A lean year for wages NA

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ITV are currently running a six-part, peak viewing time series on the division of Europe into two armed camps, dominated on the one hand by the United States and on the other by the Soviet Union.

In the second part, shown last Monday, 13th Jonathan Dimbleby set out to put the division in the context of a ten-minute history of Europe since 1800.

Dimbleby's basic argument was that a Europe of peasant-based societies, ruled by the heads of Empires who maintained an uneasy balance of power among themselves and sent their peasants to war when that balance of power broke down, had now been totally transformed. A new balance of power had been established.

The hammer blows of industrial revolution, World War and revolution had destroyed the old society, replacing it with a post-war Europe dominated by a Soviet Union intent on maintaining a protective barrier, around its own borders and a United States determined to 'contain communism' and challenge its 'expansionism' anywhere on the globe and particularly in Europe.

Arriving breathless at today, Dimbleby argued that there is little to choose between the two superpowers. The US sends its troops around the world to fight and die to protect unsavoury dictatorships in the name of 'democracy' while the USSR sends peace-loving tanks into satellite capitals to crush 'counter-revolution' by killing socialist citizens fighting for their freedom.

If the USSR can be blamed for Afghanistan, then the US is responsible for El stay! Salvador. If the USSR repressed the people in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Poland, then this was balanced in the West by military dictatorships in Spain, Portugal, Greece and Turkey.

The Cold War conflict is fuelled by an arms race which made the game so dangerous that the rules had to be changed. That's why the USA under Carter took up the policy of detente offered by the Soviet Union.

Now that policy is dead. Reagan no longer believes in detente.

A spokesperson for the soviet government, interviewed by Dimbleby, followed on by arguing that detente is the only guarantee against nuclear war.

There was a US person, too, who argue ed to an incredulous Dimb ›leby that it is a serious fore eignpolicy goal of the US government 'to put Marx :ismLeninism into the trash I-can of history". He argued thạt future relations betv veen the USA and the St oviet Union will be better now that the US has aband‹ oned detente and begun a l auge arms build-up!

Far cry

The programme concluded by suggesting that the Cold War game is not in the interests of the people of Europe, and asking whether Europeans will accept it for much longer.

The whole argument is of course a far cry from the official position of the British ruling class that America is the friend of 'free' Europe and Russia its enemy. No doubt Thatcher and the Tory backwoodsmen and women will see such a programme as further evidence of the Marxist takeover of television.

October 17 24 3" * 3 26 20 27 r. • A. 2". 28 •5 22 29 But the description of Europe as the victim of two superpowers who care nothing for us except as a potential battleground forf potential battleground for World War 3 does not explain much. And the implicit argument for the 'people' (undefined) to create a neutral, nuclear-free Europe, does not tell us what to do about the threat.

With four more parts of the series to come, it will be interesting to see what answers (if any) Dimbleby will offer.

Analysis What was certainly missing on Monday was a class analysis which can explain why the blocs exist; why the main threat of nuclear war comes from the imperialist system, and not from war-crazy individuals; why the Soviet policy of detente is no guarantee against nuclear war; and why the working class of Europe can only combat the increasing danger of a Third. World War by fighting for its own class interests and the overthrow of capitalism in Western Europe and the Stalinist bureaucracies in the East.

As a symptom of the 'European pacifism' so dreaded by NATO chiefs and as a reflection of the growing concern of millions of European workers that we may be sacrificed in World War 3, the programme was interesting. But for answers look elsewhere. • 'The Cold War Game' ITV Mondays 8.30pm. SHEFFIELD Socialist Organiser.

September 22: The Labour Party witch-hunt.

At the Brown Cow, The Wicker, starting 7.30.

LAMBETH/ SOUTHWARK Socialist Organiser group forums: 8.30pm at 41 Camb erwell Grove, London SES.

THE 1981/2 wages round was a lean year for pay bargaining according to a comprehensive survey of agreements covering 14 million workers, recently published by the Labour Research Department.

Almost all the workforce took a pay cut in real terms in the last twelve months, because 94% of all pay

agreements were below 9%, the lowest rate of inflation during that period.

