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Many hospitals have had creche facilities. No doubt these schemes will disappear as The attack on nursery and child care and set them up and encouraged them in the civil servants lose their jobs because of governprovision didn't just start witl 1 the elec- 1960s, when married trained staff were needed, ment cuts. tion of Thatcher and her monetarist but the situation today with the health service In February 1979 the South East Region of Tories, but it has certainly increased. cuts and hospitals closing down is that they are being discouraged and closed down themselves. the TUC held a conference on workplace nurseries which turned out to be a diversion Provision for child care is an easy target The most blatant example recently is the from leading the fight necessary on the attack for local authorities when they're deciding nursery provided at the Cowley Road Geriatric on state provision. what to cut. They also get the benefit of Hospital in Oxford to attract nurses back into A speaker from the Association of Scientific killing two birds with one stone: women are the NHS and geriatric nursing. When the Teachnical and Managerial Staff (ASTMS) from driven back home to look after their children hospital closed the nursery was supposed to the Heathrow Airport Campaign announced full-time, while the public sector jobs in nurs- move to another hospital site, but the AHA that the campaign was seeking to use the axed eries, schools and so on, mainly women's jobs, have delayed the move. In November 1980 they Staines hospital and Ashford School for workare destroyed. doubled the fees and warned staff that if it place nurseries!

was not made viable' by October 1981 Terry Marsland of the Tobacco Workers would have to close. Union in a paper presented to the conference Bosses do not provide nurseries for nothing. left no one in doubt as to the intentions of the In Birkenhead, the management of Styleware union leadership: stated that the absentee rate had dropped from *There is no hope over the next five years 20% to 3%. of achieving any improvement in the provision This includes jobs like school meals ladies, At Hotpoint, Llandudno the Company does of child care facilities by Local Authorities where women work precisely because there are not have a nursery but operates a holiday play and our only way forward is to persuade the inadequate facilities and to fit in with the centre for 6 weeks a year, which costs £1,570 employers who have the financial resources school hours and holidays of their children. and means low absentee levels for its 300 available to establish creche and nursery proviAt the moment we are experiencing the women workers during the summer holiday. sion at the place of work." most vicious attack on provision since 1945. Union officials are putting forward do- Far from having financial resources available Women have fought back to defend the nothing campaigns for workplace nurseries employers are seeking cheap labour to exploit inadequate provision provided at present but as a means of avoiding the fight against the and restore profits lost by the economic crisis. are also being encouraged to campaign for cuts. factory in Slough began to organise for higher When the women of the Chix Bubble Gum work place nurseries. wages, they were sacked and other women were This encouragement is no accident: it is JOD IOSS brought in to scab. The employer, aware of a deliberate policy of union an d TUC leaders who hope that it will mean thi ey can avoid a the needs of the scabs, provided child care fight on the many facilities being closed facilities for them in order to maintain low daily: Governm The nt Officers (NALGO), for National Assoriation of Local wages and a disorganised work force. Demands should be placed on union leaders their families example, has had a good campaigning policy to defend facilities being closed by agreeing to including a negotiating kit for workplace provide strike action to support any occupanurseries but no local authority at present tions of facilities, especially if they are has one. threatened with eviction. İssI of W Meanwhile the jobs of NALGO members Demands should also be made for union The TUC Under 5s Report published in are diminishing day by day. NALGO members leaders to go on the offensive for more free we wrote the 1978 (and conveniently buried since), in Oxfordshire's threatened nurseries were child care facilities to be provided especially campaign of staff at examined the drawbacks of workplace nurse- simply told in 1979 that nursery nursing was from Labour controlled Councils. ries, and stated that they enable the employer a 'dying profession'. save their hospital to offer lower rates of pay to women workers Workers in the Civil Service found that a If you have any views on work place and to threaten their withdrawal at times of nursery in Llanistan, Wales, for Inland Revenue nurseries, or any ther issues raised in Since then, on December 2nd, industrial action. The Report states that there are 70-90 staff was closed in 1978, because the employers claimed they could no longer afford the Woman W orker put pen to paper immed- members of staff have occupied this company nurseries mainly in engineering and subsidy. Plans for a nursery in Croydon were iately write a letter. The address Oxfordshire hospital for geriatric women textiles. cancelled. is: to save it from closure.

Teachers in A survey 1979 showed that 37 universities by the Association of University is an employer-sponsored form The low cost alternative in of child minding the Civil Service Woman Worker although apprehensive, felt that it boiled It was a very big step, but staff had nurserie s but that the University Grants in which parents meet the full cost of the child- loWSL, BM Box 527 down to a choice between saving or losing advising the Committee s vere trying to stop them and were ending of subsidies from 1 August care organiser (between £10-€ is operating in only 3 places. 12). The scheme London WCIN 3XX the hospital, and this was the only way to save it. 1980.

Lancashire School meals campaign is fighting back against attacks that have been made on the service by the Tory-run Lancashire