How low can you go? That must be the question as Labour's leadership claims a wage, but refuses to name a figure.
The issue could prove the a uso e ye nacie W Tony Blair's kadership at this year's Brighton conference.
It is an issue which finds grassroots support in the constituency parties as well as backing from trade unionists and union leaders. As a poll commissioned for one of the civil service unions has discovered, a specific pledge to a minimum wage of f4.iS per tested. hour would also be popular, a voe winne oa In a squalid deal, the biggest unions - led by the GMB and TGWU - sliced off 15p. cutting the target to 14 as a £4.15 per hour:
futile gesture to Blair.
But there can be no real unity on the issuc, because the minimum ware requires ieRislation by a Labour governnicienio as we knowa utal Blair is opposed to naming any figure in advance of the next general election.
Open door As the employers and Tory leaders step up their propaganos, asscrung witoul any proof that a minimum fixed as the employers. low as £4.15 figure could result in the loss of "up to two million jobs", it is clear that as tat as Labour s nai wang leaders are concerned the bosses are pushing at an open door: the argument is not conусаг.
Instead Blair. claiming to arbitrate "fairly" between the competing class interests of capital and labour, is scarcaing for a figure which will scem like an increase while causing minimal disturbances with low-paying employers.
In fact New Labour more or less openly agrees with bosses of firms like textile giClaremont Garments. manufacturers for Marks and Spencer, who war that to in- might demand increases to crease their lowest rates from £3 'restore differentials". to £4 per hour might hurt them. Such bravado should be While Blair's team is eager taken with a pinch of salt. The to take its distance from the AEEU has shown no willingness so far to fight for the livunioos, is mas boling bur fo spect for the profitability of ing standards of its skilled This is why members. sex Hasce that he would only fix a mini- Gap mum rate after fully consult- The reality is that sixteen ing firms like Claremont, who years of Tory rule have seen are doing very nicely from the employers on the rampayinx swcatsnop wages. page, widening the gap bewith profits up 10 percent this tween the lowest-paid and the cop carneis, casualisine much No doube Blair is also grate- of the workforce, and paying ful to the right wing leaders of millions of workers at poverty the enginoens" and eloctricians"
levels, subsidised by the taxunion, who declared that if the payer to the tune of £2.4 bilminimum wage was raised to lion a year in social security Line sopor payuicus GMB's Edmonds: {4 an hour would hardly keep him in ples!
The popular wish to change this situation is is one of the reasons the Tories are lagging in the polls and millions are willing to vote Labour.
Unfortunately Labour's leaders anpear to need reminding that the task of the unions - and the reason they pay to support the Labour Party - is to defend and improve the living standards of the working class, not to line the pockets of cheapskate. profiteering employers.
A strong conference vote for the t4.15 minimum will fire a necessary shot across the bows of a leadership that has abandoned any radical comBy an RMT member BOSSES at London Underground Limited have decided to play hard ball.
As we go to press they are taking legal action against the rail union RMT. and have written to all 2,000 who supporno the lasi one-day strike threatening disciplinary action.
The Torles have told LUL chiefs that their jobs are on the line unless they can sort us out. Hence all the management threats, intimidatlon, and mutterings about Well, It's nice to see them panic. ur surikes dre going ahead.
Other unions We need to step up the fight by invotving more memHon c cnn dnio It we are knocked back, LUL will not only have beaten the workforce in a straight fight, but they will have forced in a series of prooustviy ang privati alion measures - in particular the Introduction of part time workers on trains, more texible working" on the stations. privatisation of engineering staff and line by line productivity plans - which would undermine us in the future.
Dur bosses are never going to stop attacking our working conditions and settle down to run a railway. They are pald to reduce the subsidy and privatise, not run a service.
So far we're doing well. By organising teams of militant activists through the RMT's London Transport District Council, with constant Barry supplies of class conscious leaflets, we're keeping ahead of the game. But the struggle is of course political as well as Industrial: management are merely Tory puppets.
Dinosaur
The Tory media pump out the line that 'dinosaur" Jimmy Knapp is leading misguided but greedy workers in a fight for extra cash. But we're fighting over working conditions, and we're not led by Knapp, we're doing it ourselves.
Most ASLEF members -despite the do-nothing line of their leaders - want to supporte suke ano rospect our picket lines. It is to forettall any such unity that management have issued