Off the South end

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You may have seen the full page ad the other day singing the praises Southend Council for the courageous step of putting out their street cleaning services to private profiteers, and inviting other councils to follow in Southend's pioneering footsteps.

It may not have impressed you, but one council looking at taking up the idea is Wandsworth. No doubt they were drawn by the lure of saving thousands of pounds of ratepayers' money. Or maybe they were affected by the short sharp treatment meted out to the greedy trade unionists previously employed to do the job -they were all sacked and some of them were taken back on by the private contractor under new wages and conditions (where else do you expect them to make savings?).

Blacked So Wandsworth has been advertising in the trade journal inviting tenders for their one million pound cleaning contract. Unfortunately for them, Wandsworth NALGO have also taken space in the same journal pointing out that any firm that does submit a tender will be blacked nationally. The unions have already succeeded in at least temporarily blocking plans by the council to sell off the mechanical workshops which maintain their fleet of vehicles, ambulances, meals OD wheels, dustcarts etc.

And the blacking threat has already dissuaded one potential contractor from tendering.

Deterioratf:

Now Wandsworth council is taking NALGO to court to get an injunction to force them to lift the blacking threat. As the NALGO branch point out, if they win the court case being brought against them the ratepayer foots the bill.

And if the council wins, some private firm will pocket £l million of ratepayers' money and, if Southend is anything to go by, the service will deteriorate. Wandsworth NALGO have called a day's strike for the day of the court hearing.

GERRY