Irish Socialist, No. 126

We wonder will the Labour Ministers in the new Government meet the Trade Unions and pledge their support for “free competi­tion,, on the wage front! : for “free competition” on the wage front would mean a return to free col­lective bargaining as opposed to National Wage Agreements. Free col­lective bargaining would mean that Trade Unions on a fac­tory or industrial level would nego­tiate with their respective em­ployers. The Irish Congress of Trade Unions, for its part, should pledge its support for a national minimum wage of £30,000 for a 40-hour week. Within this framework, lower paid workers would be brought up considerably and unions in a strong industrial bargaining posi­tion could also gain substantial increases, commensurate with the employers’ ability to pay.

The rest of the content is very varied. Betty Sinclair writes about the White Paper for the future of Northern Ireland then recently published by the Tory government in Westminster. There are pieces on South Africa and ‘Banks and Monopolies in Switzerland’. The editorial discusses the terms of the Vietnam peace agreement.

There is a book review of ‘The Socialist Register’ edited by Ralph Miliband and John Saville which suggests that one article therein ‘puts forward in all its naked ideological simplicity, the ‘Two Nations’ theory of the BICO’.

Notable is an article on the last page entitled ‘Trotskyism, Ultra-Leftism and the Working Class’. This argues that:

THE organ of the Trotskyist Fourth Internationals “Workers Republic” continues its vicious attack in their Janu­ary issue on the Communist Party of Ireland, Official and Provisional Sinn Fein, the Trade Union movement and the Labour Party. In the same voice they call on the very same organisations to form a united front with them against repres­sion…

Also of interest is a column entitled Prisoners which reprints the text of a letter ‘smuggled out of Portlaoise Prison to ‘Saoirse’ (the Committee for the release of Political Prisoners).

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