NALGO token strike
Socialist Press1978 1978-08-16Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 10 →
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2,000 Hull dockers voted unanimously at a mass meeting last week to support a pay parity strike by maintenance engineers at the port.
The engineers are supported by NUR lockgate operators who are themselves also seeking pay parity with dockers.
The result of the combined action has been the breakdown of cranes and cargo-handling equipment and the trapping of five ships inside and four outside Hull docks.
NALGO members in day unofficial strike on August 2 in support of their demand for salaries and conditions to be brought up to Local Government standards.
The determination they showed then did more than just worry the management (who are now ready to make substantial concessions).
More significantly it presents. the NALGO bureaucracy with the prospect of having to fight a whole series of disputes for recognition and parity in literally hundreds of housing associations.
The housing associations are being used more and more by government as an alternative to local government in the provision of housing.
The benefits to government are substantial-higher rents, lower standards, no troublesome elected councillors involved in management, an extra layer of bureaucracy behind which to hide cuts.
For all these reasons the housing associations have mushroomed since the 1974 Housing Act (written by the Tories and taken over unchanged by Shore and Freeson).
As a result, a whole new area for unionisation has opened up, with NALGO, TGWU, ASTMS and others scrambling for th new •members, at least the early stages.
The bureaucracy however has not been blind to the lessons of the unionisation struggles in catering and at Grunwicks, Desoutters etc., and is increasingly reluctant to get involved with fighting a new wave of employers.
At this year's NALGO conference a resolution calling for more organisation in the housing associations was placed too far down the agenda for discussion.
However they will find it impossible to resist the demands of their members in the housing associations for long. Hard times lie ahead for the bureaucrats.
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SOCIALIT
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for Hull docks strike
the Notting Hill Hous- ing Trust called a one-