Press Civil Service pa claim Down with P

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SCPS members lobbying left' Labour MP Joan Maynard on pay in 1977 Members of the Civil and and the Society of Civil and Public Servants last Friday staged a national one-day token strike in support of a pay increase.

The two unions are demanding that the government pay increases of between 25% and 30% in line with findings of supposedly independent body whose job it is to look at wages in the private sector and come up with a decent average for civil servants.

Negotiations over civil servants' pay have den governed by the vague idea of 'fair comparison' for twenty odd years, and at the last three CPSA conferences motions to get rid of the PRU and allow the membership to determine the claim have been put forward by the left in the union.

Each time, however, the motions have been defeated by a margin of arouno two to one.

It is not surprising that important sections of the membership are hostile to the PRU. It is a rather shadowy body whose activities are almost impossible tó monitor.

'Detective work'

It is made up of half union and half government sponsored nominees. On the union side the nine civil service unions which sit on the Whitley Council jointly put forward their nominees.

The union rank and file have no idea who these people are!

The government nominees are less shrouded in mystery only because of 'detective work' carried out by militants in the CPSA.

The November 1978 issue of the rank and file magazine 'Redder Tape' lists the government nominees as a director of Marks and Spencer, Lief Mills, the general secretary of the National Union of Bank Employees, Lady Pike, an exTory MP, Lord Shepherd, Deputy Director of the Sterling Group of companies and Professor Rodney Crosley, a professor of mathematics.

The PRU brief is to investigate comparable wages in the private sector; and civil servants pay is negotiated on the basis of their findings.

No rank and file union member has any idea which companies in the private sector are investigated. If the union leaders know this information they certainly don't let on about it.

Expose PRU Militant civil servants must continue the fight to expose the inner workings of the PRU.

Demands must be placed on NION union leaders to say clearly what they know of this mysterious body.

More importantly the fight must continue to turn the union away from such bodies and towards the principle of membership control over the drawing up of pay claims.

At the centre of any serious fight to defend living standards must be the independent mobil -isations of the membership.

The key focus for defence of living standards must be a measure of real incomes against inflation not some vague comparison with increases gained in the private sector.

• There must be a fight for the establishment of rank and file committees which would monitor inflation and shów to the membership the sort of information needed to frame wage claims which would regain and defend living standards.

Cost of living clause Any pay claim seeking to do this would need to include a cost of living clause which would guarantee wages against inflation as assessed by rank and file committees.

Moves towards such committeęs can take place at the same time as the struggle to break from the PRU continues.

For now, the fight is on for the current claim.

A leaflet given out by the two unions in Coventry, where a demonstration and rally of 100 CPSA members took place, reported that:

«Now Mr Callaghan is offering us a staged programme based on the PRU findings but not the full PRU recommendations. So far, he will not even tell us how many stages we are going to gat, or when we will get the full PRU recommendation implemented."

Fedall AT THE At rallies up and down the country CPSA leaders reflecting the members' anger attacked the government attitude.

In London CPSA President Len Lever said that the unions did not feel bound by the TUC/ government concordat until it had been discussed at their conferences.

At the Coventry rally National Officer Geoff Lewtas promised 'We will give leadership to this campaign . ...we will not settle without referring any offer to the membership". : From Monday the unions embarked on selective strike action at 20 key government computer centres but workers at the Department of Employment and the Department of Health and Social Security have not even been asked if they would like to be involved in strike action.

The CPSA NEC are using the argument that "we don't want to hit the public" to restrict the planned strikes.

The vote for the one-day strike (by a margin of 2-1) came when the NEC circulated branches with a motion which read "Are you in favour of a one-day strike? Will you give the NEC authority for a campaign of industrial action to achieve the full claim?"

Develop links

An accompanying leaflet specified a one day strike, action at 20 computer centres and a național overtime ban.

The overtime ban which has been applied, only seriously affects Department of Employment members when extra work comes in, for example, at the time of a major lay-off. Excent in such conditions it is generally ..SORRY, O'FISHALLS, ER..

NOT IN- I DON'T KNOW WHEN HELL BE BACK...

REALLY ?. ON GOSH!. A290 ?

AND THAT NICE DAVID OWEN EVEN SAID HE "TOOK PLEASURE" IN CROSSING...

THAT'S OUTRAGEOUS!!

CPSA OFFICIAL PICKET irrelevant.

There feeling in some is sections of the CPSA membership that the union leadership despite its strong words want to avoid action which could win the claim-particularly while the local authority workers are in dispute.

The civil servants' claim is based around April 1. A clausę in a standing agreement states that after six weeks any pay award would not be backdated. Clearly this will be. used by the right wing to present a sell-out CPSA/SCPS members must campaign for ail-out strike action to win the full claim.

They must develop links with other unions in struggle against wage control as for example was begun last Friday in Coventry when local NUPE members joined the demonstration and spoke on their own claim at the rally afterwards.

