Social contract
Sir: Your main leading article of March 15 contains some damaging statements about the TUC which are quite untrue, as could readily have been checked by a telephone call to Congress House.
You state that: "It is said that the TUC actually possesses a document which is itself the social contract, and on which the terms of the agreement made between the trade union chieftains and various Labour politicians are written down — but the public have never seen this text. And they are never likely to."
The facts are that the statement 'Collective Bargaining and the Social Contract' after being approved by the TUC General Council in June 1974 was published in the press at that time, and also printed for a wide circulation. Over 50,000 copies were circulated in the subsequent months. It was publicly debated at Congress in September and overwhelmingly endorsed.
Your journal receives all TUC statements to the press, and our Industrial News dated July 3 1974 contained a full account of the 'eight social contract points for negotiators.'
I trust that you will arrange for this letter to receive equal prominence to your leading article. I am enclosing with it a copy of the statement 'Collective Bargaining and the Social Contract,' and in view of your apparent anxiety that your readers should know its full terms, I trust you will arrange to print this in your journal.
Lionel Murray general Secretary, Trades Union Congress, Congress House, Great Russell Street, London WC1 The statement to which Mr Murray refers is presumably available from the TUC. Its cover price is lOp
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