[AT A PACKED meeting of 300 people, Rowlatts…]

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AT A PACKED meeting of 300 people, Rowlatts Hill tenants' association has voted unanimously to give a lead to Leicester tenants in refusing to pay the rent increase due on April 5.

Rents in Leicester are going up 40 per cent. Together with the rate increase, this will mean that a one bedroom flat in a tower block on the estate will cost £30 a week, while families will be paying between £38 and £40 a week for a threebedroom council house.

Harry Wakefield, secretary of the local association and a Labour Party member, pointed out that the reduction in government subsidies from £11.4 million to £4.4 million accounts for an betra sacked for trade union actiyity. They organised a daily picket line outside the shop and won a lot of sympathy from customers and delivery drivers.

They needed USDAW to make it an official strike and to campaign to impose increase of £6.43 a week per tenancy.

Last Saturday, tenants from the whole of Leicester, including a large contingent of women from Rowlatts the in ceases stratting canst The increases spoutne can l buy Won't Pay, and Tories A lot of anger was expressed by tenants t owards the leader of the Labour city council, when he put all the blame for the rises on the Tories, said that the council had to get the money in, and would not guarantee that the bailiffs would not be called in.

An angry tenant from Rowlatts Hill stressed that he was a Labour supporter, yal blacking and shut down Foyles. After long delays there were rumours (reported in SO 77) that USDAW had indeed made the dispute official. But in fact USDAW leaders have done nothing but sabotage the struggle. but he expected the Labour council to be acting on behalf of working people and giving a leac for the freeze.

The same Labour council put bus fares up the same week as the rent increases were notified.

Support for the rent freeze is growing. Rowlatts Hill association, are planning to publicise it with letters and a poster campaign, and have called an open-air rally on the estate.

It is important that the ireeze is extended to include a refusal to pay the rates increase, and a fight against the cuts. It is also important that Rowlatts Hill sends speakers to other parts of the city, and continues to fight for support from the Labour Party and trade The local Labour Party ward is already supporting the struggle, and has leafleted the estate. And a resolution through a Leicester South ward has called for no evictions by the city council.