Badges no answer!

Scan page 10

: York and District Trade Union Council held a public meeting on cuts in public expenditure last week as part of their campaign aimed at combatting the draconian cuts proposed by North Yorkshire County Trades Council Secretary Joanna de Grook announced that the cuts in the 1979-80 budget "saved" £1.7 million and this would be increased to a staggering total of £4.6 million in 1980-81!

Local speakers from Child Poverty Action Group, Shelter and a local head teacher outlined the kind of effects these cuts were already having-the rise in the cost of school meals and the projected costs for school transport would mean that an agricultural worker with three children would spend one third of his weekly income on sending his children to school and paying for their school It has been proposed that school meals should no longer be subject … to nutritional controls, and in York swimming lessons for school children have already been axed as a 'saving'although of course nothing is saved as the baths stand empty for large parts of the day and still have to be heated and maintained.

Latin

In general education, a horrifying list of the present listed. One teacher said that it shortages of resources looked as though science and technology teaching would be replaced by Latin as the money ran out for science equipment and materials!

The real tragedy, however, was the total lack of any strategy for fighting these measures from Alan Fisher and Alex Lyon MP.

Between them, these two made it crystal clear that there THE is no way that social democracy will halt the tide of the crisis of capitalism of which the cuts are the effect, not the cause.

Lyon seemed to believe that if enough people wrote to their MPs, schools would not be closed -and that if we were all prepared to pay higher taxes, the government could invest more in industry, well have economic growth and Bingo! no more cuts!

He fell into the trap of talking about the Tory cuts of the last half of last year-these cuts of course were all planned by the Labour government-a fact which seemed to have slipped Mr Lyon's mind.

Alan Fisher's lengthy contribution was notable. for its omissions-any mention of the words 'strike' and 'occupation' in challenging the Tory government.

He too seemed to think that if we hand out enough leaflets, go on enough marches, wear enough badges, sign enough petitions and write enough letters the government will see the error of its ways and restore all the public services it is in the process of cutting in pursuit of its monetarist policies!

Not even the current occupation of St Georges Hospital in London, threatened with closure and in which Fisher's own NUPE members are taking a leading part got a mention.

Fisher obviously fears that such policies might catch on and then he'd have to do a bit more than utter platitudes about the need for socialism, laced with crude sexist jokes about NUPE's large women membership'.

of the colletion ford the size, campaign at the meeting showed that there is a real willingness from people to take action in defence of their standard of living-if the only lead they have is the kind offered by Messrs. Lyon and Fisher they may as well spend the money down at the pub.

PHOTO: Laurie Sparham, IFL Fisher SUBSCRIPTION RATES