[The media in Scotland had a heyday last…]

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The media in Scotland had a heyday last week with the announcement of a 122% increase in rates by Stirling District Council.

In a period of huge rate increases as councils try to defend services against Tory government cuts, the increase in Stirling sets a new record.

In announcing the increase, council convenor Eddie Monaghan said the administration had decided to face up to the government challenge to local government.

The level of service they planned would require the employment of 111 new staff.

Explaining this to Socialist Press, chairman of the Labour Group Ian Wyles said:

"Having won control of the council a year and a half ago, the Labour Group has now drawn up plans for expanding the property maintenance department to a position where any contracts going 'outside' will be exceptional.

•We have maintained all services, as promised in OUT election manifesto. We have refused - to implement any redundancies, in keeping with the national policy • of the Recently we announced an average increase of £1.15 in our rents, an 18% increase. The Tory government wanted us to increase them by £2.80-a 43% increase.

Because we refused they cut £1 million off our housing borrowing allocation. This, on top of other cuts, has led to the rate inçreases.

Next year we will have bigger problems. The Tories are taking over direct control of council spending, and will try to set tight limits, legally binding."

Cuts in services

The total impact on rates in Stirling District will only be a 50% increase. The Regional Council Labour Group have made cuts in services and have had a policy of 'natural wastage' Their expected 25% increase in rates lowers the average to

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"Of all the regional councils in this country, the SERTUC is recognised as being the most active.

We hold more conferences, for example, just this month we've had Working Women in the '80s, the Engineering Conference and now today a conference on cuts.

We are setting up seven different industry committees-communication, co-ordination, organisation are the central questions here today: on loca, regional and national level.' This was Jack Dromey (Secretary of SERTUC) introducing himself at one of the workshops at last Saturday's SERTUC conference, opposing public spending cuts.

On the day that Southend Council signed a contract with Exclusive Cleaning to hive off the refuse department, hundreds of dustmen and their supporters marched through the town. •Southend dustmen, on their second one-day strike, were joined by workers from as far afield as Brent, Lambeth and Camden and other parts of London.

Banners on the march came from NUPE London Division, TGWU Region 1, Camden NUPE and Southend Trades Speakers at the rally included Ron Keating from NUPE and Larry Smith from the TGWU and TUC General Shop steward Arthur Smith is confident that with such support the council can be forced to follow the example of the government and do a UIn order to build up support in the community the dustmen, members of the TGWU, have delivered a letter to all the households in the area explaining their case.

Paying more

The letter points out that the contractors are interested only in profit and in the longterm the ratepayers will end up His aim was to bedazzle us 'lads and lasses' with an endless stream of slick talk of "solving difficulties in liaison", "identifying problem areas, "being rooted 'in reality"; and of course "getting working structures fully operational"-but by the end of the day, the delegates who had attended had realised that for all the fast talking, Jack the lad' Dromey (with a little help from his friends) had sold them yet another bum steer.

It was another public spending cuts conference, following the two previous, identical ones.

It seems that Dromey had made a mistake in trying to pull off the hat trick.

The attendance was smallonly about 100.

It ran to exactly the same formula as all the other doubied.

As well as trying to enlist the support of ratepayers, the council workers are contemplating further, more drastic, industrial action to force the council to back down, Such action must obviously. be given the maximum support by the TGWU and everyóne else concerned to defend the public sector.

Evans, the boss of Exclusive Cleaning, clearly sees Southend as the thin end of the wedge that will take him into profitable London boroughs.

Already some, including Labour-controlled ones, are said to be interested.

The closure of Tate and Lyle's Liverpool refinery and four BSC refineries highlights the crisis in the sugar industry.

There is no glut. Last year saw a world production deficit of 5 million tonnes. This year's deficit is expected to be 2-3 SERTUC conferences.

In the morning came speeches from the row of carefully selected safe speakers from the network of SERTUC committees.

They gave what was without doubt a terrible account of cuts, closures, rundown and unemployment, causing suffering and deprivation throughout the previously "affluent" South.

And from listening to the speakers you could be totally convinced by their fatalism that the cuts were inevitably going to be carried out in full because we were defenceless.

There was, however, one ray of hope in the morning. Mike Birken from the civil service unions spoke of his members? determination to beat the 6% cash limits.

He issued the clarion call of "follow the miners" example?. And he spoke of the 40 strike centres being set up around the country.

What do you by the strike?

The only gain was it involved Scargill with Ezra which got guarantees which we wouldn't have got without strike action.

I don't trust Ezra who three months ago was denying that there would be any pit closures. But how can the government and NCB back down from their agreements?

