UC '82l 'Break links' is the big debate

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Books and pamphlets that you should read rial Relations will be familiar to militants because of their witch-hunting supervision of Trades Councils such as Oxford and Tameside.

The Economic department exists to justify Len's argument that wages don't cause inflation when the Tories are in but do cause it when Labour sits in Downing Street.

When Labour is in, its bent is Treasury economics, töday it peddles a right-wing but still utopian version of the Alternative Economic Strategv:

Social Insurance and Industrial Welfare has in the offensive"

1960-68 Lea, are like their master impeccably orthodox in ittee, the TUC delegation to the National Economic Devary, successfully moved a resolution at the annual conference of the Bakers' Union calling for the General Council to break off all talks with the Tories.

A week before Congress, Paul was called down to London to be confronted by Len, Harry Urwin (deputy general secretary of the TGWU), and Alan Sapper of ACTT.

He was informed in no uncertain terms that they wanted the resolution withdrawn and that they had already persuaded Les Wood, general secretary VI UNAII, 1 mentor of PATT and Alistair Graham of the CPSA, to withdraw similar AMONG the usual plethora of bland and toothless resolutions for debate at this year's TUC Congress, a few topics stand out as relative hot-spots of debate.

Some might even break through the alcohol induced slumbers of delegates to produce a real buzz of interest.

Key among these of course is once again the question of jobs - not the record levels of unemployment, but the positions of top General Secretaries on the TUC General Council.

A proposal adopted last yeal, to replace the traditional method of election of the General Council by trade groups with a new process which would automatically give a seat to every leader of a union with over 100 000 members, is up for debate again - with the TGWU leading a strong lobby to have it thrown out.

Another issue of bureaucratic jobs, power and privilege at stake focuses on a call for the TUC to break its top-level links with the government and employers which have functioned for the last 20 years through the National Economic Development Council (NEDC).

The TASS motion calling for withdrawal has been toughened up by an amendment from the ISTC which demands that affiliated un. ions should pull their representatives out of all official and semi-official (quangotype) government bodies" • The right wing stance in support of continued collaboration with NEDC is argued by ASTMS in an amendment to a SOGAT 82 motion. ASTMS claims that continued involvement is "of substantial value to working people in general".

Other issues which could provide a focus of interest in a week which will be largely filled by routine speeches by well-rehearsed General seeretaries, include the question of opposing Tebbits anti-union legislation. The Fire Brigades Union has tabled a resolution specifically demanding that the TUC should:

"respond to any trade unionists being jailed under the proposed Act by taking positive action and calling for an immediate withdrawal of labour"

And the print union NGA has a motion to prevent the use of the TUC s *fighting fund' to pay legal fees arising from Tebbit's and profit Marx defines these terms very simply and clearly. Act. This is likely to draw out the real meaning of the 8-point plan adopted in April.

On wages, the right wing appears to be mounting a determined thrust for adoption of a policy which would lay the basis for a new "social contract under a re-elected Labour government.

A resolution from the AUEW Construction Section rejecting talks on pay restraint "with this or any other government" faces an amendment from the ISTC affirming support for such talks with a Labour government as part of a 'national economic assessment' embracing "earnings and incomes.

In general however the motions on the week's agenda are sufficiently vague or innocuous to allow General Secretaries and lay delegates to cruise comfortably through a week of highliving on lavish expense allowances in Brighton, far removed from the mass unemployment and plunging living standards of the members they supposedly represent.

The main problem with 'wages, price and profit' is that the beginning chapters