Socust Camden: All-o Trike Win E60 for 5 Hours

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Barnet dustmen picketing Brent transfer station A section of the audience at last Saturday's highly successful Red Youth Rally in London which was attended by about 100 young workers, students and school students. The rally was followed by a film and a disco. A full report of the rally will appear next week. back to face further illtreatment.

LEAGUE

Low Pay Rally Saturday 3 March 2.30p.m.-5.00p.m.

Ambassadors Hotel Upper Woburn Place London WC1 Credentials 25p Two key events took place in the public sector pay struggle last week.

On the one hand the hundreds of thousands of workers involved in only "selective" actions were offered a miserable 9% plus £1-an offer endorsed by Alan Fisher of NUPE.

But on the other hand 2,000 workers in Camden who have been on all-out indefinite strike were offered almost the full £60/35 hour week claim.

The Camden settlement will go into pay packets straight away. It provides a £17.00, per week across the board increase for workers in grades A-G. This includes two-thirds of the Camden borough labour force in parks, roads, lighting, swimming pools, etc.

Dustmen, the highways and road sweepers, however, who comprise the other one-third of the labour force lose out on the settlement.

Supplement

For them the deal allows the Camden Supplement- the €13.10 which Camden Council have conceded in excess of the national offer -to be offset against their existing bonus.

This means that for example a refuse collector obtains a £12.00 increase from £78.63 to £90.64; a loader goes from £70.93 to £81.61.

Despite these bonuses being sold short-and the full claim could almost certainly have been won had the action continued, as the Workers Socialist League argued-the Camden settlement is a major victory within the low pay It is significant that this victory only came after public sector workers broke away from the divisive policy of selective action and embarked on an all-out indefinite strike.

The message is absolutely clear. The Camden settlement must be used as an example and built upon throughout the country.

35 hour week The weaknesses in the Camden settlement can • be guarded against and the full claim won nationally.

This means not only the cash increase but also the hour week.

The derisory national offer of 9% plus £1 must be rejected.

Yet Alan Fisher, who started the campaign with the militant statement that "50% of nothing is bugger all" now says that the unanimous decision of the NUPE Executive to recommend rejection of the offer is a "personal tragedy" to him!

Leaders of the TGWU and GWU are recommending their members to accept a national offer miles short of the initial joint claim - and COHSE leaders have failed to offer any lead on which way members should vote.

to be mobilised This retreat from the claim by union leaders takes place under conditions where the membership in many areas has yet to be mobilised in any serious sustained action to win their demands!

The offer must be rejected and the damand ricad fan all out strike action to win the full march.

our suike acuon to win ine tul claim.

The Workers Socialist League has pointed consistently to the weakness of the official We have stressed the need for a new leadership not tied to the coat tails of Callaghan and Healey, or dedicated to preserving in office the present wage-cutting Labour government.

Rights of A leadership is needed that will start from the right of workers to restore and improve their living standards, their conditions of work, their social services, health service and education.

It is because this is our start- I+ ic haranco thic ie nur etart. ing point that Workers Socialist League members and supporters have given clear and strong leadership wherever thev have been involved in this struggleparticularly in Camden and in the London hospitals.

The crucial question is to build this type of alternative leadership throughout the public sector unions and the labour movement as a whole.

For this reason the Workers Socialist League has called a special conference for public sector workers on Saturday 3 Mannh We want to bring together ment! are the