Nalgo Pay and Job Cuts

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The recent pay settlement between Local Government workers and the employers, giving a 25% increase (only 4.3% above the original offer), is tantamount to a pay cut when viewed against the erosion of wages by rampant inflation.

Inevitably the lower paid grades will be hardest hit. The leadership of NALGO succeeded in intimidating the Group meeting of June 27th into an acceptance of the pay offer with the threat of the coming pay freeze. This enabled them to avoid pushing ahead with the original pay claim of £10 plus 15%, which itself was only a limited attempt to protect wages.

NO POLICIES This same leadership refuses to put forward any policies to detend its members against the cuts in public expenditure which the Labour Government has been consistently directing Local Authorities to carry out for the past year.

According to Government policy (recently made public in a series of inint ritrulars to Inral Anthatinstead of the 3% originally planned Over the same period, capital expenditure will actually be reduced by 10%.

PROJECTS

SHELVED This means that all new projects other than "inescapable commitments' will be shelved, and worse could follow if the government Crosland: in charge of cuts further reduces Local Government finance in its 'fight against inflațion' The actual form the cuts take will accordino tn the circulare he such as environment, health, recreation and community facilities will be the first to go to the wall, along with many of the social service facilities..

The position of council tenants will suffer further by reduction of facilities för repair, maintenance and .. management of council dwellings. Local Authorities are advised to search for ways in which they can increase the degree of iesponsibility for repair and maintenance of rented accomodation on to-the tenants themselves.

VACANCIES

UNFILLED It is also made clear in the circular on manpower that it is the Government's intention to ensure that staff vacancies in Local Government remain unfilled. NALGO estimates that at present there are 40,000 such unfilled vacancies. This is surely the first major step towards the announcement of redundancies. In fact the Government has set up a joint watch committee with the local authorities aimed at reducing the rate of increase of manpower, by scrutinising staff numbers.

In contrast to these drastic measures the nolice force is to he to the TUC General Council have correctly voted to reject the Labour Government's proposal to hold wages down to a flat rate £6 increase, when it comes to mobilising the union in defence of wages and jobs the leadership have absolutely no proposals.

NALGO members can defend their living standards only by fighting for:

*A sliding scale of public expenditure in line with the level of inflation as decided by committees of trades unionists.

*The setting up of trade union committees to maintain staffing levels and to ensure that vacancies in local government are not allowed to remain unfilled.

*A sliding scale of wages to keep up with the rate of inflation as determined by committees: of trades unionists.

CAMPAIGN

At the same time all trades unionists must demand that those 'left' Labour MPs who have been criticising the Government's intended cuts in public spending translate their words into action and campaign for the removal of the right wing in the Cabinet led by Wilson and their renlacement ho that of defending the livelihood their members, in favour of a n one, that of assisting the compi as a whole to become more effici and more profitable."

RESTORE "VIABILITY' The employers know that assist in restoring "viability" bankrupt capitalism means speed and redundancies - and is the opp ite of trade unionism. Indeed unemployment tops the mili mark and goes on rising in 1 recession it threatens many unio Again the Financial Times has eyes wider open than the TUC:

"The most national trade unir ists can be expected to do ... is acquiesce to certain proposals cave in without a fight]. Some the unions, after all, face a dras decline in their own membersh How can the National Union Blastfurnacemen be expected 1 enthuse over a programme ti could have the effect of halving membership by the early 1980's!

So yet again "worker parti ation" is shown to be merely move to silence and comprom local and national union bureauc and prevent opposition to sav speed up.

It is no coincidence that t discussion here includes the st industry, where threats of 20,01 redundancies have been revived order to rairoad through toe s point speed-up charter which • aoTeal hi uninn lestore and

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Prime Minister Harold Wilson has added his voice to the witch-hunt of Labour Party members in Newham N.E.

Along with 14 Labour ministers, 160 Labour MPs, the whole of the capitalist press and the whole employing class, Wilson ants to prevent the constituency removing extreme right Wing cabinet Minister Reg Prentice from his position as A demonstration of teachers: part of the movement against Reg Prentice their candidate in the next election.

