What is NUPE doing

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-National Union of Public Employees, Bradford Road, Tingley, Wakefield Dear Madam, For the first time, I purchased a copy of your paper last week at the demonstration against the Tory cuts organised mainly by the South Yorkshire Trades Union Groups and not by the Labour Party as put out by them.

I was in fact very disappointed by your article "Fight the School Meals Massacre" . I do not know at which location your writer lives but it most certainly is not in Yorkshire nor as far as I can tell, in the rest of the country.

To say that NUPE nationally has not done anything to fight these cuts is not only silly but a blatant lie. I would however support your statement that the last Labour government did little to stop any Council from running down any School Meals Service if they wished to do so but l can assure you that NUPE put as much pressure on the Labour Party as was unionly possible.

Your article also states that the School Meals membership will fight against cuts if given the leadership. Well for the last twelve years, I have been a member of the NUM and was one of those people who brought down the Tories in 1974 and I have attended every NUPE branch meeting in my area for the last six months and talked, told, shown and encouraged both politically and monetary wise, why these members should fight the cuts. The total result on the 28 November was three School Meals workers out of a membership of hundreds!

Whilst I still feel we as a Union could do more to help educate our women members, I feel your paper's attack on NUPE would have been far better turned to give NUPE backing for their plan of action against the cuts but no doubt you do not even know of such a plan, therefore I suggest you contact the Research Department of NUPE in London and find out the amount of time, money and effort that has been spent on this Campaign.

- Yours fraternally, Paul Dainton.

Area Officer Could Brother Dainton be correct? Is there a secret master plan against the cuts in school meals that has unbeknown to all been put into practice ing school dinner staff of not why but how to stop the rundown and cutbacks?

We did contact the research department on their national campaign on fighting the cuts.

They answered it was "very difficult" to give an account on what actual policies NUPE had nationally put into practice; this was being done in "localised campaigns".

They did say they were "participating fully" in the TUC campaign 'Forward to the 80s, not back to the 30s' and recommended we look at past copies of the newspaper Public Employee.

These back issues were full of material on the effects of schoolmeal charges on women's employment and children's health; but there wasn't a single guideline of how to stop these cuts.

There were, however, examples of what didn't work:

"A petition organised by the National Steering Committee Against the Cuts and pressure from the TUC and backbench Labour MPs were not enough to stop the price rise. As expected the result was a fall in the numbers taking the meals of 600,000."

We were not surprised by the Research Office's evasive answer. They and Alan Fisher have obviously realised that fighting the cuts involves much more than "educating the public", more than petitions, expensive car stickers, posters and badges, more than writing to your local councillors and protesting to MPs.

The fact is that to stop the cuts we are going to have to bring the Tories down; cuts are the backbone of Tory policy.

How is this going to be done? When the Tories are mounting a full scale attack on the working class with heavy artillery it is no good trying to gently tell them to stop being mean and if that fails resort to pea-shooters.

Brother Dainton knows-as do the numerous ex-NUM NUPE full-timers-it requires using the effective weapon of the working class-strike action.

Ah, but Bro. Dainton will reply, 'yes, but the membership aren't prepared to take strike action' It is obviously difficult for the membership of NUPE to take industrial action. They provide vital services to the community and therefore are aware they are open to press attacks accusing them of inflicting pain and suffering.

Instead of counteracting this argument and explaining emergency cover for those assessed by strike committees to be lin vital need, NUPE PETITION officials enthusiastically use it as an action.

The young, ill and aged will suffer far more through the destruction of the welfare state where services will be withdrawn for good than they will through strike action.

But NUPE officers nearly always introduce the question of strike action in a negative way. designed to shatter any confidence in its effectiveness.

Alan Fisher in a directive on 'action against the cuts' (13 August 1979) states on strike action:

"In a situation where public expenditure is under severe pressure, extensive or prolonged strikes might be counter-productive if by reducing wage costs, they provide the employers with the savings they are seeking"

If that was the case, local authorities and AHAs would be desperately attempting to provoke strike action to aid their budgeting!

On the contrary they are terrified of the political power of such militancy and of the independence of an organised working class refusing to carry on providing services.

Any dinner lady suffering speed-up through cuts would be able to tell Bro. Dainton why we need to fight the cuts. But the crucial question is how.

Bro. Dainton offered one 'day of action', It is hardly surprising only three turned up.

The NUPE membership have learnt their lessons on 'days of action'. In November 1976 80,000 came out and it didn't stop a single cut.

In January 1979 70,000 on the march didn't end low pay; and November 1978 wasn't even a national TUC day of action.

All these were specifically 'days not even one day national strikes.

Without a strike instruction the school meals staff would have had to take time off, lose pay and be covered by other staff already stretched to capacity.

Even if they had organised strike action the NUPE membership have bitter memories of the effectiveness of selective action of one day here and there which achieved nothing but confusion, demoralisation and loss of pay.

Alan Fisher in a directive to the membership last year said:

"Circumstances may arise where it is necessary to engage in full-scale strike action to demonstrate the union's determination to safeguard members' interests."

Woman Worker maintains that this determination is seriously lacking amongst the NUPE leadership-from Fisher on down.J We would like to see clear evidence to the contrary. Instead all we see is their willingness to back off the fight wherever possible (eg. the December 28 announcement that NUPE will drop any blacking of pay beds in the NHS).

We challenge Bro. Dainton and other officers in th union to explain to Woman Worker in detail any effective action that is being officially led by NUPE anywhere against the cuts; until then, we will be convinced that Bro. Dainton and Co. are simply fiddling while Rome (or Wakefield) burns.

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CUTS. MORE CUTS.IE