[¡ elicient is the control ne full-timers over…]

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¡ elicient is the control ne full-timers over such eldy branches. With many smali hospitals, I people's homes and pls. to cover, NUPE pusly cannot have a ch in every workplace, the super-branches have me remote from the bership. or district committees lay a real role, the most rtant thing would be to hem the power to make action official, as pros we climb turther up union structure, the sphere becomes thinner all but the hardiest lucrats are overcome fall away. Above the ct committees stand area committees, and • that the eleven diviscouncils. te report has less to about these bodies, from the familiar ! about each of them ring its work etc etc. branches have rather Ito say. or the area committees, sal range from abolitto increased delegate tentation from the it committees. rea committees do have " but they need to be id up and made more ntable. Delegates • support the Tower ets amendment, which for increased representfrom the district comrs, with half the seats nteed for women.

Direct visional councils are • from the area comes, with two extra ters elected from ›nal conference. thes propose a number amendments; among i direct election of or all of the council ters from the branches, : councils the authority ake strike action offiand setting up youth pry committees in each pn. le section of the report draws most critical dments is one of the ast: that on "the role of ill-time officer" was ironic in the campfor reselection of MPs e it supported by fullunion officials who selves remained unclectand • unaccountable. E officials are supposed accountable to the Executive, the body that appoints them (not directly, but through the General Secretary). The report is quite brazen in its argument for retaining the present system, despite the fact that most NUPE officials will privately admit that election will come sooner or later.

The argument is two-faced. It is claimed that "a system of election might encourage to cultivate only the big branches with large votes, rather than concentrating on areas where union organisation is weak" . The same officials are trying their hardest to eliminate the small branches! You can't have it both ways, brothers and sisters!

Another little gem is the argument that if officials are elected "once every three years at most" › there is no opportunity for continually reviewing their work. As if that happens at the moment!

The last argument put forward is the claim that an elected officer would rise like a Bonaparte above the union _committees, pointing justification for pursuing committees. him. the 9% pay offer in the winter of discontent, against the decision of the Executive, is enough to expose this argument.

The union full-timers already have tremendous power. They have control over the apparatus of the union -over its offices, assets, equipment... They control the circuits of information inside the union, and become the official spokespeople for the union to press and TV.

This access to the media enables someone like Alan Fisher to go outside the structure of the union to get the kind of decisions he wants. Initiatives and policies are decided at the regular officers' meetings rather than at the committees.

The feeling of the branches is clear from the amendments: we want to elect our officials on a regular basis, and make them accountable to the membership. The best option would be the election of all full-timers, from general secretary to area officers, once every three years, ---:11.

That is the first step in ofticials, putting it in the IN THE 1970; we saw the first massive cuts in the school meals service with both Tory and Labour governments jacking Up prices, cutting quantity and quality of the food and hours and jobs of school meals stati.

Labour had planned drastic further cuts in school meals if they had been reelected in 1979 (one point that Denis Healey assiduously avoided mentioning in his Deputy Leadership election address to NUPE voters and which the NUPE Executive failed to point out to its members).

Neil Kinnock (Shadow Education Secretary) says categorically that he cannot and will not commit himself to a full restoration of the school meals service if a Labour government returned.

It is the Tory government, however, that has Ieally done the job on school meals, aided and abetted by the many Labour councils who have carried out their policies.

Carlisle's 1981 Education Act made it a free-forall for all local authorities to pick on school meals as an easy option for cuts.

There have been many variations on the same theme - from bumping up prices to phasing the service out altogether.

Lincolnshire, Gloucestershire and Dorset announced cuts in school meals immediately after the Act became dispose ye or l Others were emboldendispensed with 1,200 of their staff. Bromiey, Kent, voted in November 1980 to •provide no hot or cooked meals; 400 out of the 750 staff were to go and the few that remained would dish up iolis, yoghurt and maybe soup.

