[WHEN the vast majority of Lothian Region's employees…]

Scan page 8

WHEN the vast majority of Lothian Region's employees came out on one day strike on 30 June. last year.-in support of Lothian's stand against the cuts, it-was a magnificent demonstration of the determination and strength of the movement.

But it was to be a shortlived thing. There were two main factors in the tragic change from the determination of the 30th to the situation a few weeks later, when union leaders were able to say to the Labour Group:

"We can get no support from our members. You must implement the cuts rather than 'slip into illegality'"

The first was the weakness of the Labour Group's position from the start. They implemented a massive rates rise to compensate for the government's vicious cut in the Kate Support Grant. That immediately took the once campaign out of the hands of the rank and file. The Labour Group's message to the working class in Lothian (despite pious statements to the contrary) was in effect, We'll juggle the figures, we ате the campaign, your job is to express support.

- It was no way to build a rank and file-based campaign.

Rates rises hit clearly at the working class as well as city centre business. In Pilton, one of the most deprived housing schemes in Scotland, rates (which are paid by council tenants as part of their rent) are amongst the highest in Edinburgh. Pilton is classed laughably - as suburban.

It is a sad fact that the media could blame the situthey had "juggled the figures" with a rates rise rather than going to the labour movement to start THE Tories claim that council rents are too low -so Heseltine is demanding that all councils slap £2.50 onto the rent.

Councils are making their decisions this month. And most, Tory and Labour, are obliging. Some are even going one better. Westminster will put their rents up by £4.50.

And the rent is only part of the story. After increased rates and heating charges, many tenants will be paying £5 or £7 more.

In line with the Tories' policy of cutting public services to help private profit, and of driving people into the market for private housing, council houses are being sold off, money is being cut from the Housing Improvement Programmes (HIP), hardly any new building is being done = and the rents are going up.

Over 70% of all the cuts in public spending have been made in housing -council housing. And one of the way the Tories are doing this is by cutting the subsidy to Housing Rent Accounts.

In the past these subsidies have worked to keep rents down (relatively) in a similar way to tax relief on mortgages for private house-owners.

The common claim that council tenants are subsidised by everyone else is a myth - it's not true. The reality is that both council bennets cupiers singsidise subsidise the money-lenders, the big property and landowners, and the banks.

Frittered away

Most of the money we pay in rent is frittered away into the coffers of big business and the banks, via interest charges. And people paying off mortgages face the same drain.

Pitting council tenants against house-owners by saying that the rates subsidise the council tenants, or that house-buyers get more subsidy than council ¡tenants, benefits 'no-one. We need a joint fight to get rid of the money-making profiteers whose aim is solely to squeeze us for profit - not to provide housing for need.

The cuts also fall on repairs, maintenance and modernisation, so that the stock that's left is run down and falling into more disrepair - yet for this Heseltine wants us to pay more!

Last weekend 400 tenants from all over the country demonstrated in Walsall (where hundreds of tenants have been refusing to pay last year's increase for 51 weeks now), calling on council tenants nationally to refuse to pay the increase. Speakers called for a national tenants' campaign to organise action.

Some Labour manifestos for the May elections contain a rent freeze policy, and we must make sure that candidates stick to that commitment. We must also challenge councils like Lambeth, who are making no increase now -but plan to put the rents up in October, after the May Council tenants earn less than the average wage, and have to pay more for worse housing. The very least Labour councils should be doing is starting rent freezes. And they should be told that if they won't do it, council tenants will do it themselves.

'Distraint'

Rent arrears are soaring as rents rise. Over £56 million is owed in London. Now Southwark Labour council is planning to use 'distraint' - seizing tenants' possessions without taking prior legal action. This must be stopped.

We have a right to decent houses to live in. Labour councils are elected to represent the interests of working people, not to do the Tories' dirty work for them:

Direct Works ments need to be departexpandTHE on it be the We

Scan page 9

May Election Special FiCH

----- pull-quotes -----

ation on the Labour Group in isolation precisely because

FOR Get

RENT Chartered Surveyors