The Gr White-collar
Socialist Press1981 1981-03-11Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 8 →
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IWALKOUT Rogistered as a newspaper at the Post Office. Signed articles do not necessarily represent the views of the Workers Socialist League.
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IN ONE Caricat I pr Main airports closed, computers shut down, spy stations switched off and NATO war games disrupted. These were among the high points of a historic day of strike action by 500,000 civil servants on Monday.
It was the day of days te smuggle booze through deserted dock customs posts. And the forthcoming selective action brings the prospect of windfall • overpayments to thousands of social security claimants.
Power
It brought an 85% response from members of the nine civil service unions-many of whom have never taken strike action before.
And it underlined the untapped power of these unions to disrupt the very fabric of goyernment. Gone for ever is the image of the civil servant as the impotent pen-pusher.
But how far will this power be mobilised by union leaders in the next phase of the struggle? They have talked of selective action to hit crucial economic and also defence and secret service targets.
Piecemeal
The danger is that piecemeal action by individual groups of ciyil servants will be left to drag on while others become demoralised-whereas a determined mobilisation could quickly force the government to concede the 15% claim.
Civil service union activists must work to extend the strike and to focus power in the local joint committees. Much is at stake in this pay campaign-a defeat for the goveriment on the 6% cash limit in the belly of its own apparatus would be a : major boost to the drive to overthrow Thatcher.
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ccce DI CSSR RUM.