40 YEARS AGO

Wilson: His Two Faces

HAVING secured a firmer foothold on levers of power, prime minister Harold Wilson has started acting like a true blue Tory. Soon after his installation in office, Wilson executed a volte face on Rhodesia. Ian Smith’s rebellion has been foregiven and London and Rhodesia are once again on talking terms. The African neighbours are justifiably suspicious of the UDI (Unilateral Declaration of Independence). But lest anyone thinks that the British prime minister lacks guts, Wilson has shown that he can be tough also.

In fact, in his handling of the seamen’s strike threat Wilson has been tougher than the bosses of the Shipping Federation. He has invoked emergency powers to deal with the seamen’s strike though the strike is an official one. The seamen went on strike (declared unofficial) in 1960. Their grievances were the same as now: they wanted a cut in their weekly working hours and abolition of the infamous Merchant Seamen’s Act of 1984, which empowers the government to jail seamen taking industrial action. The 1960 strike broke down after three months because some of the union top brass refused to recognise it as official. In Liverpool it is reported angry seamen chased out of the union office union officials who had opposed the strike.

The seamen, who number 65000, now demand a 40-hour week and a monthly increase of 12s. 6d. for all ratings. The seamen have to work 56 hours to earn 15s a week. They are demanding that the 16 extra hours be reckoned at overtime. The ship owners and NUS representatives met on March 9, but no settlement resulted. The ship owners’ offer was no reduction in working hours but only a 3 per cent cash increase. On April 6, however, when the parties met once again, the shipowners offered the give effect to a 40-hour week in three stages and included in the first stage a rise of 12s. 6d. a month for those with five years of service.

The government intervened at this and prevented a settlement to its incomes policy which is virtually a policy of freezing wages as check against inflation. Smiles for Ian Smith, the wayward foster child of reaction and scowls for workers who, like hungry Oliver Twist, ask for more. This in deed is social democracy at its glorious best.

            ---- People’s Democracy, June 5, 1966