The politics of childcare

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When the TUC Report on the Under Fives was published in 1978, what seemed to many as an insignificant struggle to defend a nursery class of 30 full time places was taking place.

This was in Oxford, where parents, hearing of plans to cut much needed nursery places formed the Oxford City Nursery Campaign.

Within three months the Campaign adopted a programme which included, if all other efforts failed to stop the closure of the nursery class a call to This they were forced to do in March 1978. It provoked a blaze of publicity in which union officials at first fell over themselves in efforts to pose as militants. One exception was the local NUT official-who attacked the fight from the outset.

NUPE officials, under the leadership of Stalinist Divisional Organiser George Anderson were more cautious about their They reached the point of almost promising supporting action until a NUPE branch meeting actually called for immediate discussion on such a strike and urged a district executive meeting to discuss it.

Guided by Anderson, the committee decided that the form of "action" against the cuts ' . should be-a branch circular!

Eviction

The eviction of the occupaton was eventually carried out seven weeks after it had begun. The eviction was helped by a NALGO Vice Chairman-in his role as Solicitor for the Council!

The closure took place in the protection or expansion of nursery facilities which their own spending cuts and cash limits were forcing to close.

But the fight to defend nurseries and the Campaign did not end with the eviction. An exhibition developed out of the Oxford occupation and parents and supporters travelled the country urging others to learn from their experiences and make sure supporting strike action was fought for earlier on in subsequent nursery struggles.

Many campaigns for child care were started in the 1970s. Many women were in this way brought into contact for the first time with the trade union and labour movement and found themselves uninhibited by bureaucratic restrictions on meetings. They demanded a hearing for the struggle.

Nightmare

If times were bad enough in those good old bad days of 1978 the election of Thatcher and the Tories has brought a daily nightmare.

Callaghan 'and the Labour leaders had actually focussed a major plank of their ill-fated 1979 electoral campaign on the hypocritical claim to have been the party that benefited the working class family!

Some Labourites, along with a majority of the Liberal Party went even further, and suggested a state payment to persuade mothers to remain at nome witn new chucien as al aid to 'law and order' The need for this ideological offensive to strengthen the family as an instrument of authority over youth maintained at the expense of the oppression of women has its material roots in the developing economic crisis of capitalism.

The capitalist system, even at the heights of the post war boom period, proved itself unable to offer an alternative to the private individual drudgery of domestic labour in the home, to offer any serious means of lifting the burden of child care from individual mothers or to offer full employment even to the restricted number of women able to seek work outside the home.

The gathering world recession is throwing capitalist production into stagnation and decline.

Whole industries are being driven to the wall, and workers by the thousand are being driven out of employment in collapsing firms and slashed public services.

Far from offering the slightest hope of eventually liberating women from the confines of the home, the capitalist class is forced to seek means for driving thousands of women out of the organised labour movement, and of simultaneously utilising the isolated family unit as the target for the most reactionary propaganda.

It is no accident therefore that in the first wave of public spending cuts many facilities needed by women were to close-nurseries for the young; hospitals for the elderly and school meals services needed by those women with children who also held a full time job.

These cuts serve not only to force women out of the workforce and back into the home, but also to impose new and more onerous duties on the individual family unit.

One much publicised attack was in Oxfordshire where the Tory council in September 1979 announced the complete abolition of nursery provision in the county.

A meeting called by the Oxford City Nursery Campaign within five. days of the announcement attracted over 150 parents and . supporters. A campaign was formed to fight this massive attack. But right wing social democrats and trade union bureaucrats were waiting in the wings to divide the campaign and successfully carried this out two months later.

Outcry

The campaign split and the two nursery campaigns continued the struggle each in their own way —one through the trade union and labour movement the other relying on the law, appealing to the 1944 Education Act (which has since been amended to facilitate more cuts).

The outcry that the two campaigns provoked nationally had the effect of embarrassing the Tories politically and orders were given for the local Tory Group to back off.

But nurseries are still seen as an easy option for any council whether Tory or Labour controlled. Since May 1979 many councils have closed facilities, though some have put up a strong fight.

Nightingale Day Nursery in Wandsworth for example was occupied from 13 1980.

Wheatley Street Nursery in Coventry was occupied for. five days. The determination of the Labour controlled Coventry council to carry through Tory spending cuts meant that they actually locked the parents and supporters in the Wheatley St. Nursery, turning the services off. This was in July 1980.

Staffing cuts

The attack on nurseries has not just meant closures-it also means cuts in staffing and ratios. The most publicised case was when Nottingham teacher Eileen Crosbie was faced with teaching under fives at a ratio of two staff to 40 children.

Eileen was put in this position firstly because. of NUPE's inactivity in Nottingham-letting the Counci sack nursery assistants without a fight.

Eileen's struggle continued through 1980. In April she was sacked for refusing to teach under such conditions. But the NUT called no serious action in her support. The response of NUT officials throughout the dispute was to demoralise the membership and hold selective one-day and three day strikes instead of calling an all-out strike.

NUT leaders then compromised with the council -and appealed to an industrial tribunal. A token rally surprised the organisers by attracting over 5,000 teachers and nursery campaigners who loudly demanded action from the NUT.

Reluctant officials promised a ballot in Nottingham to assess what the response would be on action. In April/May 1980 there had been 216 members, in Nottingham who declared themselves willing to come out on indefinite strike and if need be face the sack alongside Eileen Crosbie. They were prevented from taking such action.

After seven months of betrayals, the result of the ballot in January 1981 at last came up with what the NUT had been planning for over a year-a negative and demoralised response!

The other development in Nottingham around that time was the formation of the Save Our Nurseries Campaigi attracted many women of whom had voted I 1979!

They helped fight proposals to close two needed day nurseries. Tł orientated to the trade and labour movemen specifically NUPE.

The campaign had an on the Tories, especiall! the mothers took direct like closing Trent Brid holding up the traffic a times.

Because of this imp: Tories offered the moth order to keep them quir of the nurseries to run it would be over £54, Faced with this. campaigners took problems to the unions. to get. the women of backs (some women were ning to get ideas about c ing and calling for sup! strike action) union told them to accept the d to get the Labour Party t to take the nursery bac social services if they w 1981 county council ele This they agreed 1 Since then the Campai been spending most of i fund raising and visiting unions, Labour Party " m and the TUC to get mone them instead of askin demanding that they fig cuts and mobilise agai Tories!

This community is seen as the solutic only for the NUPE Wandsworth nursery campaigners

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SOCIALIST PRESS, Wedne February 1981

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

midst of hypocritical Labour government circulars urging the

"community nursery tu €8,000 grant (the full