A combination of the economic recession and fear of unemployment and lay off reduced pay rises to 5% or below for millions of workers in the industries most severely affected by the Tories' kamikaze monetarist policies: in engineering, vehicles, textiles and clothing, and other manufacturing. Only eight out of the total 365 major pay settlements examined received a pay rise equal to or more than the inflation rate during the period.

Top of the pay league were Thatcher's chosen elite, the police, who with their 13.2% increase in September 1981 far outstripped the rest of the public sector.

Low basic pay is a continuing feature of British collective bargaining for manual workers, with the vast majority of nationally agreed minimum rates in most major industries well below £100/week.

Male manual workers are still dependent on average for a quarter of their earnings coming from overtime, shift and bonus payments, to earn anything like a living wage.

Even if this was a desirable status for men -which it isn't - it is one major reason for the continuing difference between men's and women's earnings.

MANCHESTER Socialist Organiser discussion meeting on Poland, with speaker from PSC.

Sunday September 19, 7.30 in the Lass O'Gowrie, Charles St.

for the Full Claim: next Saturday September LABOUR Committee on Palestine (Yorkshire Region).

Speaking tour on 'The Palestinians and the lessons of Lebanon' • Speakers. Omar al-Ahmed, Barry Turner, Garth Frankland, Roland Rance.

HALIFAX. Friday October 8, 7.30 at AUEW Club, opposite Bus Station.

LEEDS. Monday October 11, 7.30 at Trades Council Club, Saville Mount.

KEIGHLEY: Wednesday October 13, 7.30 at Keighley Library Theatre.

BRADFORD: Friday October 15, 7.30 at Central Library, Meeting Room 2.

Family commitments and legal restrictions mean that women are unable to boost their incomes in this way, and their average earnings are only about 72% of men's, a proportion which has been falling for the past three years.

Working time

Shorter working time For those lucky enough still to have a job, significant advances have been made in reducing working time. Indeed, shorter weekly hours and longer holidays represented the only real gains made by the unions in the last pay round.

Three and a half million people have won a shorter week in the past year, but there is still a very wide gap between manual and non-manual workers. Over three quarters of the workforce now work 39 hours or less before overtime. But only half a million manual workers (less than 6%) are down to the TUC POLISH SOLIDARITY Contact addresses:

Solidarnosc Trade Union Working Group, Acorn• House, 314/320 Gray's Inn Road, London WCIX 8DP. Tel: 01-837 9464.

SOCIALIST ORGANISER North of England day school on The International Class Struggle'. Sunday October 31, 10am to 5.30pm at Manchester University Students' Union, Oxford Road, Manchester. Lots of workshops, speakers, discussions, etc. Registration £1.50 waged, 75p claimants, from 78 High St, Atherton, Lancs. Cheap lunch available, creche provided.

MIDLANDS People's March for Jobs. September 15 to 18: a five-pronged march from Stoke, Derby, Rugby, Hereford, and Shrewsbury, converging on Birmingham. Coordinator: Sid Platt, (021 643 6084).

ISLINGTON Socialist Organiser: next meeting Sunday September 26, 3pm, at Thornhill Neighbourhood Project, Orkney House,, Caledonian Rd. Tea, coffee, and sandwiches provided. For babysitting phone Nik, 607 5268.

Bye bye living standards! target of a 35 hour week, whereas 25% of white collar workers are. Another 2 million manual workers have already negotiated shorter working time to come into effect in the coming pay round.

Improved paid leave was also an area of substantial gain last year, with one workore workers winning longer third of all organised holidays. We in Britain are still trailing behind the rest of Europe in the holiday stakes, but one in two people are now on 22 days plus Bank Holidays, and one in eight get 5 weeks or more. There was iwss movement on holidays among non-manual than among manual workers. This is a depressing indication that areas of white collar work - offices, shops, banks, drawing offices, etc. - where new technology has been most rapidly introduced in the past two to three years have won very little in return in the form of shorter working time.

HARINGEY Socialist Organiser: fortnightly meetings at Brabant Rd trade union centre. For details phone 802 0771 or 348 5941. OXFORD Claimants' Defence Committee benefit disco: Saturday September 18, East Oxford Community Centre. Unwaged 50p; waged 75p minimum.

Public meetings every

Saturday at 1lam, 'B' block, 44b Princes Street.

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