German unions win 13 months' pay
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• The German Transport and Public Service Workers' Union and the German Railwaymen's Union have both succeeded in negotiating payment of a full thirteenth month's wages on behalf of manual and clerical grades. A number of British trade unions are talking of claims for 13 or 14 months' pay in future agreements. If granted, such annual "bonuses" would be popular with the holiday trade. It is believed that the growing cost of holidays has prompted the German unions' claims.
The French Force Ouvriere — trade union federation with transport unions in membership — has declared in a recent resolution on international solidarity that "it intends now more than ever to continue to express its close solidarity with international free trade unionism, which should
have sufficient weight in the coming trade negotiations to safeguard the interests of workers throughout the world, with regard to ways and standards of life and conditions of work, full employment and personal and professional advancement.
"In this struggle, the trade unionists of the European Economic Community, now enlarged, have a decisive role to play. These policies will constitute a test of the Community's will to use expansion in the service of its peoples and to progress towards economic, social, monetary and political union."
The resolution goes on to call for vigour and tenacity to be exercised by the new European Trade Union Confederation, established in Brussels in February 1973, of which Mr Vic Feather is president.