship, have nonetheless not succeeded in reducing the economic weight of the state in the way she inteded. Cuts in spending have been matched by rising needs for social security and unemployment pay; and it has so far proved extremely difficult to create the number of redundancies in the state sector which the Thatcher government originally intended One of the factors behind these problems in Britain has been the strength of the trade union movement. Despite their many failures, the unions have nonetheless put up resistance to redundancies and have so far been able to defend the basis of unemployment pay and social security beneifts.

But the logic of Thatcherism and Reaganomies require the destruction of the kind of labour strength and solidarity which ran defend jobs in the public sector and stafe benefits. Perhaps it was an awareness of this which in the air traffic controllers dispute kid Reagan to make such a decisive attempt at union busting in his first few months in office-and of a union which had supported Reagan's presidential campaign.

The PATCO struggle itself is still not over, despite the reverses which the trattic controllers continue to receive.

In the face of a seemingly inflexible policy on the part of Reagan the morale and solidarity of the majority of the strikers has been exceptional.

Regardless of the outcome for PATCO itself; the repercussions within the labour movement are only just beginning. Further moves towards reducing union power will require legislative backing. And at present there is a backlog of anti-union measures in the legislative pipeline in Congress which would make even Len Murray blanche.

Any attempt to pass this legislative programme, along with the implementation of Reaganomics and the actions of the crisis afflicted capitalists themselves may entail further sharp conflicts with the unions during the Reagan adminstration. There is a growing awareness in the labour movement that many of those struggles will be lost unless the weaknesses which the PATCO strike has revealed are overcome.

Even if a PATCO cannot be easily repeated in relation 1o ether unions, Rcagan and the American ruling class as a whole regard the ruthless treatment of PATCO as a welcome pointer to a new approach to organised labour. The President of one union, the American Federation of Government Employees sees this very clearly: "The Adminstration intended to have a chilling effect not just on Federal unions but on public unions everywhere. And the word pretty much went down to Mayors and Governors: That's the way to deal with Like most US union leaders Kenneth Blaylock, who said that, is better at explaining why PATCO has been an important setback for American labour than he was at producing any concrete solidarity at the time it was most needed. The most prominent self-proclaimed socialist in the leadership of American labour unions, William Wimpisinger -head of the Machinists union which could have brought the airlines to a halt-has claimed pathetically that he was "helpless" to assist PATCO because a strike or blacking action by his union would have been illegal.

Knight in armour But the P'AILU struggle, for all its importance is not yet the decisive test of intentions or results of the struggle between Reagan, the of the American working class, The nature of that battle will become clearer within a very few months as major contracts come up for renewal in both the public and the private sectors.

During 1982 one of the largest public sector unions, the American rederation ot State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), is due to negotiate contracts in the cities of Baltimore, Boston, Buffalo, Memphis, New York, Philadelphia, Phoenix and Toledo. In the case of New York one quarter of a million workers will have their wages and conditions settled by this contract.

In addition, in the private sector, there are major contracts to be negotiated in! 1982 in the petroleum, electrical, motor manufacturing, rubber and lorry transport industries.

What is the power of American labour in the face of these coming important battles which will help to shape the fate of Reaganomics?

In some ways the picture appears as a bleak one: American unions have recently been losing members, both absolutely and relatively. Today a little over 20% of the workforce is in unions. Thirty years ago, at the peak, that figure wasi nearly 26%.

Relative strengths vary a lot between sectors: in the chemical industry the figure is 26%; in textiles only 15%; but in construction 32%.

White collar workers 15%) are still much less organised than blue collar workers (39%); but it is white collar jobs in America

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Laid-off steelworkers

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knight in armour of US capitalism, and the interests