The Unions Response

Although it was quite clearly a sham, the return to "free bargaining" was hailed as "free bargaining with no tags" by Sir Tom Skinner.

This deceit is an integral part of the social contract. The pretence of "free bargaining" is maintained while bureaucratic union officials sell out their members privately during award negotiations.

Jim Knox spelt this out on a recent Dateline Programme. He said the FoL would tolerate no "wildcat" strikes if "excessive" wage claims were opposed by employers. Also, he charitably noted that "some employers haven't got the ability to pay"—ignoring the large number of workers who currently haven't "the ability to pay" their basic bills. Knox was congratulated by Gordon, for his interpretation of what the return to "free bargaining" meant with these words: "Mr Knox has put it as graphically as I could have—'social responsibility'" ('social responsibility' is Gordon's euphemism for 'social contract' ).

But the top leadership have not had it all their own way and an increasing number of unions have come out against any notion of a "social contract" including moderate unions such as the Clerical Workers.

The sabotage of the silent Knight and his cohorts does not look like lasting long unchallenged.

The social contract is part of the Government's policy of making workers bear the brunt of the current economic crisis.

Despite the fact it is the system created by big business and the monopolies that is in crisis the Government's policies are to direct more money to the monopolies and less to workers. More unionists now oppose this policy and the all new social contract with the policy that the bosses should pay for their own crisis and that workers need higher pay to maintain basic living standards.