Industrial vendetta
Sir: Trade union leaders have now made it clear that their policy of demanding instant pay increases is to be enforced by duress — and regardless of economic circumstance.
Yet those who must suffer most from this form of economic sabotage are trade unionists themselves, lot it will cost them jobs. It is surely time therefore that employees throughout industry should realise that rising pay and Improved working conditions both depend totally on the profitability of industry and commerce; and that pay increases simply cannot be provided merely on demand — except by reducing employment. It should be more widely appreciated that, in commerce, a fair deal is a contract that satisfies not only one but all parties to it; because a commercial contract depends on the priceless factor of goodwill.
It is, no doubt, evident by now to those trade unionists not affiliated to the Socialist Party, that both collaboration and cooperation must be established
between capital and labour and between labour and capital, because industry is inevitably a combined operation. In fact, this is the only sure way of achieving a mutual, and increasing, economic advantage. Certainly for the TUC to mount a vendetta against capitalism and a Conservative government, as such, can only result in a disservice to the public, and to a general decline in the nation's economy. After all, the main reason for the pre-eminent prosperity of the United States is that trade unions there are not saddled with the obsolete economic notions of Marxism; for their leaders have rzalised that to introduce socialism into industry is to pour sand into its works.
No doubt, however, nowadays employees in the capitalist system here are beginning to notice, on their holidays abroad, that they never meet any of their counterparts from the Soviet Union of Socialist Republics because they cannot afford such holidays — even if they were permitted. to travel.
F. E. Isaac 124 Lexham Gardens, London W8.
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