Barking teachers strike for iobs

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Islington NALGO fights sackings AT LAST the NUT leadership has sanctioned action in defence of jobs! Gone now is the Executive's excuse that there is no point calling action as the members would not respond.

900 members in Barking have decided to take indefinite strike action to protect about 160 teaching jobs and the level of education in the borough.

The Labour council have not disputed that their cuts could decimate areas of the curriculum, including remedial, geography and art and up to half the sixth forms.

This right wing council simply throws its hands up in horror and blames the government. Yet they are the ones refusing to fight the Tories and doing their dirty work for them.

The groundwork has clearly been done very thoroughly to gain such a level of support from the members. This work has not been done by the union nationally but by a local branch leadership which has had confidence in its members' support for action.

Workplace meetings

ISLINGTON Council Housing Department workers came out on strike three weeks ago to back Rob Webb, who had been suspended for trying to take up a permanent job for which he had a contract and a starting date.

On Friday Feb.19 the whole NALGO branch came day 24th, he was completely vindicated, and the branch officers immediately went to discuss a return to work of the 1500 members.

Then the council dropped its bombshell. They had permanently closed a children's home, 29 Highbury New Park, cutting seven jobs.

Outrage

The branch meeting was so outraged by this that they voted 954 to 60 for indefinite strike action until the victimisation ended. VALGO's NEC also instructed all members to continue ziton, and agreed strike p3!.

On Friday night, 26th.

rotiations took place beSDP councillors.

ACAS. and the union. and a =se za made, to be 4*.: -as members and • = = ! I:.= = = nommal * = 0g - -E by Dettie schools, regular general meetings often of 300 members, and meetings with parents have explained the issues and attempted to put pressure on the local council not to implement these cuts. All negotiations have, however, failed.

The National Executive have even endorsed picketing of the schools. There is to be a rally and march on 10 March when the council's rate-fixing meeting takes place.

The President of the NUT, Jack Chambers, stated at a union meeting in Leeds that the members in Barking "have become the first and last line of defence between education and indifference and ignorance."

Fine words but it remains to be seen whether the union is now seriously going to give full support to the Barking teachers and not leave them isolated from the rest of the As Ken Jones, the union secretary, rightly claims, "we are now the national focus for activity which will determine the future course of On Monday 1st, the SDP group rejected their proposal their negotiators had agreed, and on Tuesday morning NALGO members voted to continue their action.

The strike is over the most basic trade union TWENTY members of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) who work at BPC, a subsidiary of millionaire 'socialist' Robert Maxwell's Pergamon Press, were surprised when they turned up at their workplace on Friday February 26 to discover that they had been sacked and locked out:

On the previous day they had taken part in the very successful half-day official strike action action to protest against the appalling levels the bock publishing 3uSE with eve: trom 55 dre27 publishing impants.

When the BPC chapel so iied the compan! of • intention lo take part in he crite protest, the manMessages of support have been pouring in from all parts of the country. The defence of jobs of teachers throughout the country will very much depend on a victory being won in Barking.

Relations on the picket lines with pupils and parents have been reported as being very friendly. One boy at Erkenwald , comprehensive was quoted as saying "l agree with what the teachers are doing. It's wrong for the council to talk of sacking any of them."

Barking teachers have shown the way to defend jobs and to maintain and build union membership.

*Messages of support should be passed through NUT Associations, with calls for supporting strike action.

*Members in Outer London should vote Ken Jones No. 1 in the National Executive electións.

*Labour Party members should pass motions condemning the action of the Barking Labour Council.

Strike HQ is at 588 Rainham Road, South Dagenham (tel: 595 7810). issues: the right to work, no victimisation, and the keeping of agreements and procedures freely entered into.

Messages of support to strike HQ, 359 6174.

IAN STEWART agement launched a barrage of' intimidatory letters . addressed to union representatives and individuals which were ignored At the first ever mass meeting of the NUJ book branch in Congress House, which formed part of the low pay protest, a proposal committing the branch's full industrial support lo any chapel which was victimised was carried overwhelmingly.

For the NU members at BPC. this was the sccond time in 15 months that they hud hen woked and forkrd antonditionai reinstalement of the sacked workers on Tuesday.

KYRAN CONNOLLY Mick Liggins Rights Camp day 25th. reports on the YOPs Trade Un

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out to support him. At a dis- ciplinary hearing on Wednes-