Scanlon used every trick in the book to ram through acceptance of the wage deal. This was the only way to beat inflation, he said. If the NC voted it down, he'd have to come off the TUC Negotiating Committee. Those opposing the pay policy were playing the Tories game by helping to bring down the Government.
Against this the Broad Left had no answer. They failed to point out unat It Is tne poncies being pursuca by the present right-wing leadership which are leading this Government to disaster; and they failed to put forward the kind of alternative policies — a sliding scale of wages, work-sharing without loss of pay, CIC. - around which a challenge to that leadership can be built.
The vote for the Healey deal goes much deeper than simply wages. It represents acceptance of the whole range of anti-working class policies being pursued by this Government, of which the pay deal is the core.
Resolutions passed 'objecting' to unemployment will not in this context make the slightest bit of difference to the overall course of Scanlon and his new-found friends in the right wing of the AUEW. As General Secretary John Boyd wrote in the May NEW PAMPHLET produced by Birmingham IMG:
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