This is because all of these lances are aware of the political evelopment that would take lace in the workers movement fright wingers could be removed when they attack the working.

ass The Newham campaign, whether or not immediately acoessful, points the way forwar‹ for class conscious Labour Party members and trade unionists.

The moves against Prentice tegan within the trade unions, as ¡ response to his vicious anti-working class position - as expressed in his support for the aling of the Five Pentonville lockers by the Tory government + 1972, and the Shrewsbury Twe wilders pickets (kept in jail by c Wilson government).

But while reserving special denom for trade uniohists and Workers like the Clay Cross bouncillors who challenged the ight of the employers to cut -porkers living standards, Prenti filies with the Tories on almost *ery issue.

WAGECUTS

He has fought tooth and nail the wage cutting social contri d is now a pillar of Wilson's ght for state imposed wage cuts gally enforced.

He leads the call for cuts in ¡ducation spending and stands quarely by Chancellor Healey's casures which have already created 1 million unemployed.

Like most of the leading members of Wilson's cabinet, Prentice campaigned jointly with the Tory leadership in favour of the capitalist Common Market in the referen dum, and then called for that coalition of forces to continue.

To conceal how extreme are these positions and how savage Prentice's attacks on trade union rights have been, the Tory press has coined the term "moderate" branded position to him has bee sentative"

Denis Healey, for those who could stomach the sight at a Tolpuddle Martyrs rally on Sunday of a Labour minister, while legislating state pay laws, addressing a meeting commemorating those who fought against men like Healy to build the trade unions and de .... fend the working class, spoke strongly in defence of Prentice. The Daily Mirror gave up its front page to ram home his words. He said:

"It is important that a lifelong trade unionist [!] like Reg Prentice should be allowed to mak his contribution to our cause."

It is important to the employe and their servants in the cabinet that Prentice should not be displaced by the rank and file of the This is the reason for the hysterical and nauseating gutter witchhunt of those opposing Prentice in Newham. The Daily Mail, the paper that backed Mosely in the 1930s and which played a key role in the witch-hunt of Alan Thornett in the BLMC victimisation at Cowley last year, has lead the pack leaping in with whole page features making personal allegations against Tony Kelly, Assistant Secretary of the Newham N.E. CLP in an attempt to divert from the political issues. and suggesting some sinister or undercover 'plot' is involved. This is the line Wilson has taken up with his talk of 'unrepresentative minorities.

1964 This is the first time that Wilson has had to do battle to save a right winger. But Trotskyists will remember how in 1964 the whole right wing Labour Party leadership witch hunted and expelled the majority of the Young Social.... nO.. 70.. ists who had just adopted a programme of socialist policies. In 1964, there was no talk of the expelled being allowed to "make a contribution to our cause" -merely the bureaucracy baying for blood. Then, as now, the mobilisation of the right wing prepared the way for Wilson to introduce anti-working class policies - pay laws and unemployment.

The Tories, the press and the right wing unite:to defend their man from the workers movement, and attempt by any means to sway the vote. Their line is consistent: Reg Prentice is a "moderate with a right to attack the trade union movement, and Labour Party members have no right to mandate their MPs.

But possibly more significant for workers is the move inside the Parliamentary Labour Party itself. Not only the obvious right wing has mobilised in order to protect Prentice from the working class -over half the PLP has signed a letter attempting to sway the vote ST PRESS, Thursday July 24th in his favour, including some called 'left' wingers from the Tribune Group.

And why has no prominent "left' in the cabinet or in the PLP begun a mobilisation in favour of the anti-Prentice forces?

Every class conscious worker can see that Wilson's policies can only spell disaster for the Labour Party. An election fought on this platform would almost wipe out all but their safest possible seats in Parliament. Wilson does not act alone. He works with Prentici and with the 160 who back him.

To defend the Labour Party means there must be hundreds of Newhams - to clear out those 160 and any others who will not answer to the Labour movement, who carry out the employers' policies, who sponge off the strength of the unions and the party built to defend them, and who seek only a career of class-collaboration.