GMWU implements ull sackings Officials hand out redundancy forms

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WHEN ITLOOKS-LIKE SUBSCRIBE THERE'S TO WAN OU to Socialist Press policies to defend jobs, wages and social services Send to: WSL, BM As unemployment shoots upwards towards the two million mark the Labour gestures and protests.

The unemployment and wage cutting policies of the Tories go hand in hand.

Joe Dean, the AUEW sponspored MP for West Leeds has clashed with Keith Joseph over the way the crisis is now biting in Leeds.

Dean said in the House of Commons that Tory policies were now destroying the basic engineering industries of Leeds and had. already almost destroyed the clothing trade.

He pointed out to Sir Keith that Leeds North East had actually cut his majority at the last General Election.

But Dean's proposed solution to the problem was import controls to protect British textile firms. Nor did he even call for Sir Keith's removal let alone for action to bring down the Tory government:

He has now contacted the Leeds Trades Council and other MPs to sound out the possibility of campaign against SER NEMAS unemployment in Leeds.

Leeds has over 21,000 unemployed -5.8% of the working populațion. This compares with 9% in Hull, 7.2% in Doncaster and a national average of 7.8%.

In other words unemployment in Leeds is less than the national average. Under those conditions, waging purely local campaigns on unemployment while not questioning the continuing existence and overall strategy of the Tory government is a dangerous farce.

The crude figures distort the actual distribution of the unemployed.

So, for instance, in Leeds a survey conducted 12 months ago revealed a 15% unemployment rate in the inner city areas.

From these figures it can be worked out that in Chapeltown, Leeds, an area with a large West Indian, Asian and East European community, the unemployment level is around 30%.

For black youth estimates vary between 55-80%.

Last week in Leeds there were only fifteen vacancies for 5,000 school leavers. One shop advertised four vacancies and was confronted with a queue of over 300 for the jobs!

How do we tackle this enormous problem? The Leeds Council's direct works department has trebled the number of apprentices it is taking-but that is only another 50 jobs for youth.

Geroge Mudie, the leader of the Labour Group admitted this was only a gesture to show the way, but the Council was already millions in debt.

He is writing to the government asking for more money to tackle unemployment.

He also said he was in contact with the Common Market.

There is no chance that either body will be bothered about the fate of youth in Leeds.

Chapeltown Ward Labou Party (the Leeds ward tha covers Chapeltown and is par of Sir Keith Joseph's constitu ency) has tabled a resolutior which calls for a campaign t bring down the Tory govern ment and for socialist policies This must be acted upor locally. The Leeds North Eas Constituency Labour Party passed the resolution but didn' send it to the party conference mainly because the Militani Group argued that the Labou leadership was in favour of Department in Hull called by the GMWU.

The meeting, held last Wednesday, was called to discuss the redundancy situation. The trend of the meeting had been set a week before it actually took place, in the form of a scandalous leaflet drawn up • by the GMWU and circulated to the membership, which declared that:

"It is expected' that volunteers for redundancy will be called for-this will apply to people under 59 years of age. If this should happen forms will be issued at the meeting.

The meeting opened with over 550 kitchen staff present and the role of the local leadership was made clear when the Area: Organiser Bill Allan addressed the meeting giving details of when the redundancies would take place and how many jobs were to go.

Giving no Icad whatsoever on how to fight the planned redundancies, Allan went on to tell his members that the union was initially calling for voluntary redundancies and that if this failed then the union would proceed on a "last in, first out" basis.

When the meeting was thrown open a local Labour Councillor asked Allan why he was not calling for opposition GMWU leader Basnett 3ot!

to the redurdancies and giving a lead to the members present on how to fight these attacks.

She also. reminded him that at a public meeting on the cuts in the public sector held in Hull in October of last year he had stated that he was prepared to fight the cuts in every way possible.

Personal attack This contribution was warmly received by the members present, but was answered by a personal attack on the Labour councillor by Bill Allan saying that as she was not a kitchen staff worker, she had no right to question the platform.

The Councillor pointed out that she had been an active member of the union and also a member of the Education Branch 5 for longer than he had.

The platform had no answer to this. Then a member of the kitchen staff raised the point that at a previous meeting held in April over redeployment the same leadership had instructed the kitchen staff to refuse to take any cuts in hours.

Yet now they were asking workers to take a cut in jobs! The platform got round this by referring to the drop in demand for school meals since the increase in charge to 50p.

Socialist Press supporter Margaret Nix (who is the only woman shop steward in the Hull division) then attacked the platform, pointing out that the union leadership was doing the Tory County Council's work for them and were therefore carrying out Tory policies.

Indiscriminate This was answered sharply by the Convenor of the school meal services members who asked "what do you want us to do? Do you want us to let the county Councillors to go to the schools and make redundancies indiscriminately?"

This was "not a political issue" he claimed.

Margaret Nix drew warm RATES:

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applause when she replied:

"What kind of a union is it that does the Tories work for them? What we should be doing is fighting these redundancies and you should be leading that fight!"

When the leadership was questioned as to their reference to redundancy forms, the convenor picked up a bundle of slips and held them up shouting that they were available.

At this, chaos broke out, with many of the women present asking for redundancy forms.

When order was restored the chairman made the ludicrous statement that the leadership were "only looking after the interests of the members"

When the question of opposition to the redundancies was again raised, the chairman played the oldest and most despicable trick in the bookimmediately putting to a vote the proposal for all out strike action the following day.

With no preparation for such a policy this was obviously heavily defeated with only about ten members voting for strike action.

The platform, gloating over this success then asked if any other action was desired by the membership. A Socialist Press supporter then called for a nocover policy for anyone sick or on holidays.

The chairman blandly replied that this had been tried in the past with the school cleaners but had not workedfailing to mention that cleaners who had tried to implement the no cover policy had received no support from the union The Hull betrayal is clearly no unique example: it is just one instance of the role of public sector union bureaucrats who are daily presiding over the slaughter of jobs and services without lifting a finger of opposition.

This is why the fight against the Tory cuts is so bound up with the struggle for a new, revolutionary leadership in the labour movement.

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