Electricity, gas head price explosion

Scan page 8

While wage increases for millions of workers are being squeezed below 10%, the cost of living continues to climb on almost every The recession of course has held a lot of retail prices comparatively steady for some time as rival manufacturers and store chains struggle to survive by undercutting their competitors. Hence the never-ending High Street 'Sales' and cut-price offeis.

But elsewhere prices are spiralling. Transport is becoming more expensive-with petrol, rail fares and bus fares all increased in price in the last few weeks.

Milk and some other foodstuffs have also gone up sharply right wing leadership argued that because of Heseltine's reduction in Camden's Housing Investment Prothe much-needed Estates Modernisation Programme.

Furthermore, the fact that from April 1981 building departments will have to operate under a trading account meant that to stay competitive on Heseltine's terms, the DLO would have to be reduced from 1,130 to 530 by April 1982 via a process of voluntary redundancy and early retirement.

Stunned

Council leader Roy Shaw, and his staunch supporters Andrew Bethall and John Mills, were stunned when left' winger Neil Fletcher successfully carried counter-proposals that blocked this destruction of the DLO.

Fletcher, chairman of the Building Works and Services Committee, argued that it was possible to restart the EMP from April by funding it from sources other than the Housing Investment Programme.

He claimed that the DLO could be defended by a gradual reduction in the workforce over a period of four years, through a process of natural wastage.

He himself threatened to resign if the group endorsed a policy of voluntary redundancy.

The economic and political pressure that this obstruction creates can be gauged by looking at its effect on the rates. in price. Postal charges this week.

Rates and rents seem certain to go up in every area by varying amounts-but in every instance by more than the increase in wages won by most workers.

Robbery Now the gas and electricity boards are announcing their latest price hikes. Electricity -which went up by 29% in two stages last year-is to rise in price by another thumping 1012% in April. Thus in 12 months domestic electricity will have risen in price by 42%!

Gas offers a similar story of daylight robbery. It now looks certain that domestic prices will rise during 1981 by no less than Camden's average rates of £404 per annum are the highest in the country. To compensate for Heseltine's nil award from the rate support grant, Shaw is already proposing a 56% increase on top of this.

If Fletcher's policy stands, anything up to a further £14 million will have to be found from the rates if the council is to defend other jobs and services in the borough. This would mean a further 20% rate rise!

Reflecting this pressure, Shaw, Mills and Bethal have in turn threatened to resign unless their policy was rediscussed and adopted at a future group meeting.

It was in this context that the Labour Group met on 13 January.

At this meeting it became clear that there was no possible way of financing the EMP from the sale of council property.

It was revealed that even if all "inessential land" were sold it would raise £5 millionnowhere near enough to continue the EMP.

To avoid a head-on confrontation between the right and left of the Group, however, it was agreed to set up a working party to assess the viability of Fletcher's plans and report back to the next group meeting on February 4.

This meant that a final decision on the rate increase has to be further delayed.

When it came to the discussion on the rate increase, the right wing sprang a further SUIprise. For the first time since Heseltine began turning the SCIeWS on local government expenditure John Mills outlined proposals for a direct cut in social services in Camden. 25%.

The impact of such a price increase-in conjunction with a smaller increase for industrial users-would be to push British Gas profits to an astounding £l billion per year.

As the GMWU has pointed out such huge revenues amount to an underhand means of taxraising by the Tories-at the expense of the working class.

Meanwhile of course gas workers have been offered pay increases of less than 10% in the current pay round.

it is clear inat the soaring cost of living means a real fall in living standards for every working class household.

But an accurate picture of the precise impact of such price increases, rent and rate increases and other costs on living stands is impossible using the The results of his request to council officers last November to 'exemplify' the effects of a 10% cut were now available.

He listed three categories of possible "savings": 1) recommended 'savings' £1½ million 2) Negotiable 'savings' of £4½ million and 3) unacceptable "savings' of £4½ million.

Out of categories one and two it would be possible, he sala, to win acceptance 'savings' worth £4 million.

This wretched retreat was successfully blocked by Fletcher who won a motion by 18-13 to refer these proposals back to respective departmental committees until they can outline in detail where these cuts are to fall and where the money to be 'saved' is to be spent.

Revolutionary socialists, while they remain a minority, have to support left' councillors in these tactical moves to block cuts.

Not enough On their own, however, such moves are not enough. There is a danger that the pressure building up on the council from these successful blocking tactics will explode in the face of the working class in a wave of cuts and rate rises if they are not combined with a strategy of building a united movement of tenants and unions which along with other threatened councilsactually politically challenges this Tory government's right to rule.

Buying time is inadequate situation where time running out.

This is clearly the case in Camden. The day of reckoning comes at the Group meeting on February 4 where a final existing government inflation.

This is why it is high time that local price committees were established by trade union bodies, to work in conjunction with tenants, claimants and pensioners organisations and local Labour Parties to compile a working class price index.

Protection

On this basis they must spearhead a fight for wage agreements and benefits to catch up for past losses and ensure full protection against future price increases through cost-of-living clauses, providing automatic increases in line with the real rate of inflation. decision on the rates, on the EMP, the DLO workforce and now cuts in services has to be made.

What will be the left' councillors' response on 4 February, when the working party reports (as they and the right wing know it will) that it is impossible to find alternative funds for the EMP?

What will they say when Shaw argues that the consequence of rejecting a "vigorous voluntary redundancy policy" is another 20% on the rates or a massive rent rise?

How will they respond when the right wing return with a detailed description of cuts necessary to "soften the blow on the ratepayer'"?

Without a political alternative to the right wing the danger is that the 'lefts' will capitulate.

It is vital that left wing councillors such as Ken Livingstone, Phil Turner, Neil Fletcher, Pat Driscoll and Anna Bowman break from seeing everything as a struggle within the Labour Group, and join with the Camden Labour Left in building a movement in the working class capable of confronting and defeating the Tories.

Heseltine

----- pull-quotes -----

At a Labour Group meet- ing in December, Camden's

gramme alloction it was im- possible to continue with