Social workers fight privatisation

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NALGO's weak leadership threatened the strike's success where management had creates, STRIKING social Corkers in Birmingham - have stepped up the fight against sackings and the introduction of privatisation of the city's social services.

The management consultative company, Price Waterhouse, employed by the city council, has ostensibly been given the job of conducting an "efficiency study" with a view to making "cost cutting changes" wi.e.cuts.

Nobody employed by Social Services is under any illusions about its real job, however, that of laying the basis (with the information collected) for a massive programme of It was because of this awareness, and NALGO's and NUPE's policy of non cooperanon with frice Taina Waterhouse that the sackings of three social workers, followed by a mass walk-out of some 9,500 council employees, occured.

The last week of October saw the real battle beginning - maintaining and extending the strike in the face of attempts by the bureaucracy of both unions to weaken and deflect the action.

First, the day after the walk outs, NALGO ordered all except social workers back to work.

NUPE, following suit, promised strike pay only to social workers and those on strike who worked in establishments where NALGO was on strike and in the majority.

In other words, NUPE members were told in no uncertain terms that they could not initiate any action, only follow NALGO.

''This is NALGO's dispute, not ours" was the refrain heard over and over.

The following week showed how determined wère the strikers, despite NUPE and NALGO's weak leadership.

By the end of last week emergency cover had been removed from virtually all of the 13 area offices (from which the majority of social workers are based).

Emergency cover had been organised and provided by the strikers, but gained entry into the offices, this was withdrawn leaving management running the offices.

Duty

By the middle of the week the emergency duty telephone workers (who provide an emergency service across the whole of the city) had all come out.

When a leading NALGO steward was named as the first defendant in a list of about 20 in an ex parte injunction (ordering relaxation of picketing of an area office) obtained by management, one area office was totally abandoned.

Management had presumably sought the injunction in order to have access to files. It is anticipated that the law will be used further to make social workers attend in court by the use of witness summons.

Since some of these cases involve child abuse, some social workers may well feel the necessity of attending court rather than allowing children to return home (the immediate effect of lapsing of a court order) despite the obvious weakening effect this will have on the strike.

While questions of this sort may involve "professional" considerations, the strikers need to be clear on the management's use of the law and police. When Price Waterhouse were turned away from an area office one morning by a 150 strong picket, they were then allowed in in the afternoon when escorted by large numbers of police; yet this was hailed as a 'victory' because no one was arrested!

Fears of losing their jobs after the dispute is capitalist profiteering is the basis for demanding the nationalisation, under workers' management, of all such private firms parasitically feeding off public services; for their integration into a fully publiclynO MORE over as a result of being arrested appear to blind even the more experienced activists to the principled position of fighting any such victimisation as and when it happens.

Weak picketing, w hich fears of arrests crei tes, will certainly not win the strike.

The major problem facing the strikers is the extending of the strike the organisation provision ot emergency cover.

Previous social work strikes in Liverpool and Tower Hamlets, lasted for many months. The provision of emergency cover apparently maintained most of the essential services and thereby weakened the effectiveness of the strike action.

In Birmingham, the problem of emergency cover has been most acute in the residential childrens homes (other homes have been on a NALGO exemption list). At the beginning of the -strike these were operating under emergency cover - but very shortly the workers in these homes became frustrated by the fact that the emergency cover they were providing was greater than normal staffing levels!

It was partly this factor and partly their history of militancy from a Tory attempt in 1978 to close all childrens homes, that led to the decision to take the children from some homes and hand them over to management.

With the childrens' cooperation (many of whom had been expressing solidarity with their social workers) this was done and the management took control of the children.

When this tactic was repeated the next day the management called the strıkers olun anu u klaff and in typically callous way refused to take any responsibility for the children and went home.

This, together with NALAN'e deciaion not. tn make this action official resulted in utter chaos and confusion that seriously threatened the whole of the strike at the end of the first week.

Although seemingly a good idea, the effect of such a tactic was to play into the hands of management by giving them complete control. To effectively strengthen and expand the strike, all residential homes must be occupied under the control of the strikers, who must be prepared to take 'unofficial" action to win this strike and the battle against There are 12,000 NUPE PAYI FOR THREE successive pay rounds, the Tories have beaten the civil service unions, and now they are preparing for round 4 in 1983.

A 32% cash limit for public sector pay bargaining was announced as the inquiry into civil service pay headed by Judge Megaw concluded.

The Megaw report recommends the scrapping of the previous method of pay barganıng, based on 'fair comparison' with other employers. It proposes a number of strict controls on civil service pay bargaining, calculated not only further to reduce civil servants' living standards but to cripple the Besides recommending very limited access to any arbitration system, Megaw wants the introduction of US-style 'cooling off periods" before industrial action on Internally they want to see "job evaluation' techniques, and the use of 'management consultants'. . 'Market forces' should be considered, and any figures arrived at by comparison with outside industry revised downwards on grounds of civil servants' greater job security.

As part of the build-up towards the 1983 pay fight, a special delegate conference has been called for December 9 by the executive of the CPSA, the biggest civil service union. Conference delegates will have to decide whether to go along with the Megaw inquiry conclusions, fix the claim for 1983, and decide the type of industrial action to be organised.

The reaction of the CPSA executive so far has not been adequate to prepare the membership for the fight.

For reasons of 'realism', they have gone for a meagre £12 claim, and for a phased introduction of a £90 minimum wage.

The Left needs to campaign for a wage increase of not less than £20 flat rate. CPSA members have suffered declining living standards over the past four years. I the argument is that a low target of £12 will seem more "realistic' and is more likely to involve the members, then the CPSA leadership are kidding themselves.

Either we have good arguments for our claim, and the Research Department figures on comparative rates of similar workers support us, or some sort of game is being played.

The serious danger is that in the search for unity with the other civil service unions, the CPSA EC may have sold short the lowerpaid grades that it organises before the fight begins.

The 1983 pay fight has one major difference for all the civil service unions. On the previous pay claims, the union leadership drew legitimacy' from the semi-official figures published by or drawn from the government Pay Research Unit.

But now PRU has been scrapped, and in 1903 the civil service unions stand on our own both in the arguments for the claim, and in the way we are going to have to fight.

Unlike previous years, there is neither the money nor the will for a long drawn out strategy of selective strikes. The only alternative now is ali-out industrial action.

There must be a fight for such a policy at the CPSA special conference, rogether with plans to protect claimants and the unemployed from the effects of the action and secure their support.

Will

Movements, a gay disco run each Saturday in an Islington pub, has been

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by Tere Munby