Officials fight without enthusiasm: ALL OUT FOR £60!

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Public sector leaders ATOCZ misults # proved to have detonated an NUPE incendiary bomb with their official Day of Action on 22 the Lowi January.

As district officials of NUPE, PHOTO: Ian Mackintosh, IFL COHSE, GWU and the TGWU toured their areas trying to damp down the flames, rank and file workers were implementing action.

Lightning strikes have taken place in many hospitals; several London boroughs' dustmen have launched all-out strikes;

and in the North-east waste incinerators have been closed indefinitely.

Throughout the country members meeting to decide on action are being advised by their leaders to calm things down, hold back and institute virtually meaningless work to rules:

Working without enthusiasm' is no way to win a serious battle for a £60 minimum wage -although it does accurately reflect the wishes and practice of the union leaders.

The most serious blow to the strategy of the compromisers has come from water workers who rejected a 14% offer (which was backed by the GMWU) and pledged all out strike action.

NUPE members, voting as we went to press, were also expected to reject.

Behind the scenes talks between the public sector bureaucracy and the government are concentrating on increasing the public sector offer fractionally (probably to 8%) coupled with extra work and job loss through productivity deals and pushed through under cover of one or several 'inquiries' and comparability studies.

Such a deal would be backed up with threats of further cuts if the pay policy is broken.

All public sector workers must understand that their leadership has already abandoned the £60/35 hour week claim and that the very limits of its ambition is what Fisher called the "going rate" 14-15%.

Water workers have correctly rejected any such conception, and the mass of public sector workers recognise that £60 is itself a modest enough demand and a minimum target.

There is no secret to winning the full claim. All out strike action throughout the public sector-in opposition to union officials, the press, and the government is the only way it can be done All other tactics" and policies are inadequate.

To hold such action, public sector workers-particularly in the health service-must take responsibility for and control of any emergency cover to be provided.

Strike committees elected by the membership and responsible to them must form the backbone of the strike and can counter the massive propaganda campaign run against them by the press.

Such strike committees will also form the nucleus of a future fight against the next round of cuts which are already Strike committees must link with each other and with other striking workers and delegates from the local labour movement to form councils of action -drawing in organised workers and unorganised sections of the working class.

Councils of action form a body which can better confront the political questions raised by the strike and challenge the forces of the state which will be used against it.

We stand for wage rises and public sector spending to be fully protected against inflation.

The working class must not take responsibility for or carry the cost of the crisis.

We fight for policies leading to the overthrow of capitalism and the removal of those union leaders who sabotage workers' struggles in order to uphold it.

Interviews pp.4-5