The Great Camden Breakthrough

Scan page 4

dustmen with John Seymour (second from right)

Analysis of wage rates uplifted by means of à Camden supplement to £60 plus existing differentials Total 66.67 67.07 67.57 70.07 71.27 72.52 N.B. In addition to London Weighting the following allowances would also be added-where applicable:- shift allowance, un social hours, foul linen, dirty money, running repairs and tool allowance. On Friday you were one of the handful to oppose the Camden Council's offer. Why was this?

Yes, over 1200 council workers met in the town hall on Friday. I think about 20 people out of those present voted to reject the offer recommended by our branch secretary on behalf of the strike committee.

I was one of those 20. Let's get it straight. I recognise that for many of the lowest grades this offer by Camden is a fantastic breakthrough.

When two-thirds of the borough's workforce are getting a £17 rise ,and a 35 hour week its odds on that any mass meeting would vote for a return to work.

I fought against the deal on the strike committee and voted against because in no way did the offer give the £60 basic-35 hour week to the other third of the borough, who are on bonus.

For them the only pay rise above the national offer was the rise in the bonus due to the 35 hour week coming in. • A dustman's pay will go up from £70 to £81. Had it been an across the board settlement we would have got £104.

What they are doing for grades such as mine is making up earnings by increasing the bonus rather than the basic.

We cáme out for £60 basic not £44, and the bonus should have been left alone.

We only get that bonus for extra work, achieved by redundancy and "rationalisation" in the past.

This offer means that extra work. increasingly becomes "normal" work if we are to earn a decent living wage.

Why did the strike committee finally accept an offer that they rejected last week?

In Socialist Press last week I reported how the Labour Group had changed from originally offering "a guaranteed €60 weekly wage and a 35 hour week" to offering a "guaranteed £60 minimum earnings"

This was now interpreted as meaning that those who had a bonus that already took them over £60 would only get that bonus consolidated and not added on top of a £60 minimum.

On Friday, there was uproar in the strike committee when this was reported back from our negotiating team.

We felt that the Group had gone back on their word.

A joint meeting of public sector strike committees in the London area last week decided to step up the fight for all-out strike action in pursuit of the £60/35 hour week claim.

Called on the initiative of the Cressy Road dustmen's strike committee, the meeting was chaired by dustman John Seymour, and brought together delegations of refuse and sewage workers and home helps from Camden, Hackney, Southwark, Harrow, Tower Hamlets, Barnet and Greenwich.

The discussion showed how damaging is the policy of ""selective". action, which isolates and divides the public sector workforce.

The meeting decided that a priority was to establish 'and expand the work. of this new joint committee in the fight for all-out action.

It voted unanimously to: *Campaign for rejection 9% offer. Cressy Road They were now putting an offer which didn't concede anything like the full claim and which clearly tried to split the workers.

On Saturday there was a public meeting, at which our full time official Mike Taylor and Labour Councillors, answered questions from 200 strikers.

I think this hostility shifted the councillors a bit.

On 'Monday morning when we went into negotiations again, they indicated they would offer £60 basic plus bonuses-calculated on the national rise, not on Camden's. This was a big advance.

That evening the Labour group met again. About 50 strikers lobbied the meeting.

This time they wouldn't accept a delegation into their meeting so we knew something was up.

We learned at 11 p.m. that night that Bethell had put a nine point policy which really repeated the previous offer -and carried it 23 votes to 7.

Most of the strike committee were very bitter.

Next day the position began to change.

Arguments were now being put forward that the national offer was about to be settled at *Fight to extend all action in London.

*Demand this be made national policy until the £60/ 35 hour week claim is won in full.

The committee will meet again at Friends House, Euston Road, on Thursday March 1 at 7,30 p.m. award (78/79) Supplement So how come abe Those position quickly between grades A-G.

Basic pay (Nov 77-78)

Assume a 10% pay Camden supplement London Weighting a much lower level than Camden's..

Strike committee members began to argue that we had to get what we could before it was all over.

This was backed up with a moral argument that the higher paid-meaning dustmen and caretakers, etc., should be prepared to make sacrifices for the low paid meaning non-bonus earners.

Our secretary implicitly backed these arguments up by saying that Camden would withdraw their offer if we didn't accept by Friday.

How did you respond to these arguments?

They were all wrong. The national negotiations looked like offering 9%.

But I thought that the still escalating strikes in the public sector showed that Fisher and co. would find it really hard to sell the deal.

I didn't think the for the full claim was coming to an end.

Secondly it is wrong to say that dustmen, etc., should accept a lousy deal for the sake of others-we are all low paid in the public sector.

I argued that we all came out for the £60 with the dustmen leading the way and that we should all stay out until all workers got a good deal.

Thirdly, as far as 1 knew the Council had never stated that they would withdraw their offer..

So my position was that Camden was in the spotlight and we should provide a lead by rejecting the offer and press ahead on the full claim.

When an employer makes such a big concession it's time to press ahead and escalate the action.

did the rut? who suppor ted my found thi emselves outnumbered Grade Grade Grade Grade D 37.40 37.80 38.30 39.70 3.74 3.78 3.83 3.97 5.00 5.00 5.00 5.00 13.86 13.82 13.77 13.63 6.67 6.67 6.67 6.67 68.97 strike committee.