They'll be more subtle; Gormley remarked on Monday (while saying the Welsh lads had jumped the gun) that it wasn't the fact that they are closing pits that he objected to but the crops.

High exports from EEC stocks have offset the immediate world shortage, and reduced the EEC production surplus of 4 million tonnes last year alone.

In Britain, Agriculture Minister Peter Walker has slapped an 18% tax on all European farm imports and But you could depend Nick Sharman, Dromey's sidekick to steer us right back into the cul-de-sac. He pointed out that the real purpose of the conference was activity' not action.

In the afternoon we were herded into workshops-based on which locality we came from -for the purpose of "link forging".

In the workshop I was in there were struggles that were reported.

But delegates who had come wanting advice on strategy and tactics in campaigns were confronted with mumbo-jumbo about general inter-county communication.

There were delegates from Wycombe and District Action Committee Against the Cuts. They talked of the fight to prevent 56 hospital beds and facilities being lost in the Wycombe area.

Also, as Wycombe speed at which closures were being implemented.

Gormley wanted a national ballot which would have taken about 3 weeks-in which time he would have negotiated higher redundancy pay. He hoped by doing so to get the vote his way, which would have been for no industrial action.

It was a public backdown by the government though, wasn't it?

Over the last couple of years unions have backed down in other industries, allowing their members to take wage cuts and join the dole queue.

The government thought the miners would back down: but the sole refiners of sugar beet. Despite profits of £31 million, BSC are threatening to close four more refineries if quotas are cut.

But Tate and Lyle, backed by African, Caribbean and Pacific sugar producing countries want a drastic reduction in beet quotas in order to make room for their cane sugar.

Further cutbacks in cane sugar production could have a catastrophic effect on the economies of small sugar-producing District had lost their rate support grant and the council were putting up rents by a staggering 56% they wanted to discuss how they could organise a rent strike.

Liz Page from Southampton Trades Council talked of the fight to keep open an antenatal clinic in a deprived working class community.

The strongest speaker, however, was Kate White from the Longworth Hospital Occupation Committee.

She told of how just last week one old lady who had been refused a bed at Longworth at Christmas before the AHA raid had been found dead on a cold stone floor in her cottage where she had been trying to light an electric fire with matches.

Because of effects of cuts, unlike the speakers she had heard in the morning, the staff at Longworth had decided to fight back and, seeking advice Socialist Press interviews Burt Whittle, NUM, Markham Main Colliery, Armthorpe, about the outcome of the miners' strike. they were wrong.

But we've only got agreements.

What role do you think transport, railway and other sections of workers played?

They backed us up totally in Wales and if this had happened nationwide it could have lead to a general strike and brought the government down. Do you think that's why the government backed down?

Yes, they would have taken us on if we had been on our own. But really the Tories haven't backed down, they are just buying time, and they will come back when they have defeated other sections of workers.

Would you agree that the Tories have made a retreat?

Yes, but only a tactical retreat. They'll come back again.

What do you think the water workers' pay claim had to do with the retreat?

I think that came into it but mainly the solidarity we got from railway workers was the main factor because you see, no matter how much stocks they have they can't shift it with that type of solidarity. I hope the water workers fight for solidarity in action and not just verbal solidarity.

Has the strike changed your thinking in any way?

Yes, it's given me a lot Age from supporters in COHSE, the Health Service JTUC and the local Trades Council had occupied.

She said that they had all felt let down by the union's officers and officials.

Kate pointed at Dromey, saying:

"It's the likes of you, sitting pretty there, away from us who are doing the fighting that are the problem..

You have all the power and the know-how: but you keep it from us and leave us to struggle alone until it's too late.

No wonder Maggie Thatcher is getting away with it all! You have us here talking about everything except how to get on and fight the cuts! It's not the talking but the doing I want to see." more confidence in the rank and file working class, particularly the miners, here in Yorkshire.

The ballot for industrial action against pit closures was 86% in favour of industrial action.

Do you think the 15 to 8 vote by the NUM executive to return to work was a sell out?

Yes, we should have ignored it and action carried on until there were cast. iron signed agreements, saying that there would be no pit closures. As a matter of fact, when Gormley announced the deal, we at Markham Main came out on unofficial strike.

Do you think Yorkshire should have been called out alongside the Welsh miners?

Yes I do. Scargill had an 86% mandate from the membership and should have called us out straight away even though the Yorkshire closures hadn't been announced.

It wasn't an area question it was a national question and even when closures were announced for Yorkshire on the Wednesday we still were not called out on strike.

A major part of the NUM campaign was for import controls. What is your opinion of campaigning for import By import controis we are only exporting unemployment.

Foreign workers aren't the cause of recession, it is the ruling class who are to blame.

The enemy is the British ruling class, not foreign workers.