From Our Labour Correspondent
On Monday next the annual Trades
Union Congress opens at Southport. During last year the Union membership affiliated to the Congress increased by 200,000.
The Congress will therefore represent nearly 5,000.000 organised British workers. The agenda of the Congress published this week lists forty-four resolutions to be put to the Congress. Six of these call in effect for the repeal of the Trades Disputes and Trade Unions Act of 1927 (the Act that followed the General Strike of 1926), and two of them call for the removal of the " men of Munich."
One resolution calls for an immediate Armistice and a Socialist Peace.
But In all the forty-four resolutions there 17S not one calling either for a marriage allowance or loan, a family wage. or family allowances, and over twenty are concerned with the amending or the application of existing Acts concerning labour, wages, insurance.
CLERKS CALL FOR ARMISTICE
The National Union of Clerks and Administrative Workers sponsors the resolution calling for an immediate armistice. It reads:
This Congress recognises that the continuation of the was can only bring increased hardship and misery to the workMg peoples of all lands: accordingly, it instructs the General Council. and urges all affiliated unions, to take the initiative in conducting an immediate campaign based on the following objectives: — An immediate armistice; a Socialist Peace, and an International Conference of working-class organisations, Peace Societies, and anti-Imperialist Groups.
In a movement which boasts of being in the " forefront of the battle," this should provoke some discussion.
The Amalgamated Engineering Union puts forward this resolution: That this Congress considers that wages were far too low prior to the outbreak of war. The research of Sir John Orr and other medical authorities substantiates this standpoint. Now, due to the increased cost of living, real wages have been reduced.
SHIFT THE COST OF WAR Congress, therefore, declares its determined opposition to the policy of the