Save the Journal!

Scan page 7

They lost by only one vote a bid to cut spending next financial year more heavily.

That rejection is soon likely to be reconsidered.

Shaw explained clearly that their motives were to save their own skins at the expense of the working class: "I take no pleasure in what has been achieved, but it was absolutely necessary in terms of saving the Building Department and making certain we are not Saturday March 21 10.30 a.m. -5.00 p.m.

London N7 and credentials from CDLM, 169 Rand Smathial Talent Aul.. 1. Road, Smethwick, West Midlands But the Camden leaders know that even the present package of cuts will not satisfy the Tories.

Having forced the Council into a major retreat the Tories are already demanding more and more concessions-including the sale of council houses, currently held up by NALGO members.

These moves to implement Tory policies will meet with imnlacahle onnocitinn fram AIARANIAIIA TAnTendAn A major development took place on Monday 2 February when the Joint Shop Stewards Committee: representing UCATT, NUPE and NALGO met and adopted a policy of rate cuts no rent increases, no iale rises Unlike the Lambeth unions the JSSC is pledged to assist tenants in organising rent and rate strikes.

Following last Wednesday's package of cuts, an emergency meeting was held. and each union intends to hold mass meetings of its • membership.

They will call for a mass picket of the Town Hall on 18 February (the day the full Council' ratifies 'the Labour Group's decision).

They will also propose a series of guerrilla strikes--the first of which will be on March 4 (the day the new rate is to be fixed).

These policies are seen as the first limited steps to provide a focus for a united labour movement campaign against the government and its Labour agents in the Council.

The tenants associationsdormant since Heath's Housing Finance Act-are again beginning to organise.

Tenants' representatives at an angry meeting on January 28 refused to vote on a Housing Committee question as to whether they wanted flat rate rent increases (which would hit low-rent tenants hardest) or a percentage rise.

Instead, speaker after speaker attacked the council for , proposing to raise rents at all. A series of motions calling on the Council to oppose all increases were passed with massive majorities.

Finally it is crucial that the fight against Shaw's Tory policies is taken into the Labour Party itself.

The Camden Labour Left continues to attract left wing militants in the Labour Party including 'tenants leaders and trade union shop stewards.

At its last meeting it adopted a clear strategy for confrontation with the Tories [to be published in next week's Socialist Pressl.

Its members are pledged to win support for its strategic line in the Labour Party, trade unions and tenants associations.

The fight for this line in the Labour Partv has changed dramatically since Wednesday.

Removed from office The task is to remove from office those councillors who voted for cuts.

Those nine left Councillors who courageously voted against the cuts must now publicly break from the majority of the Labour Group.

They must ally themselves with the Camden Labour Left and the trade union campaign and help rally the mass support needed on a local and national level to defeat the Thatcher offensive.

The fight against the closure of the Camden Journal has reached critical stage.

: Print union leaders are on the point of turning their backs decisively on the key demand for blacking of the sister papers.

Notices to journalists on the paper have now run out-with he journalists refusing to acct i neir inal pay ott. at the crossroads.

But police at Nuneatonwhere the papers are printedsucceeded last week in enforcing Prior's law restricting the number of pickets, and arrested four.

And London provincial journalists last week ieversed their position and called off a series of one-day supporting strikes.

Despite these setbacks the Camden journalists and those taking supporting strike action on the Hornsey Journal and the Islington Gazette have not become demoralised.

But they have lost direction in the relative importance of demands.

This was apparent at the rally following a march of 300 NUJ members and anti-cuts fighters in Camden.

The rally brought no strategy for the Camden • jour'nalists, except an appeal for pickets from editor Eric Gordon and FoC Howard Hannah.

Meanwhile the NGA leadership has refused to meet NUJ representatives until they have taken a definitive decision on support-which is a clear sign that they will refuse.

Under those conditions the vote by London provincial journalists not to continue with one day strikes in support was not surprising.

There was a majority of 30 against in a meeting of 300.

The group which owns the Camden Journal-Heart of England-owns papers at Nuneaton, Leamington, Banbury, Rugby in the Midlands and Haverfordwest in Wales.

A series of meetings have already been held with members on those papers and a joint membership meeting has been called for Thursday.

These members should be called out and a turn made towards public pressure on the NGA.

Supporters are urged to join the weekly dawn picket at Nuneaton where a few print workers continue to refuse to cross the picket.

But Camden campaigners must turn the focus of their drive not to create illusionary bridges with big name lefts but to expose the failure of the print leadership to offer As 30,000 water workers found their pay claim yet again delayed by a time-wasting ballot, negotiators representing 17,000 ambulance drivers heard an insulting 6% offer at the start of their pay talks.

Meanwhile Civil Service unions have united behind a demand for a 15% increasewhich even if conceded in full would, after tax, leave civil servants falling well behind the rise in the cost of living.

As the National Union of Seamen considers new means to step up its selective strikes, there was further evidence that the General Council of British Shipping is beginning to crack as individual employers make settlements with the union.

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

In brief