Dustmen fight scabbing

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The Tories on the Brighton Council are spearheading an attack on all public sector workers by victimising local dustmen.

By mobilising the police from as far afield as Hastings and making 43 arrests, they hope not only to defeat the low pay' campaign but break the back of the Brighton local authority unions.

The dispute arose when four East Sussex dustmen came out on strike over a wage claim.

Fellow Brighton dustmen showed their support by refusing to cross the picket line at Sheepcote Tip.

However, they reported for work every day and dealt with emergency services.

Due to this action, the dustmen have been deemed by the local authority to be on strike. As a result, the Brighton council refused to pay the men their wages.

This heated situation exploded further when Tory councillor Dudley Baker brought in private contracters to clear the rubbish without any real negotiations with the GMWU.

In response to this attack, sections within the GMWU such UNION as park and toilet attendants and sewer workers joined the dustmen in their fight.

It is quite clear that the present struggle concerns more than a strike over back pay.

Union rights

At stake are fundamental democratic rights over the maintenance and the extension of union rights.

Although the dustmen were willing to work, scab contractors were hired at the phenomenal cost of £50 per lorry per day, which amounts to more than one dustman's weekly wage!

The failure of the leadership in the GMWU to consolidate the strike by linking up with the other public sector wage struggles in Brighton has led the dustmen's action to be regarded as an isolated dispute.

The leadership further weakened the already tenuous strike when they directed some of their own sections to resume work, leaving the dustmen in an extremely vulnerable position.

The dispute now needs to be urgently strengthened by developing it into one around the issue of low pay which would effectively puil in different sections of the GMWU and other public sector workers in the East Sussex County area and Brighton Corporation.

A very successful meeting was held in Brighton by the WSL on the 8th March addressed (in a personal capacity) by dustmen's steward Peter Large at which student WSL members were thanked for organising support for the picketing.

Lessons were drawn out from the experiences in the Camden struggle on pay, and a full discussion followed as to the policies necessary to regain wider support to win the Due to the extreme demoralisation which set in after the arrests, the suggestion by a WSL member for an area demonstration was welcomed.

Efforts are being made at present to organise this event, in conjunction with the students at the University of Sussex who are presently in occupation over the issue of overseas students quotas.

At the same time, the GMWU leadership must ensure the inclusion of the hospital workers and ambulancemen in this activity through the Trades Council in order to guarantee the winning of the dustmen's dispute as well as other local authority union wage claims.

BLOODY STUDENTS MARCHING AGAIN -I DON'T KNOW WHAT THESE NUS. LEADERS ARE UP TO!!!

NO WHEN THE TORIES PR GIVING FUNDS TO Ai MOVEMENT— I WAS THE FIRST TO AGREE POSED TO STOP US SIST THE LABOUR

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SOCIALIST PRESS franch stri Torce concessions HIICUNPLCENCEMENTDOE "The truth is, there is no violence which is worse than the violence of breaking up factories, of throwing workers out into the street, of blighting the youth, of condemning towns and whole regions to death in order to satisfy interests which are foreign to those of the nation."

That was how Georges Seguy Only a few days later, the action of steelworkers reached a new peak in the town of Denain, north of Paris, near the Belgian border.

Throughout the steel -producing areas, groups of workers continued to stage occupations of employers' organisation offices, and block railways by emptying loads of iron ore onto the tracks.

Resistance

steel workers on the march workers from the morning shift at Usinor lone of the major steel firms) gathered in the factory yard to decide on their reply.

Union leaders tried to divert this anger into the futile protest gestures of blocking the ParisBrussels motorway. But when the workers moved off, to be joined by many others in a demonstration of several thousands, their immediate objective was the local police station-heavity guarded by the struction of barricades against the repeated police charges.

Although older steel-workers were always in the forefront of the fighting, youth played a major part in the day's events.

Completely beyond the influence of the union bureaucracy, well organised and disciplined, it was the youth who provided the workers with supplies of improvised Molotov cocktails.

In the evening, the union bureaucrats made their major attempt to end the battle by calling for an immediate protest occupation of the factory and the defusing of all demonstrations until Sunday.

This diversionary tactic was rejected with contempt by the demonstrators.

The battle of Denain revealed more sharply than any events of recent weeks the problems facing the bureaucracy.

The strength and militancy of workers has left them with little room to manoeuvre.

Their thoroughly reactionary policies have proved useless to deflect the violent anger of steelworkers into respectable channels of negotiation.

Usinor has now temporarily withdrawn its redundancy. notices and a series of talks has been planned between government, management and bureaucracy-talks centring . on improved conditions of redundancy.

But for all their militancy, French steelworkers will not be able to defeat completely these moves of their leaders towards betrayal without taking up a fight for an independent socialist alternative.

COHSE leader Spanswick: done nothing After spending every day since January 22nd trying to get their members back to work, the leadership of TGWU, COHSE and GMWU have crowned their glorious contribution to the low pay campaign by recommending acceptance of the 9% offer which actually makes their members worse off against inflațion.

The bureaucrats in these unions have clearly shown that they have no intention whatsoever of fighting to improve the pay and conditions of their public sector members if it means the slightest confrontation with Callaghan's pay policy.

After contributing nothing at all to the fight for a £60 minimum wage and 35 hour week they have now recommended acceptance of the offer by means of mysterious "delegate conferences" and A Livin says: 2196/3 for low nain open ballots to give the impression that their membership have actually given up the fight.

it is also obvious that the leadership of NUPE, despite their promises to escalate the action , amongst their health members, are waiting for the earliest opportunity to call off the whole campaign.

At a meeting of the NUPE NEC in London last Wednesday-which was lobbied by workers from Westminster hospital and ambulance driversfull-time officers on the EC strike action for the full claim.

Full-time officer . Ron Keating, in a typical display of arrogant hatred for his own members, could only talk of "intensifying the selective action"

When asked at jut further action amongst anbulance drivers, he stated that there was "'no, way" he would support another ambulance strike.

Although some EC members did say that they would support-rather than lead-allout strikes, it is unlikely that they will put up a fight against the blusterings of Keating, who is quite open about his intention to sell out the pay fight.

Alan Fisher, the man who actually launched the low pay campaign last year, was nowhere to be seen at the lobby.

The task ahead for militant workers in the public sector is to expose the hypocrisy and betrayals of their own leadership and to fight against' the

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PHOTO: Laurence Sparham, IFL ' PHOTO: Laurence Sparham, IFL dUPE

made it clear that they have no intention of working for all out