WEST Germany's bitter metal workers' strike for the 35 hour week ended last week. The official arbitrator, Georg Leber, presented a report recommending reduction of the working week from 40 to 38.5 hours. The report has been accepted by the union leadership of IG Metall and by the employers. It is expected to be accepted in ballot of metal workers.
The reduction ot the basic work week from noness success orunc metal workers' given unal the empioye.. originally attempted strongly to preveni ally reduction of weekly working time. But a number of features of the deal make it very dangerous for the unions over the long term.
Firstly the 38.5 hours refers only to the average working week in tory. This means that the bosses can cul une workne week for some sections of for example skillWOIRCIS, ed workers, but maintain others on a longer working week. This will have powerful effects dividing groups workers.
Secondly the wage increases agreed in the deal - three per cent up to next March and two per cent for the year after that are not sufficient to keep up with inflation.
Thirdly the leadership has conceded that in future reductions in the working week will have be accompanied by wage cuts. that any further shortening or working ume, willc vill come up for review in 1986, will have to include 25 per cent of any cuts in nourS being financed by wage reductions.
West Germany's most important post-war industrial has therefore gained some ground on paper. But it has left the employers in a powerful position launch attacks the workers organisation the actories.
The result is likely to be a further break up of the 'social peace which las reigned in West Germany since the 1950s. Stall
Socialist Action 6 July 1984 THE RECALL local government conference takes place this weekend in Sheffield. It is less than six months to go before Thatcher's budget axe hits the big majority of Labour controlled councils.
The most urgent task of the conference is to organise support for Liverpool council in its confrontation with the government.
But for the larger number of Labour councils that are going to face the government's rate capping next year two basic strategies are being put forward.
FIRST THERE are those Labour councils which have got a majority of three, four or seven even.
These are almost impossive fo mobilise for a vote for an illegal budget because of the scale penalties against councillors.
In many ways these penalties worse than those manslaughter. They powerful deterrent because they hit at your family and they are financial.
A lot of councillors who will go to prison on a point of principle fear that the surcharge penalty under the law will hit at their families and that is what makes them vulnerable.
So the chances of a narrow majority getting a budget through which is illegal are absolutely negligible unless massive public pressure begins to build up.
What you're likely to get is a whole range of councils where, because of defections, budgets are passed, and then the coun sil leadership have to fight a line by line opposition to any of the cuts which would flow from that budget.
Labour councillors should not in any sense surrender their chairs leadership positions and go into majority opposition. You should stay as far as you can in control of the council and work with the trade unions to actually block the cuts being made by otficers and the Tories. Surcharges Because while it will be very easy for the government, with the threat of surcharges, to force rate capped budgets hrough councils. When it comes to administering the council, devising all the necessary cuts to give expression to that reduced level of expenditure, it is a lot more difficult than it looks.
councils like Lambeth, the GLC, Sheffield and so on where the councils have got a real degree of administrative experience about how the building works, and don't just assume it all works because a committee passes a vote, are in a position where I think they can prevent most of the cuts being carried through.
You must stay in there and fight line by line. You work with the trade unions to make certain that if any sioners are sent in they don't get any cooperation. You try to prevent them entering the building and so on. And you mobilise all the support you can.
Out of that sort of position you cannot forsee the conclusion. There is still The first is Neil Kinnock's declared policy: that Labour councils should do the work for them by staying within the law and 'humanely' administering the cuts.
The second is that. Labour councils must defy the law and refuse to administer the cutbacks.
Within the left a number of tacties for defying the law are being discussed. One of the most widely canvassed is put forward, in a personal capacity, by the leaders of Greenwich, Lambeth, and Southwark councils, and by a risk councillors will be surcharged for not having voted for the cuts but it will be a very chaotic period. It would only take a couple of miscalculations Jenkin and yoü could have a tremencous reactlull There are some councils where the Labour majority is so enormous that they should be able to mobilise a vote for for refusing a rate capped budget. But very that's very tew.
In London you can think of the possibility of that in the ILEA, or in Hackney, or in Southwark or Islington.
But these are the only cases I think where the actual chances of getting a majority for an illegal budget deficit. In almost all the others Camden and so on just aren't enough.
When we had the vote in January 1982 on whether or not to comply with the House of Lords decision on our capped fares policy I proposed to the group that we should refuse to increase the fares. We won in the Labour Group by 23 votes to Z2. By a near miracle we almost won the vote in the council because the Tories abstained. We eventually lost by 24 votes to 27.
