School Meal Sell-out

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Officials hand out redundancy forms The complete bankruptcy. and cowardice of the public sector umion leaders in the struggle against the cuts was confirmed at a mass meeting of the kitchen staff employed by the Humberside Education Department in Hull called by the GMWU.

The meeting, held last Wednesday, was called to discuss the redundancy situation. The trend of the meeting had been set a week before it actually took place, in the form of a scandalous leaflet drawn up by the GMWU and circulated to the membership, which declared that:

"It is expected that volun teers for redundancy will be called for-this will apply to people under 59 years of age. If this should happen forms will be issued at the meeting."

The meeting opened with over 550 kitchen staff present and the role of the local leadership was made clear when the Area Organiser Bill Allan addressed the moeting giving details of when the redundancies would take place and how many jobs were to go, Giving no lead whatsoever on how to fight the planned redundancies, Allan went on to tell his members that the union was initially calling for voluntary redundancies and that if this failed then the union would proceed on a "last in, first out" basis.

When the meeting was thrown open a local Labour Councillor asked Allan why he was not calling for opposition to the redundancies and giving a lead to the members present on how to. fight these attacks.

She also reminded him that at a public meeting on the cuts in the public sector held in Hull in October of last year he had stated that he was prepared to fight the cuts in every way possible.

This contribution was warmly received by the members present, but was answered by a personal attack on the Labour councillor by Bill Allan saying that as she was not a kitchen staff worker, she had no right to question the platform!

The Councillor pointed out that she had been an active member of the union and also a member of the Education Branch 5 for longer than he had.

The platform had no answer to this. Then a member of the kitchen staff raised the point that at a previous meeting held in April over redeployment the same leadership had instructed the kitchen staff to refuse to take any cuts in hours.

Yet now they were asking workers to take a cut in jobs! The platform got round this by referring to the drop in demand for school meals since the increase in charge to 50p.

Socialist Press supporter Margaret Nix (who is the only woman shop steward in the Hull division) then attacked the platform, pointing out that the union leadership was doing the Tory County Council's work for them and were therefore carrying out Tory policies.

Indiscriminate This was answered sharply by the Convenor of the school meal services members who asked "what do you want us to do? Do you want us to let the county Councillors to go to the schools and make redundancies indiscriminately?"

This was "not a political issue" he claimed.

Margaret Nix drew warm applause when she replied:

"What kind of a union is it that does the Tories work for them? What we should be doing is fighting these redundancies and you should be leading that fight!"

When the leadership was questioned as to their reference to redundancy forms, the convenor picked up a bundle of slips and held them up shouting that they were available.

At this, chaos broke out, with many of the women present asking for redundancy forms.

When order was restored the chairman made the ludicrous statement that the leadership were "only looking after the interests of the members"

When the question of opposition to the redundancies was again raised, the chairman played the oldest and most despicable trick in the bookimmediately putting to a vote the proposal for all-out strike action the following day.

With no preparation for such policy this was obviously heavily defeated with only about ten members voting for strike action.

The platform, gloating over this success then asked if any other action was desired by the membership. A Socialist Press supporter then called for a nocover policy for anyone sick or on holidays.

The chairman blandly replied that this had been tried in the past with the school cleaners but had not workedfailing to mention that leaners who had tried to implement the no cover policy had received no support from the union leadership.

The Hull betrayal is clearly no unique example: it is just one instance of the role of public sector union bureaucrats. who are daily presiding over the slaughter of jobs and services without lifting a finger of opposition.

This is why the fight against the Tory cuts is so bound up with the struggle for a new, revolutionary leadership in the labour movement.