Statements by government ministers last Friday showed their determination to resist the CPSA/SCPS claim. David Owen, the Shah of Iran's friend, responded to the strike by saying I have great pleasure in crossing this picket line" as he went into the Foreign Office.

DEFEND SACKED

NOTTS JOURNALISTS NUJ Mass Picket Nottingham Evening Post CPSA members 'Steven Green and Tim Dennis speak to Socialist Pross about their pay Tim: Callaghan's speech in Parliament on Thursday put the nail in the coffin for the union members and finally disposes of the myth of the goyernment being the ideal employer.

It also shows that this government's attitude is no different to the Tories' who on the eve of the national strike in 1973 sent out a letter from Lord Armstrong; Head of the Civil Service, threatening loss of pènsion rights, flexi-time, etc. This Thursday we got an almost identical letter with the same threats and a last minute plea. The only effect it had was to increase the militancy.

Steven: At the rally in the afternoon we were welcomed by Terry Lightfoot and his Jazz Band! The president of the CPSA, Len Lever, chaired the meeting and made it clear that this was not a debating sogiety but he would consider speeches from the floor.

That said, we were treated to four self-congratulatory speeches devoid of any policies on how to win the strike.

Tim: Heckling mounted when £12,500 per year Ken Thomas, General Secretary of the CPSA land co-signatory of the 'Concordat') waffled on. He said "We can't accept staging (of the wage rise) unless we know the nature of the staging."- He quickly wound up and sat down.

Garners nickets: help always needed : OF OUR PICKETS-THEYRE COMPLAININA ABOUT LABOUR MINISTERS CROSSING PICKET LINES...

GOOD GRIEF! ... APPARENTAY EVEN MICHAEL FOOTYOU KNOW, THE LEFT WINGER - GAVE THEM ARUSE AS HE WENT THROUGH!

HOW UNSPEAKABLE!!!

As we go to press the TGWU leaders are about to declare their position on a Day of Action for March 24 in support of the 13-month old Garners strike.

The preservation of TGWU Regional officials agreements with the police on restricting picketing and their desire to see this strike ended as soon as possible, points strongly to the prospect of open sabotage, with a refusal to give official backing. The Strike Committee has correctly declared its intention to go ahead with the action, without this backing if necessary. Such a focus is vital at this stage to maintain and develop support for the strike.

It is likely that the Strike Committee may come under heavy pressure, yet it must stick to its guns.

If the TGWU Region 1 leaders' refuse to lift a finger in support then this must be faced and drawn to the attention of the entire labour movement.

Strikers are now denied access to telephone facilities in the union offices at Henrietta Street, and have actually been, on two days, locked out of the premises originally made available as strike committee rooms. An open conflict with the bureaucracy is clearly coming to a head. ...THEY SAY MR CALLAGHAN SIMPLY DROVE THROUGH. WHAT ARROGANCE!!

ON THE IDIOTS! — HOW THE HELL DO THEY EXPECT ME TO STOP REAL STRIKE ACTION WHEN THEY ¡BEHAVE LIKE THIS?

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SOCIALIST • PESS HE CHALLENGE TO KHOMEINI GROWS As the new government, under Medhi Bazargan puts on a brave face and attempts to restart oil exports, to the imperialist countries, there are "vivid signs that the working masses will reject any attempt to stabilise Iranian capitalism.

The crucial demands for the disbanding of the standing army and for a government of workers' councils are spreading to been regarded by the press as entirely governed by Khomeini-but this latest development indicates the tensions that must be growing among his followers.

Thousands of them clearly took up arms against the Shah in the expectation that his downfall would herald the end of exploitation and oppressiononly to find the Bazargan/ Khomeini regime seeking to reconstruct the armed fotces, restart oil production. and exclude the masses from any other ideas. They see in the crisis of the Iranian capitalist state their historic opportunity to press forward to socialist The confusion of the politics of the Fedayeen, and even greater confusion of the Mujaheddin mean that these groupings cannot offer a consistent lead to this revolutionary movement.

But clearly in and around these groups are forces which must be won to the Trotskyist programme in the fight for a conscious revolutionary leadership:

The central demands in such a programme must be:

*Down with the dictatorship of Bazargan! For immediate elections to constituent assembly.

*Build workers' militias! Disband the standing army!

*Build workers' councils in every area, drawing delegates from every working class organisation. and rank and file soldiers.

*Occupy and expropriate the banks and capitalist monopolies!

*Land and cheap credit to the tillers!

*Equal rights to women and ninorities: self determination for the Kurds and Azerbaijanis!

*For a workers' and peasants' government! New dictator Bazargan

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the Pay Research Unit, a IOTO: John Sturrock, Report

All day on March 3 the Tories!

TGWU OFFICIAL STRIKE TRADE UNION RECOGNITION

strike nears

Victor the earners strikel