Only strike action will stop the cuts

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"In every hospital and every local council our members will fight every inch of the way to defend their jobs and pay packets and to stop the public services being cut to shreds by the political vandals in If left talk ever brought down governments then Thatcher and Joseph would be tearing up their plans for £4,000 million cuts in public spending to placate the 700,000 members of the National Union of Public Employees whose leadership issued this statement.

Left face

But of course the Tories know full well that Bernard Dix and Alan Fisher are merely the left face of the TUC and will in fact, like Len Murray, mount no determined fight against the attacks of the government.

Further reading of the four page leaflet sent by Bernard Dix, assistant general secretary of NUPE, reveals exactly what methods of diversion he has in mind to confuse and waste the energies of his membership.

Hospital workers are told to refuse to take on extra work or accept a change in working Fisher conditions. School dinner staff must carry on working at the usual pace in spite of the cuts"even if classes are held up".

All members are urged to hold meetings at 'awkward' times to 'hurt the employers' Town Hall staff are encouraged not to provide meals for County Councillors or clean the Council Chambers.

All this is supposed to 'force the employers to have second thoughts about making cuts."

But NUPE members know from last winter's Low Pay Campaign how determined the employers are to cut their living standards and working conditions.

They also know that the limited advice proposed by their union leaders is inadequate and designed to dissipate their energies.

This which issued left statements on the £60 minimum wage and then refused to fight for it.

It was only in the Camden NUPE branch, which took all out strike action, rather than allow sections to become isolated and demoralised in divided, limited strikes where the £60 minimum wage and 35 hour working week demands were all-but won.

Throughout the whole of the rest of the country NUPE members have been forced to accept the sell-out deal of 9% and the miserly awards of the Clegg Commission.

The statement follows weeks of intense pressure from rank and file workers in public sector unions who have been trying to fight the cuts on a daily basis without an ounce of support or guidance from the leadership.

Resolutions, have been passed by a number of branches throughout the London area calling for a delegate conference to organise a campaign of action against hospital closures.

These resolutions were met with stony silence from the London leadership.

All-out strike NUPE members must learn the lessons from the "winter of discontent' and pass resolutions calling for all-out strike against health authority and local council cuts.

They must calf also for NUPE to instigate trade union inquiries into the spending of these bodies, to reveal the profits made by private suppliers such as the drug companies and the money paid out in interest charges to the banks.

The NUPE statement will doubtless be followed by similar sector workers should not be should be linked to demands that the leadership build a national campaign of all out ININ AT XPELEM at jobs and forcing women workers back into the home.

An across-the-board cut of 2.7% in every department-to be implemented immediately -was agreed by this Labour dominated Council on July 27.

Labour's readiness to see the 'necessity' of cuts means the axing of teaching jobs, no new nursery places and the slashing of repairs and maintenance on council buildings.

In social services, the cuts nave hit three main areas, two of which aid the drive to force women back into the home.

Firstly the Council's three remaining playgroups are to be closed without notice, losing 60 places and facing ten workers with compulsory redeployment.

Secondiy the home • help service is to be massively slashed -€25,000 off this year's budget alone.

This means that there will be no recruitment whatsoever to a service already overstretched and no additional hours to be worked.

Old people are now being put on a waiting list before essential services are provided, waiting weeks to have their washing and cleaning done and receiving only occasional visits for shopping.

This cut has in the main to be implemented by the NALGO members who are home help organisers. NALGO branch policy is not to cover for vacant posts.

Leaving posts vacant is one of the major manifestations of the cuts. The Council is increasing the vacancy factor to 12%.

"No cover" is interpreted rigidly by the branch-any post vacant, even if advertised is declared unfilled and not to be covered.

Clients of any social worker who leaves a post are to be referred to the chairman of social services committee who mide the decision to cut.

Offices will shut on a rota basis when there are not the staff to keep them open, and clients will again be referred to the councillors who made the decision.

This policy is on the one hand weak and fragmenting and on the other difficult to police and maintain. There will be slippage and members-left without a strategy for fighting the cuts-will begin to cover for areas ot work.

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the answers in BLIC SER END LOW PAY Haringey Cuts in Haringey social services, education and housing, are hitting deeply