No daylight for civil service jobs
Socialist Press1980 1980-05-21Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 11 →
Read from the scan by machine and not corrected: expect misread words, and now and then a caption or a line from a neighbouring story. For anything you quote, read the scan.
Scan page 11
As the CPSA conference met last week: Thatcher announced a further 75,000 cut in civil service jobs making a total reduction of 102,000 jobs since the Tories came to power.
With the right wing 'Daylight' group led by Kate Losinska gaining control of the Presidency and the NEC it is clear that there will be no fight against these cuts and no implementation of the many militant motions passed at the conference:
The right wing will move rapidly to introduce postal balloting and referenda to sack left wing full time officers and drive the left out of the union.
For the first time in CPSA elections had been carried out by individual voting in branch meetings iesulting from a rule change put forward by the left wing at the 1979 conference.
The Militant tendency and Tribune supporters in CPSA blame the left wing Campaign for Union Democracy for. the electoral defeat and maintain that it was a mistake to ditch the block vote system.
Though the Tory press did influence the election the Broad Left were defeated because of their appalling record on the cuts and suspensions, their failure to campaign against the pay settlement and their inability to organise at grassroots level.
Though the right won the elections they were not so successful in the actual conference debate.
On pay a resolution was passed calling for a one day special pay conference to. consider alternatives to the Pay Research system: • Conference voted in favour of the election of full time officers despite the fact that there had been a concerted campaign against it by the right wing and the CPSA Ileadquarters APEX branch.
Industrial action
A motion was passed calling for industrial action in support of Phil Cordell, Branch Secretary of the Department of Employment Brixton branch and an SWP supporter, who had been sacked for taking a half-day off to attend the anti-Corrie demonstration in February.
It is clear however, that it will be difficult to get the new NEC to initiate action in his defence and SWP member Mike McGrath didn't help by proposing selective strike action, saying "Nobody's suggesting that everyone should go out on indefinite strike".
The Militant and the CP managed to put through a resolution endorsing the action of the Broad Left NEC over cuts, though resolutions which called for action' over closures were not heard.
The standing orders committee also ensured that there was no time to discuss opposition to Tory proposals to stop payment of Supplementary Benefits to strikers families.
Resolutions on the Social Security No. 2 Bill, abortion, immigration controls and the Prevention of Terorism Act were not heard.
A resolution on Ireland put forward by the Militant supporting the Better Life for All Campaign was passed in the face of witch-hunting hysteria against the Provisional IRA.
In the debate it was difficult to distinguish Militant speakers from the extreme right wing.
On race, an NEC resolution was passed supporting ethnic monitoring in the civil service.
Loskinska refused to eject a National Front member who was a conference delegate despite the protests of many delegates.
Conference did • succeed in ejecting Civil Service management who had been invited by the NEC as observers.
It is necessary to mount a campaign in CPSA to get rid of the right wing leadership. It is also essential to fight in the Broad Left against the Tribunites, Stalinists • and Militant who pose no threat to the right wing.