Big, sordid history of comparability crisis has been the pay claim of ublic services. iscussion about the dispute is far unions. the claim, and port a Labour government after VARNES these questions and • dispute has done for the women NUPE. the touping save her that all For th were Not exactly. We are talking about strong oppositions whose ideas could Until 1970, the Prices and Incomes Board not onlv attempted to scrutinise and control unions' claims and actual settlements, but also review structure, and methods of pay bargaining:
A pay board continued under the Tory Government, but this time it was administer the statutory wage.
The Pay Board was abolished by the Labour Government when it ended the statutory incomes policy.
•Worker of the memb they could out action? because they wete representative.
governments, they have established wages bargaining procedure, them, the of solving the problems of low pay, through all pay board and reports.
ballot The could have given that alternative lead service.
The job of CAN is not to substitute itself for the union structure, but to fight in it to win an adequate strategy. and pay boards Have policy, marca important developments centralised and, through concept of productivity deals has been introduced wholesale into the public sector, under the guise Another feature of the early 1970s • The notion of comparability has rün inquiry This idea, in one form or another, has traditionally dominated Even the limited intervention of the left into the London Divisional Council -winning the call for stewards rallies, for all-out national action, for rejecting the deal — shows the potential.
Despite the willingness to fight on the Dar or une memoersno - 200 Enc action taken escalated right up until the the struggle remained sectoralised as long as we did not answer the politial issues faced by the JC OCTIO union leadership answer these problems because when it comes to the crunch and the life of the government is put on the line, they are CONCCEC despite "alternative policies'. They cannot see alternative the goverhment coming out of struggles by working class people.
That's why they are forced to accer he framework of the Concordat, an we started getting separate directives union leaders. minimum wage adopted by the Labour government would be one of the policies that could Keep them in office How do you se the fight for a nationa minimum wage going lon ¿the code of picketing in the heali We need to show how These, are linked together within the Concordat, gett rejected there was no widespread challenge to pay differences between the public and OLIVALC SCCLUE current demands for such comparisons have arisén because pay policy is more rigidly enforced in the public sector.
Wage increases won by organised workers in the private sector have set the going rate Tor the rest of industry, Alterra pay report and arbitration, the industrial workers switched to the pay research method. But as the civil service dispute I shows today this method does not conferences.
The other danger is that in accepting the framework set up by comparability, we will be avertea from our stralegy of a national minimum wage. We don't need comparability what we need is a national minimum wage which is then indexed against inflation.
The fact that the government rejects a minimum wage and says comparability suggests to couldn't whatever the boards come up with it will be a con.
The danger is that we will get pulled into struggles in August and April to get their the full amount under comparability, Which will undermine the November of next year for a national Labou minimum wage. national fight three times a year.
So SEOUL organisatioit, and opposition union with the cost of living, let alone an adequate wage.
The The pay Brigades Union broke from traditional pay comparisons. But this stemmed one prime comparisons could Firemen established comparisons with manual workers wages, but that will ret guarantee inflation part of a whole history restraint They offer no way forward for securing a living wage. A minimum wage maex-imkea to rises in aving costs is the only way that workers' pay can be have sold out anybody, disaffiliation. me that fight in You can't wage a developing union ISTE ho hand in hand. The use our strike to funt 75 per cent of public service workers are women. deal awarded to the Fire reasont pay NOT DECCLEO establishment Commission.
They know they are sold out, and unless you show them that it's possible to wage a fight to remove those who not avoid them or by-pass them but remove them - then activists retreat into localism or become demoralised, and you find the gains in union organisation can evaporate.
There's another example of this if we look at the debate in our union over When the Labour government denies even the most elementary right to a decent minimum wage, some of the membership want to turn their backs on the Labour Party, to run away from politics, to disaffiliate.
Unless they see a way of fighting the Labour government by the union fighting within the Labour Party, then in the event of a sell-out the members demoralisation results, in abstentionFisher is not prepared to wage serious light in the cabour Party. - he wants to call off the protected. But this gain can only be achieved through struggle If one lesson can be drawn on the basis of this history, it is that when workers resign their right to determine their wage settlements they will end up with minimal increases Public sector workers are now Tinding that their Increases will do no more than take their standard of living to 1974 levels This particul bittoo much of theidea of a Pay Board: With a Tory Goverbm ntin power, the machinery of the carly 70s could be Trolled out yet again. But this time it will be that much easier thanks to Labour's of the Standing Socialist Challenge 5 April 1979 page 9
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what gain is