They are now proposing introducing new contracts for their kitchen staff. They propose to pay them for only 195 days each year and do away with school holiday County uncil retaining the retainer with the right to give them whatever datein including work on jobs they want done, Saturdays. They will lose all sick pay and other benefits from their temporary contracts, with a resulting pay reduction of 23%.

Sack

Devon County has just announced wish to sack the school meals staf Council that they ir entire taking them on again as casual staff after the school holidays.

In a recent Local Government News, Ron Keating, Assistant Secretary, reported that employers on the National Joint Council for Local. Authority Services proposed that the question of arrangements , during school closure periods i.e. retainer fees, should not be part of national agreements but should be subject to local determination. Yet another free-for-ali.

But if the recent history of school meals has been pretty grim, the prospects for the future look even worse.

So what can be done to save the school meals service?

time School meals staff are usually part-time women workers, often with little previous trade union expertence. They neea strong trade union organisation and they need encouragement, guidance and leadership.

Like any other members of the working class, if they have a clear, positive course of action proposed to them and they are convinced of the effectiveness of that action, and that they have got the necessary support and backing from their union, then they will fight.

' But in his letter to the Prime Minister on the Kent proposals, Alan Fisher talks of the Tories picking on women who are least likely to and would be least effective if they took strike action.

In fact, in every meeting of NUPE that I've been to the leadership have claimed that the problem with school meals is that our membership won't fight.

The strike in Coventry of school meals workers, cleaners, etc., shows categorically that the members are able and willing to fight and that their action can be effective.

The Executive Council of NUPE states often: that it will "fully support" any opposition to cuts by their membership. But they never spell out clearly and simply gs what kind of effective action school meals staff could take.

We have had masses of full colour brochures and leaflets explaining how to change public opinion by using the local media. We've had school meals workers lobbying Parliament. The membership knows that publicity alone has not and will not save school meals.

In Devon it is probably argued that if school meals staff strike they will be playing into the Council's hands, saving them money and having no impact as they would just be sacked anyway.

Is it being argued that what they are doing to school meals staff today, they could well be doing to caretakers and cleaners tomorrow and teachers the next day?

The teachers are not in NUPE but caretakers are.

They could close all the schools in Devon and make an enormous fight of it, affecting every family and putting enormous pressure on the County Council to back down.

NUPE has advocated a policy of backing local responses to cuts but has refused to give a national lead or call for any form of national strike action.

The Executive argues that to do so is undemocratic and imposing their will on members. The membership has to decide, they say.

Of course the members have to decide, but they need a national lead - a clear coordinated campaign showing why they must all strike together to prevent a further decimation of the service.

Instead it is left up to each area to take action so that the staff are left unaware of the full strength that NUPE has since they are left isolated. They need to be shown how to flex their trade union muscles.

They need to have explained to them the relevance of NUPE's policies on, for examplo, no cover, so that union members refuse to take over cooking meals Mary Ann Todd looks at the industry where • 300,000 jobs are under threat from a kitchen that has been closed with the loss of jobs.

If such action leads to victimisation, then other NUPE members should be immediately called out in their defence.

The local authorities would like to whip up a dog eat dog attitude among school meals workers. Take the meals from this kitchen and your numbers will go up and your job will be saved.

We have to stamp this out and replace it with trade union consciousness _- a class consciousness that we are up against the bosses and not against one another.

The best way of doing this is through action -blacking, strikes - but these actions are never proposed.

It is even argued that if such action is proposed it will put the members off and drive them out of the union.

If it is union membership they are worried about, then the loss arising from the cuts and the destruction of jobs will itself be massive.

In the light of the April 27 Joint National Council and School Meals decision, the time is ripe now for a national strike to be called to protect school meals.

The call should go out for all NUPE members in schools so that all schools are closed and picket lines organised.

If parents cannot send their children to school it will bring the country to a halt just as effectively as any transport or power workers strike.

We must act and through our action show the rest of the trade union movement what is at stake, and why they must join with us to defeat this government and its anti-working class policies.

Pamphlet from Lancashire School Meals Campaign -£l plus post from Margaret Jones, 17 Marlowe Ave, Accrington, Lancs.

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