But whatever the dividual councils I think it's going to accelerate the process of change inside the party. I think you might very well find a large number of people drop out.
Several people I know on the right of the party have made it quite clear that they would never vote for anything that ran a surcharge risk.
taking the view that if the government wants to run councils in that way then they don't want to stand for election or will resign when rate capping comes in.
When bitter disputes have occurred in the party in the past, when councils had to take decisions on the Housing Finance Act for example, the split has been between those saying 'this is it, we shall stand and fight', and those saying 'well, there are other things which make it worthwhile to within the law and do the best we can.
In one sense the Rate Capping Bill makes that argument redundant. It'S not a question of fares', or 'we'll give in on this or that'.
The government has got complete control of your total expenditure. commis- You either stay there and fight or you simply administer cuts. Within that situation there isn't really a role for a Labour right wing perspective. There's nothing for them there at all. So l would think that in many instances the right would ease itself out where you've the deputy leader of the GL.C, John McDonnell. This is refusing to set a Tories' dirty rate.
Socialist LIVINGSTONE, GLC, for his assessment of how many Labour councils are likely to defy the law and why he is opposed to any strategy based on 'majority opposition' -cils abandoning office and simply voting down Tory proposals.
CAROL TURNER asked TED Lewisham KNIGHT, leader of the Lambeth council, to explain his proposals. got a left wing majority.
In those councils where you've got a right wing majority, and a left wing by minority, that's where you will get the bitterness. may well decide to stay in office and operate the cuts. Then the Labour left will be forced against them. There will be expulsions from Labour groups and local parties will tend to support the Labour rebels. In areas where the Labour leadership give a lead, as certainly I intend to do at the GLC, and I know that Ted Knight does in Lambeth, to say we won't comply with the rate cap budget, we will stay them. There I think there isn't much of a role for the right wing to play except moving their activities spheres of influence.
Haringey, - the majorities We musn't allow the argument to become one that counterposes complying with the law and majority opposition Both of devastating for the party's popular support.
Simply to say we're obeying the law, however bad, would be doing the government's dirty work. It would be to totally alienate public support. And it would be a wrong decision in princiblank cheque and say well obey all its outcome in inlaws. That's a ridiculous position.
No one would have type of blank cheque to be applied in Hitler's Germany. We awarded people fought in Hitler's laws with decorations.
No socialist can ever give a blank They are now cheque to any government. To say that whatever it does will be complied with. Because there are principles which override whatever government demands of the day may be.
But I think it dangerous if, perhaps in a reaction of despair, we adopted a policy of opting out now, we go into majority opposition or something like that. we can do stay that would follow Labour opting out, For for local people, they would never understand why Labour councils had shut up shop and walked away. 'we'll give in on everything line by line.
trade unions and groups into that struggle. to be out there on the picket lines or defying the law, or whatever is needed.
For opting out are each in their own way equally damaging to traditional Labour support.
Action asked KEN leader of the — that is Labour counBecause right wing councils into voting and we'll fight against other ILLU Why are what are its main advantages?
these Would they can no ment.
So we you can't give a government a strategy which ycal expected that Germany against tions.
deficit budgeting?
tary? the temporary prepares a would be very For trade unionists fighting the cuts money there and fight on.
You've got to try and fight to bring community We have got time.
So the options of obeying the law, period therefore «We must have a uni you putting forward the Interview with Ted Knight strategy of refusing to fix a rate, and Every Labour council, certainly in the stress areas, is facing a situation where longer carry out their obligations. They must be looking at how to overcome that. If we're not prepared to make cuts then, frankly, we're in confrontation with the governare trying to propose a will unite authorities at a particular point in the - and that appears to us to be at the time of levying a rate or a precept.
At any other stage in the year, Labour councils are in different financial situaWhat advantage has your strategy over they alternatives, or could they be complimenDeficit budgeting is when a council budget of the spending necessary for its particular needs, but will not have enough money in a full year to cover the cost of that budget Therefore, whilst it may be levying a modest rate increase or one imposed by the Tory government, at some point in the year that council is unlikely to have sufficient income to meet expenditure.
But councils wouldn't run out of same time So, as strategy for uniting them, it just isn't The advantage of not levying a rate or a precept is that councils would be taking the same decision at the same Income to councils would restricted to rents and charges, and so of financial solvency limited identifiable.
Councillors and trade unionists would That's right. We would have no have a clear timetable of events and authority to do so.
Socialist Action 6 July 1984