Plans 3-year Stretch!

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"He was asked about a three-year pay agreement just signed with Scottish and Newcastle Breweries involving more than 6,000 members. It was a comprehensive deal, as compared with a two-year one proposed by British Leyland covering only wages. Long-term agreements were possible where they contained guarantees about security of employment, improvements in holidays, and greater pension This chimes in with Geoffrey Howe's speech at a City of London dinner last Evans' conditions are nonsense. It is no more trouble for employers to negotiate over holidays or pensions or jobs on a two-year basis than it currently is on a one-year pattern. The key advantage to them of a two-year agreement is that it The push for multi-year deals is also connected with the Tories' anti-union drive. In countries where multi-year deals are the norm, they are usually policed by laws forbidding or restricting strikes except at settlement dates. Without such laws multi-year deals obviously do not have the same advantages for the bosses, for the unions can rip them up when inflation cuts deep into wages.

The introduction of such strike bans into Britain will surely be the Tories' next step if they are able to get away with Prior's and Tebbit's anti-union laws.

At the Falkirk conference Evans also said he might favour a "progressive' incomes policy (it's something like a generous wage cut!), but the TGWU executthe IGWU executive certainly should kick Evans' backside, and the TGWU membership should insist that it does. In every union the leaders should be called to account with the demand for a clear commitment to reject multi-year deals. resistance the witchIN the next few weeks the NEC will start their attempt to expel socialists from the Let us be clear that whilst the right have picked on Militant as the first to go it is part of a grand strategy of purging socialists from the Party, and what is at stake is our socialist party and our determination that the next Labour Government should not be like the last, or the one before that.

We want a Labour Government that will challenge the forces that control the economy and not allow itself to become the tool of them. In 1974 we won on a policy of redistribution of wealth and power; Labour went out of office with NATO intact, more nuclear weapons than ever, troops in Ireland and a virulent Without such support, we won't publish the paper next week.

JOHN HARRIS Corbyn: "Those who appease on an ice slope...

only get off at the bottom"

wages Policy that had All this happened not been used against the just because our leaders lowest paid manual wor- lacked any socialist vision kers. but because they were not Evans: "The executive might kick my backside"

AS BL bosses push for a two year deal, TGWU general secretary Moss Evans.

The Morning Star last Friday (22nd)

TGWU conference in Falkirk. entitlements, Mr Evans added."

Friday:

prepared to mobilise the must become exceptional" Labour Movement against the International Monetary Fund in 1976.

So what should the left be doing now in the Party and how should we be fighting the right wing inspired purge and NEC? union redress.

The first task must be to demand that the left in Parliament support the 22 MPs who published the statement at Conference which envisages a united and active left between them, the Constituency Parties and the Trade Union Broad Lefts. The recent years. time is to organise and fight back and to lead this into the Trade Unions so that the mass of members actually understand that their demands can only be met by political action.

The second, and immedi- don't believe it.. ate task, is not to see some negotiated and fiddled way out of the impasse by registering and holding back, but by absolutely refusing to make - the expulsions 'demanded.

Once any CLP has started the road by expelling, the Daily Mirror and Guardian will not say to Michael Foot that it is clear he has ell those who appease -11 PAGETTEr they climb on an ice slope that they can only get off, at the bottom.

.... 22: ...

reported on a speech by Evans "In the not too distant future the idea of an automatic keeps down wages by allowing a longer span during which they are eroded by inflation without any trade See inside:

Page 15: BL Where multi-year deals have become the norm in other countries, like the USA, employers have had to pay talks concede sliding-scale automatic cost-of-living Page 9: increase) clauses as part of the package. Whatever the limits of these clauses, they have been a major protec- Sliding scale tion for living standards - which is why they have been under attack in so many European countries in scrapped in Denmark Geoffrey Howe - with the apparent assent of Page 15:

Evans - wants multi-year deals even without sliding scale clauses. The excuse is that inflation is dwindling Economics to nothing. He will find it difficult to convince inflation. anyone of that. The bosses and the bankers certainly

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piblished by the Socialist Organiser Alliance, 28 Middle Lane, London NB. Prinsed by East End Offset (TU). Registared as a newspaper at the GPO. Signed articles do not necessarily reflect the views of the SOA Jeremy Corbyn (prospectiv candidate, Islington N calls for resolute

ive "might kick his backside for saying it'. 'purged the Party; like