School meals massacre A FIGHTBACK FROM THE KITCHENS

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reviewed the rise of the school meals services -its decimation by cuts in recent years. This week looks at the politics and tactics of the fight back Socialist Organiser Alliance anised!

If you agree with what we have to say, you can help. Become a supporter of the Socialist Organiser Alliance -groups are established in most large for more information, write at once • MOUNTING its cuts in hool meal services, the ory government has been sle to count on the fact at trade union resistance ould be restricted to areay-area struggles, usually schools which would ildom be closed by strike tion of meals staff -ince children would in any ient be sent in with packI lunches.

Staff on strike under such inditions of isolation raply become demoralised id feel that their struggle pointless.

Early this year in his tter to the nrime minister i the Kunt proposals, lan Fisher talked of the ories "picking on women ho are least likely to and ould be least effective if ey took strike action"

In other words, don't ck us, we're weak and unerable and can't fight Ick. NUPE's national adership says this instead looking at ways of 'ercoming the weaknesses school meals staff taking rike action alone, by inging out other sections ongside them.

As for school meals womi being unwilling to fight, is is patently untrue.

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Last year the mass strike in Coventry showed that they are willing and able, and can be effective.

This year, employers on the National Joint Council for local authorities service have said that the question of the arrangements during school closure periods (i.e., the retaining fee) should not be part of the national arrangement but should be subject to local determination.

And some local authorities decided to pre-empt the plan.

Devon County Council announced that they wished to sack their entire school meals staif before the summer holidays, taking them on again on annual employment in the autumn term.

Retainer

Kent announced that they wanted to employ kitchen staff for only 195 days each year to do away with school holiday retainer fees, sick pay and any other conditions of service. They also want the right to give the women whatever catering jobs they want, including work on Saturdays and paper. in the in the not just a paper.

meals raise .

wedding receptions.

The resulting pay reduction would be about 23%. Both Kent and Devon al cl CE the anii ... .

questions of the politics of for chool meals staff struck at re time of NUPE's annual onference.

It is hard to convey to nyone not present at that onference the depth of nger and frustration of chool meals staff.

On the day for local authrity members, it Was almly announced from the latform that sincè the last inference there had been loss of 37,000 employees i local authorities - main'from school meals.

The women there, cononting their leaders on le predominantly male latform, wanted to de¡and inhon thou TArO buey were bing • to do i something vout it. When were the adership going to stop tting them be picked off tchen by kitchen, county y county?

Action

When were they going to discuss how the Devon, Kent, and Cheshire strikers could win, and what action we should take nationally over the dropping of the retainer fee?

When were they going to say encugh is enough? • The platform listened while school meals workers demanded national action, and wider support, like the health workers were to be given - while delegates demanded some effective leadership, because they knew members who couldn't see the point in being in the union any more and were ready to tear up their cards.

Moved on The NEC listened, and wound up the debate saying that they would back any local action. Then they moved on to next business.

Other school meals workers in the country are never directly told of the action that their sisters on strike are taking, or how they can help. The EC and NCs never spell out clearly and simply what kind of effective action school meals staff can take.

On the question of the retainer fee, it has to be argued nationally and locally that what councils are doing to school meals today they'll do to caretaker and cleaners tomorrow, and the teachers after that.

Instead of NUPE officials utilising the problems that exist in often poor relations between the NUT and NUPE members as an excuse for not attempting to close down schools, every attempt should be made to establish good communications within each school, even if it is just on health and safety committees.

Only through such initiatives can we ensure that a national strike of school meals, caretakers and cleaners to stop any further cuts could enlist the rank and file support of the teachers in closing down the schools.

At the national conference of NUPE there were school meals staff of three counties on strike; the Wandsworth dust fighting to extend their action; the health workers on strike; and NUPE water workers declaring that they would take action in support of the NHS struggle.

Every NUPE member was threatened; the time was ripe for a solid, all out national strike of NUPE.

The leadership were determined, however, that everyone was to remain isolated, fighting their own battles. And the group to pay the highest price for this is undoubtedly the school meals women.

If local authorities are given any further powers to attack school meals staff, sacking or employing them at will, it will be the end of trade union organisation in school meals, and the end of the service itself.

The strongest pressures must be put on local Labour Party wards, GCs, and councils to take seriously the fight against school meals cuts.

A fight has to be taken up with those who argue that children don't like them, and prefer junk food, that they're stodgy and not worth the money. What they say is partly true -but that's in itself a direct result of cuts.

The meals are stodgy because it 's cheaper to use starchy foods to fill plates up, as kitchen staff are given tiny portions of meat, fish, cheese, etc.

The junk food market has blossomed on the decline of school meals. Food companies with an eye to the highly lucrative packed lunch market for crisps, soft drinks, cups of soup, cartoned desserts, etc, bombard children with seductive ads.

Very often school meals aren't worth the money. School meals staff are all too well aware of who profits from school meals.

Private food supplies to the school meals service rival drug companies which supply the NHS in leeching and sucking dry public funds.

Staff often complain, for example, that it would be cheaper to go up the road and shop at the local supermarket for (say) bacon, than to pay the price Walls charge to deliver to each school. There are no central tores, only an anarchy o individual competitor: fighting for contracts.

When county councils argue that there is no money to continue the service or that the prices must go up to make the service 'viable', we need committees of users, parents, and workers to demand to see the books for themselves.

For example, why, when it is cutting all hot meal provision, is Bromley (Kent) Council spending £176,000 on taking out usable equipment and equipping?

For socialists the question of school meals raises questions of the politics of food.

The school meals service points immediately to the need to nationalise food suppliers. It is, however, not only the question suppliers. Communal catering needs to be subsidised.

Not only should school meals be extended and made available, for exampie, to pensioners, unemployed, and homeless, but the point should be emphasised that much of women's lives is embroiled in the individual preparation, cooking, and serving of food.

School kitchens show the logic of one, not a hundred, kitchens making 100 meals. And school meals have traditionally broken down individual privileges. They were established to ensure that every child had the right to a cheap (if not free, hot, square meal each day.

The act of eating together is an important social event, making children feel part of a community wider than the individual family gathered at home around the table.

Socialists have sadly neglected the job of arguing and fighting in defence of school meals, many probably thinking that it won't be that great a loss to the working class if they go.: The left in the trade unions must join with the left in the community, in Labour Party wards, in parent-teacher associations, and with the school meals workers themselves in putting pressure on the public sector union leadership to organise effective action against the cuts.

Unless they do so, this leadership can carry on doing nothing, with nobody noticing or caring except the tens of thousands of women who will lose their jobs, the mothers who will have yet more work to do every day with yet another meal to prepare, and the children who will suffer from hunger and hardship and \- yes! -malnutrition.

* Thanks to the Lancashire School Meals Campaign's excellent booklet 'Now You See Them, Now You Don't' - available, with further information on the LSMC, for £1 from Margaret Jones, 17 Marlowe Ave., Baxenden, Accrington, Lancashire.