Once the secretary started to capitulate then acceptance spread like wildfire.

This was finally compounded by a member of the Socialist Workers Party putting forward the idea of holding a. mass meeting on Friday to "discuss the claim"

This was really stupid. It was a set up for a return to work. Anyone with an ounce of political sense could see that.

The secretary and chairman jumped on the idea, and the news spread round the borough that a mass meeting to go back was to be held on Friday.

Why did you object mass meeting?

We had called a mass meeting which would almost inevitably vote to return to work.

Everyone on the strike committee knew that. And we had called it before the council had ratified the Labour Group offer.

We had called it before all the loopholes had been ironed out.

This was a massive weapon in the hands of the councillors and they knew it. They were uncontactable all day Wednesday.

And when we finally met them on Thursday we were in a weak position to argue anything because they knew a mass meeting had been called.

How did your depot react?

At a mass meeting on Friday at 8 a.m. the general feeling was that they would have to grudgingly return to work, although they weren't very happy with the offer.

Most voted at the town hall return to work.

I will be holding a meeting of my men on Monday to discuss clear-up money [SP: the council have offered £180 over three weeks to clear up the backlog of rubbish] and the Grade Grade Grade 40.80 42.00 43.25 4.08 4.20 4.32 5.00 5.00 5.00 13.52 13.40 13.28 6.67 6.67 6.67 problem of not breaking the picket line at Brent Transfer Station where we tip our refuse.

How are you going to continue the struggle for £60 for a 35 hour week?

I still believe that workers in the public sector will reject the national agreement.

With ambulancemen on the brink of strike action and with many of the boroughs digging in that sell out can be smashed.

We should maintain our strike committee throughout the national struggle and use our victory-a victory for indefinite strike action-as the model for other workers.

It's more vital than ever that joint strike committees are built and pledged to a policy of extending indefinite strike action and demanding that these bureaucratic " traitors call national indefinite strike action for the full claim.

A mass meeting of Camden home helps voted early in the strike to seek complete exemption from the strike call.

Socialist Press 137 carried an interview with Camden home help shop steward Christine Creasley, who made the point that her section (Area 5) was the only section of home helps prepared for all out indefinite strike action with trade unioncontrolled emergency cover.

This aspect of her statement has been challenged by Shirley Kerslick, steward for Area 2, who tells Socialist Press how support for all-out action was wider than we had recognised.

What was your objection?

It was inaccurate. It states that Area 5 was the only area geared to all out strike. That's rubbish. Area 2 was geared to it long before the strike. They all agreed to do their own emergency cover.

The Thursday before the mass meeting, as my home helps turned up for pay, i stood at my pay desk and ticked each individual home-heip off, for or against, whether they would abide by.an all out strike decision on Tuesday. The majority were for.!

On Wednesday after the strike decision was taken i spent all day at the office-and like Christine got an emergency list and whittled it down. I also ensured that no referrals were being given to my members. It was left up to the home-helps to decide who the emergencies were, not the supervisor.

So we were geared to strike action and we had begun, to implement emergency cover. What do you think of the way the exemption was handled?

It was a mistake to call a mass meeting of the home helps because it was obvious what was going to happen, other areas were completely disorganised and still working.

They swamped the people who were organised, you couldn't get a word in-any fool could have seen what was going to happen.

Secondly, the women who were lobbying the strike committee meeting should never have been allowed into the strike committee meeting to sit-in on the discussion and shout at the people they didn't agree with. The vote was then taken to exempt home helps under a lot of pressure.

We accept Sister Kerslick's point that we underestimated the level of organisation amongst the home helps.

It is clear that more than one section was ready for strike action.

This of course still doesn't mean that numerically there was a majority of home helps in favour of staying out.

But it certainly indicts the opportunists of the International Marxist Group.

In Socialist Challenge of 15 February, NUPE Branch Secretary and IMG member John Suddaby said that the decision to exempt home helps from the strike amounted to shedding 'an albatross of social services and old people''.

He went on:

"We should have considered more carefully. about bringing them out-there. are so many complications"

This scandalous statement comes from a member of an organisation which distributes "Campaign for Action NUPE"' leaflets pledged to "the full development of women in the union' We'd like to know how the IMG plans to "develop" women workers by sending them back to work at the very point in struggle when women workers can be drawn into trade union and political activity! :17

Scan page 5

Workers at St. Bartholomew's F ospital voting for strike action on 15 February Kensington, Westminster and Chelsea AHA have announced their plans to close down St. Columba's Hospital on Hampstead Heath in four weeks time.

The hospital is a small terminal care unit which takes in cancer patients from several parts of London to give them the specialised treatment required..

It is ironic that this particular hospital is planned for the axe, in the midst of a huge PHOTO: Ian MacIntosh, IFL press campaign attacking hospital strikes which are claimed to endanger the lives of cancer patients.

So great is "the pressure on this district of the AHA to make cuts that they have attempted to force through the closure in a particularly bureaucratic and callous way.

Having been recently foiled in their attempt to close Hereford Lodge, another small hospital in the area because of PAI END ILOW PAY NUPE ambulancemen in AMBULANCE tt///praat te.mthlla NOPE saya:

€60 NOWIR

----- pull-quotes -----

NUPE OFFICIA PICKE

NUPE PICKET