Leicester NURSERIES

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S OCCUPIED In March the Tory controlled Leicestershire County Council announced a total of 1,800 redundancies as part of their "savings' on education spending. This included 40 nursery assistants (NNEB's) as well as class room ancillaries, lollypop ladies and canteen staff. All bar ten were women.

Following this announcement it emerged that in addition to these cuts, from the end of April no new entrants were being allowed into nursery schools. No public statement has ever been made on this, and to date no explanation of the decision has been offered.

It was aginst this background of fears and uncertainties that a West Leicester Nursery Campaign was launched in April to lead a fight on the whole question of nursery provision, both in the schools and the Social Services Day Nurseries.

A public meeting was arranged jointly with the Trades Council's Women's Sub-Committee to begin the campaign by drawing on the experiences of other areas like Oxford and Nottingham. On the day of the meeting, however, the first effects of the initial leaflets issued came out in a statement in the local paper by the Director of Social Services, Dorothy Edwards. Clearly under pressure, she admitted that the Fosse Road Day Nursery was to be closed to make way for a new Family Centre.

This came as quite a surprise to the nursery staff at Fosse Road who had been trying for months to get this information and had been assured only five days earlier that no decision had yet been taken!

The public meeting, therefore, became a focus for a series of direct questions to the NALGO speaker present. With over 70 parents, teachers, nursery nurses and other trade unionists Leicester anti-cuts lobby present, NALGO blithely admitted that they had taken no steps to oppose the redundancies which they regarded as still in the air'. Instead they were seeking consultations with the County Council over the terms of any redundancy payments and the possibilities for redeployment.

When it was pointed out that in Nottingham redeployment for nursery nurses had meant jobs as cleaners and ancillaries, and that 90 were still unemployed, NALGO made clear that those were the kind of jobs being offered in Leicester, but with the addition of gardening to the list!

This craven refusal by NALGO to take up any fight in defence of its own members or the public services involved stands in stark contrast to the ruthless determination of the Tory councillors.

THREATS

Rumours, apparently emanating from the Labour Group on the Council, suggest that the plan is to phase out ALL nursery education within two years along with a variety of other services. Furthermore, with regard to the threatened Fosse Road Day Nursery the situation is already critical.

Staffing provision at Fosse Road is dangerously inadequate at present, with one post frozen and another vacant following the departure of a nursery officer at 24 hours notice. This has been made worse by the decision to replace the present full time Matron with a part-time appointment.

Both the nursery staff and parents in Leicestershire have already made clear their determination to fight. At a second public meeting of the nursery Campaign over 60 were present, and were clearly angered by the failure of the local Labour County Councillors to show up.

Now, an open letter has been sent to the County Council demanding to know their plans for both Nursery Education and the Fosse Road Day Nursery. To give this added weight, an occupation of County Hall by mums and kids is planned to coincide with the presentation of a mass petition in support of nursery provision on May 21st.

And at Fosse Road, the staff have voted not to accept the new part-time Matron, on the grounds that she already has responsibility for another city nursery and cannot possibly do two jobs at once-even with the incentive of added pay.

As a result, Social Services Department, following discussions at the Fosse Road Nursery With the staff-which became the focus for a large lobby by the Nursery Campaign-have now conceded the need to advertise for a new Matron and for additional staff.

What is crucial now is the mobilisation of both staff throughout the nursery sector and parents, not just against the right wing County Council. They must direct the struggle also against the cynical, backpeddling leadership of NALGO who have totally failed to take up any fight against redundancies and cuts in services. Only in such a struggle to build a fighting leadership throughout the working class can Day Care and nursery education be defended and expanded. that of workers on assembly lines in factories.

children of under 3 years of age.

A book published in March and written collectively by six authors, entitled Nurseries Now is likely to be purchased by many parents, nursery workers and supporters of provision for the Under 5s.

More and more people are seeking answers to the deliberate Tory attempts to dismantle the grossly inadequate nursery facilities that exist at present.

Nurseries Now is a comprehensive 250-page book that examines the needs of mothers and children and the fascinating but dreadful statisical evidence of the effects of depression on mothers with children under five.

The book stresses the class distinctions: 16% of middle class mothers of pre-school age children suffered depression, compared with a staggering 48% of working class mothers. Overall, 23% of all mothers of pre-school age children are prescribed tranquilisers in the year preceding the children's entry to school.

Although half of all mothers of pre-school children work for some of the time, two thirds of non-working mothers were dissatisfied with being at home. Interestingly, the depression and frustration felt by these women is greater than The Office of Population Census and Surveys conducted an investigation six years ago, and found that 96% of women wanted nursery places for their children, and 46% wanted places for .1.80 £3.60 .£7.00 €13.00 /P.O. to 1, DartLondon DETAILS One more de orkers Soci Dartplaygroups and childminders, to day nurseries, schools and classes, both in the public and private sectors.

Out of the seven types of facilities for the Under-5s in England and Wales, only 16% of children are provided for by local authorities, 22% are covered by voluntary or private groups, and 62% of children hadn no provision at all in 1977.

As well as providing such useful statistics, the book goes on to answer opponents of care for the Under-5s. It examines the inadequacies of the present system, in particular the division of day and educational nurseries, and the restrictions on the ages of children who can attend them.

It outlines some ideas for future provision and new approaches to provision for the Under-5s -giving in particular a description of the Thomas Coran Children's Centre, where the authors have worked and where the integration of care and education seems to have been fairly successful.

The authors stress that nursery provision is a political issue, and that the question is not whether extra money can be found to provide more nurseries, but whether it should be:

*The relationship between the powerlessness of mothers and children and the inadequacy of service for them is most clearly seen in the response - or the lack of it - by successive governments to the needs of working mothers."

They point out that when governments requ ire extra pools of female labour they provide nurseries - as during World War 2, when there was a massive increase in nursery facilities, and in the 1960s, when the state needed more nurses. and teachers, and campaigned for mothers to use nurseries to return to these jobs.

NUKJE Wandsworth nursery occupation

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PLEASE DONT SACK MY TEACHER