Preston Cuts Protest

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A successful lobby of County Hall, Preston was organised by the School Meals Campaign in Lancashire last Tuesday (14th) morning.

The demonstration was held to coincide with a Lancashire County Council Education General Purposes Sub-committee meeting to discuss proposals to cut back a further £1 million from this year's education budget.

The Conservative controlled County Council have dogmatically adhered to national government directives to attack education and social services.

In their enthusiasm to attack the living standards of workers and to inflict further hardship on low income families, this despotic Council have even made cut backs over and above those demanded by the Thatcher administration!

Although the central issue of the campaign is directed towards defending the school meals service, the organisers have continually stressed the need to defend other areas of educational spending. at the same time.

The campaign has received support from school meals staff, teachers,. parents, trade unionists, district and county councillors, trades councils, Accrington MP Arthur Davidson and NUPE General Alan Fisher.

Many areas of Lancashire have been reached by the campaign and support comes from Blackburn, Chorley, The Fylde, Hyndburn, Blackpool, Darwen, Preston and Great Harwood.

The long list of cuts (accepted by the General Purposes Sub-committee (which incidentally includes a loss of a further 40 teaching posts) does not include any further erosion of the already depleted school meals service.

The work of the campaign over the last few weeks no doubt contributed to this and shows that jobs and services can be successfully defended. lesson to be drawn from this is highlighted by the fact that the cut back proposals were accepted.

Struggles to defend services, jobs and living standards just cannot be carried out in isolation.

Apparent victories in one area of struggle are detracted from when the attack on workers is simply transferred to other sectors. It is essential that councils of action are built to defeat all attacks, that there is mutual support and that the private and public sector struggles are also linked.

It is only by the mass independent action of workers and the unwaged that a successful defence of working class interests can be carried out.

Fisher