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The TUC S loss-leader uld the movement • The ambiguitie ons about fightraight disavows any stead claims only Pory policy as eir basic strategy :, and how we can id to break trade len defeat strikes, was not dropped. The Tories did offer not to legislate a change from contracting out of the political levy to contracting in. But they knew all along that such a change would raise all sorts of questions about financing of political parties.

They hope that the ballots on whether unions should maintain political funds will do what they want anyway, with less trouble, and lead to many unions disaffiliating from the Labour So Len Murray got no real concessions. He gave concessions to the Tories.

Instead of the Tories legislating on contracting-in and the TUC fighting them, Len Murray and the Tories together will draw up a voluntary (!) code.

The Tories know their man.

The Financial Times commerted: "While the form of the code bas not yet been agreed, ministers place more stress on the personal commitment made to the new system than on its pre-.

cise wording. Mr Murray's desire to forge a new relation.

ship with the government and his evident willingness to deliver on agreements is seen as providing the strongest grounds for preferring the voluntary approach to legislation"

lessons home. But we have to do so in the context of rebuilding on the shop floor.

There is stil strength there.

In 1983 pay rises kept pace with inflation. Real living standards are stil not falling. After four months of the present pay round, settlements are running at double the Tories' 3 per cent.

The attacks on the closed shop, on shop steward organisation, and on the links with the Labour Party, make it possible THE NEW Len Murray was seen last week introducing the new TUC document, 'Protecting those in need'.

This consists of a number of limited demands: the government should index unemployment benefit and reverse the cuts in housing benefit, for example.

It shows how Murray is derailing the movement: " ... He made clear yesterday that its approach implied accepting that the broad lines of the government's approach could not be changed"

He went on to reinforce his point: 'These measures do not make up an alternative programme. They are changes which the government could and necessary to reconstruct workplace organisation without the narrow trade-unionist limitations of post-war industrial militancy.

We must rebuild on an explicitly political basis. Workplace Labour Party branches are absolutely essential in this.

The Tories want to transform the unions into a combination of US 'business unions' and Japanese workplace outfits. We want to transform them into urray:

make without scrapping the medium-term financial strategy 8o beloved of the Chancellor". • They are changes that could be made without touching the basic strategy of high unemployment, cuts in the welfare state, and wage reductions.

Murray can now say openly that the TUC's job is not fighting the Tories, but advising the Tories on minor adjustments in their attempts to shackle the unions and drive down the working class.

But if Len Murray can live breezes amidst a gale of right on the hope of a tew gentle wing policies, the working class cannot. The new realism simply will not work.

Murray cannot bring it off. There is not the slightest hope in his policies of appeasement and collaboration. organisations geared up to for socialism.

One way or another, the unions must be transformed. They cannot continue in the old way.

Things are tough. But if we keep going, both at the level of the workplace and at the level of the broader labour movement; if we support the big struggles and small struggles, then we can ensure that 1984 will be the year in which we stopped the retreat. PARALLE Tanks in the market