By NAT WEINSTEIN Two union actions

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aT PILOTS OM ON AIRLINE PILOTS LOTS UNITED ON ARUNI PROPS STRIK ON PILOTS : STRIKE ALOCATION STRIKE United pilots' strike in June 1985. Although the fightback was strong, the union had already given in to the company's the Industrial Union of Marine and Shipbuilding Workers of America voted 3500-24 on June 30 to go on strike against Bath Iron Works.

The shipyard bosses in Bath, Maine, following the current trend, are demanding major concessions from the workers that include a three-year freeze on wages and a two-tier wage structure. The latter, an entry wage $3 an hour lower for newly hired workers, is the issue most offensive to the shipyard workers.

Putting a finger on the heart of the matter, shop steward Milt Dudley told a New York Times reporter, "What they are basically asking us to do is to sell out our own sons and daughters."

This popularly-put expression of class loyalty and solidarity is understandably put in family terms in a region where many Iron Works employees are themselves the children and grandchildren of shipyard workers.

The strike in Maine stands in marked contrast to an action reported in Washington, D.C., a couple of days later by another union, the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA).

Raiders get union backing The pilots' union announced that it had allied itself with a group of capitalists headed by corporate raider Carl C. Icahn, which is carrying out its own little greedy war against the present clique of equally money-hungry capitalists in charge of Trans World Airlines.

ALPA's aim in supporting the corporate takeover is to stop a merger between TWA and Texas Air Corporation. The latter is under the control of Francisco Lorenzo, who busted the pilots' union at Continental Airlines after it was taken over by Lorenzo's Texas Air.

But the price ALPA paid to gain a "pro-union" commitment from Icahn was to give away pay and benefit cuts amounting to 20 percent. Icahn ON URUNE PLOTS AIROCIATOR two-tier demands.

promises to sweeten the deal with "profit sharing, in exchange for the pay cuts. Profit sharing for the pilots' union would be based on common stock amounting, they say, to 20 percent of the post-merger TWA value.

It is well known that "profit sharing" is merely a euphemism for the unequal exchange of hard cash for promises rarely, if ever, fulfilled. The corporate sharks have many a trick up their sleeves, including the capability of draining TWA of its capital, leaving the union holding an empty bag of worthless stocks.

UNITED UND PILOTS UNITED PILC ON OI E PLOTS The failure of the other airline unions to unambiguously repudiate the deal made between ALPA and Icahn will be interpreted as essential approval. And no matter who winds up in control of TWA, the airline workers will discover they have been virtually committed to major givebacks.

These events involving shipyard and airline workers are, in a sense, connected. They express opposing labor strategies, whether or not the participants are thinking in such terms.

The shipyard shop steward's expression of solidarity with Socialist Action/Joe Rvan Okay, but try not to upset the horse too much.

Reagan's OSHA for many workers.

Over the past few years the trend has been in the opposite direction. The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), for example, has become increasingly less effective in enforcing safety standards. A report issued recently by the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment criticized OSHA for conducting annual inspections of fewer than 4 percent of the nation's workplaces.

According to Margaret Seminario, the health and safety director of the workers yet to be hired is consistent with the great labor principle of working-class unity against the bosses.

In contrast, the Air Line Pilots Association's action is based on the principle of collaboration with the bosses (the "good" ones, of course) on the basis of reducing wages to maintain the profitability of the employer.

The most damaging consequence of official labor strategy based on the delusion of labor-capital partnership is that it always leads to the sacrifice of one or another section of the workers to the profit-hungry bosses.

It is no accident that just before the recently concluded pilots' strike, their union had already capitulated to United Airlines' two-tier demand. The two-tier trick is sucker bait for the unions. It plays up to the narrow-mindedness of the most backward layers of workers, who don't see the consequences of givebacks, not to mention selling out a more helpless section of their class.

The pilots' union shortsightedly sacrificed the wage levels of pilots who would be hired after the strike (their "own sons and daughters, as it were) in the vain hope of sating the insatiable appetites of the bosses. United Airlines responded by demanding more concessions, which led to the strike. This resulted, as we know, in the strike ending with further inroads into union positions made by the employer.

Shipyard workers fight back Shipyard workers are following a sounder policy. Whatever the outcome of their strike-which depends on factors beyond their direct control-they will come out of it better than if they had capitulated to the bosses' demands for frozen wages for the life of the contract and sacrificing $3 per hour of yet-to-be-hired workers' wages without a fight. First, even in the worst outcome, they will have made the bosses pay a heavy price for whatever takebacks are wrenched away due to a temporarily unfavorable relation of forces. History teaches that it's better to fight back and lose rather than lose without a fight.

Second, the shipyard workers will have shown the next wave of workers entering the shipyard that the union loyally fought for all workers-true to the principle of labor solidarity. And third, the refusal to give in without a fight is a statement by the marine union that pay cuts (equaling increased profits) are good for the bosses but bad for the workers. It is a statement, too, that there is no basis for partnership other than the kind between slaveowner and slave.

This more clear-eyed union position will morally prepare their members for the next round of struggle in the years to come, contributing to creating a relation of forces more favorable to the workers in the next battle.

Building mutual confidence Class solidarity is the cardinal principle of a successful labor strategy. It cannot be denied that when the day comes that all working people act as one, nothing will be beyond their grasp. A successful labor strategy is founded on building mutual confidence among workers along the road to a movement capable of united action to advance class interests.

This simple principle, key to a winning labor strategy, will not be put into effect by the current labor misleadership. As a group they are unreformable. A new leadership will emerge from the ranks in the course of the unrelenting assault on living standards.

A massive labor upsurge is certain. New fighting leaders will emerge. They will join with the best of the officials-those who are responsive to the needs of the labor rank and file-to build a class-struggle wing of the union movement.

JOB HAZARDS that [OSHA] has a small inspection staff-fewer than 1200 inspections nationwide-and they've never really focused in a manner that insures adequate coverage."

With the decline of OSHA, it would be illusory to hope that prosecutors will pick up the reins of the struggle for safe workplaces. Only pressure from workers organized around demands for better working conditions will succeed in pressuring profit-minded corporate executives to change their ways.

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Carolt AFL-CIO, "The fact of the matter is