Monstrous ies over VALGO strike
Socialist Organiser1982 1982-03-11Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 15 →
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The claim lodged for 12% is not enough. We need £20 a week linked to a 35 hour week and increased •leave allowances for all grades.
We need to show Williams and the other compromisers that we will take tha nancarnannon of atailro "MONSTERS' That's how the Sun described striking NALGO members in Islington.
Despite the fact that the council's SDP leaders had to back down on the original issue that provoked the strike, despite the fact that it was the courcil's management who shoved kids in two of Islington's children's homes into a squalid, damp, unsupervised replacement building.
by Peter Mcintyre Despite the fact that the council's leaders prolonged the strike by making a snap decision to close one of the homes for good in the middle of the strike. Despite the fact that the SDP group threw out a deal made by their own negotiators to end the dispute.
The Sun might like to be seen to speak on behalf of the kids who've been "affected by the strike" but the kids spoke for themselves in letter to NALGO:
"Dear NALGO, Us kids at Colgrain Children's Home support all our staff and want them to win this dispute. Since this strike began management have hardly been to see us and the only way we have carried on is because of the pickets outside.
"We all read in the Sun that our staff were 'monsters" • This is not true. They are really nice people. It is Islington council who are the monsters, not our staff.
'We want our staft bac ut onlv if al our home can stay open.
•'Thank you to everyone who has supported this dispute. Thank you.
Susan, Irene John, Gill, Marcella.
Despite being 100% in the right, it looks like the strikers may be beaten by NALGO's own highly bureaucratic structures. Because official support for all-out action will only be given after a ballot of the members taken, the action has been running on a day-to-day basis that has weakened its impact.
If there isn't a 3 majority for action in the ballot, a return to work is likely.
But this action is only a taste of what will come if Britain's first SDP council keeps on the way it has begun.