Bitter lessons of Low Pay betrayal

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As public sector workers receive the miserable £2-£3 extra in their pay packets over the next few weeks, they will realise more fully the extent to which they were sold out by their own leadership on their pay claim.

After two months of the most intensive industrial action ever seen in the public services, hospital staff, ambulance drivers, local authority, water, sewage, university. and school staff have ended up with a 9% increase which leaves them worse off against inflation.

The comparability study is unlikely to promise much more when it puts forward its findings on August 1, and what increase it does recommend will be tied to productivity deals and attacks on manning levels and working conditions.

Thatcher More significant than this, however, is the statement by Thatcher that she will only honour the comparability find ings "if the money is available":

The new Tory government will at this moment be planning the most vicious series of cuts in public spending which will include closure of public amenities, speed-up and redundancies on an unprecedented scale.

Whatever the Tories plan, there is no doubt that there will be major battles ahead for public sector workers over the defence of jobs and living standards.

It is important at this timewith approach of union annual conferences-that militants in the public services look closely at the record of their own leadership: and begin to build a principled opposition with concrete policies to fight future betrayals.

Failure

The most important lesson to be learnt from the pay strikes is that the failure to win the £60/35 hour week claim was in no way due to the weakness or inactivity of the membership.

Over 1 million workers took strike action on January 22 and 60,000 marched through London.

After the 22nd, hundreds of sections of workers showed time after time that they were prepared to face the most massive scabbing operation organised by the Labour government, involving the use of the troops, police and volunteers, and. backed up with a largescale Tory press witch-hunt.

They organised strike committees which virtually controlled the public services of whole cities, and formed links with trade unionists in the supply industries.

The strikes were defeated not by the membership and not even by the scabbing operation.

They were defeated above all by the treacherous policies and practices of the public sector union leadership.

The claim for a £60 minimum wage and 35 hour week was launched at the NUPE annual conference in 1978, and soon became a common claim in the other three unions with members in the public sectorCOHSE, GMWU and TGWU.

Despite frequent public appearances, where he preached and bellowed about the plight of the low paid worker, Alan Fisher soon showed that he was not prepared to lead a fight for the full claim if it meant the slightest confrontation with the Labour government.

Instead of calling for action from the earliest settlement date in November-when the Ford workers were already on strike against the 5%, and soon to be followed by the bakers, tanker and haulage drivers-Fisher kept delaying the start of the action, hoping that the militancy and anger of his members would die away as the successive pay strikes were defeated.

Determination

The strikes were not deteated, however, and the militancy of the members grew as each blow was dealt to the government pay policy.

The response to the call on 22 January was beyond all expectations, and at the rally in Westminster on the same day and in the weeks following the 22nd, thousands upon thousands of workers throughout the country showed that they were determined despite the waffling of their leaders. -to take action for the full claim.

The bureaucracy were forced to maintain the public appearance of fighting for the claimfor fear of losing complete control of the membership-but at the same time they did everything possible through their policies and practice to isolate and demoralise those sections who were taking action and prevent the strikes from spreading.

The leadership announced a strategy of 'selective action' to win the claim, and it was this disastrous policy-plus the almost complete lack of opposition to it throughout all the lay bodies of the union-which did most to weaken and divide action.

If there had been a call for all-out, indefinite strike action with no return until the full PHOTO: Laurence Sparham. IF claim was met, then the militant sections could have come out immediately and fought to bring out other sections, building the strike with the full backing of the leadership.

Instead, selective action presented enormous difficulties for militants at branch level.

There was quibbling between sections over who should come out; the partial action often meant that non-unionised or weaker sections would do extra work; the levy was organised nationally and meant no extra voted overwhelmingly for all-out action, they waited until conveniently late in the day, when the action was on the downturn and then sat back and hoped that the full-time officials would organise the strike!

The full time officials themselves, whilst agreeing that branches were "permitted" to take all-out action, did everything in their power to isolate and demoralise those sections who were on strike.

During the Westminster Hospital strike, WSL sympathisers were working all the time to turn the strike back onto the issue of pay, and actually played a crucial role in bringing out three other hospitals in the Westminster area.

The full timer in charge, Godfrey Eastwood, played no part in this and was constantly trying to contain the dispute as an isolated issue, arguing for the use of ACAS and arbitrationwhen to build and spread the hospital strikes at this time could have turned the whole campaign towards victory.

The other main plank used by the leadership in selling out the claim was their refusal to challenge management on the question control of emergency services and supplies.

Following on from the lorry drivers strike, where pickets continued to control the flow of supplies in the face of a huge press witch hunt, public sector strikers time and time again showed their willingness and ability to take over the running of hospitals and other public services.

In the London area alone, sections of home helps from the Camden NUPE branch drew up lists of patients whom they regarded as requiring essential treatment.

Agreements

"St. Mary's hospital strikes, And at the Westminster and pickets made agreements with stewards from the Esso tanker drivers' branch that delivered oil to the hospitals, maintaining a supply of oil only sufficient to keep essential parts of the hospital heated, to be cut off at any time at the discretion of the pickets.

Despite these, and many other examples of embryonic forms of workers control, the

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