[La return to work, non-cooperation would be suicide…]

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La return to work, non-cooperation would be suicide.

The defeat of this dispute represents a major setback in the fight against privatisation in Birmingham. The experience of the strike, and the links developed between the two unions, are a positive development - one that will have to be developed and built on in the coming period.

Plans to privatise the cleaning services in. 50 schools will need to be resisted by all-out strike action.

Services can be defended against cuts and privatisation through strike action - directed and maintained by workers, with democratic strike committees, despite the union bureaucrats. The record of the union bureaucracy in the recent dispute illustrates their reluctance to offer clear leadership.

Teresa Munhy ON Paid ads 5p per word, f4 per column inch. Send to Social. ist Organiser (What's On), 28 Middle Lane, London N8.

HARINGEY Socialist Organ iser: fortnightly meetings at Brabant Rd tráde union centre. For details phone 802 0771 o 348 5941. OXFORD Socialist Organiser meetings, Thursdays at 8pm 44b Princes Street. 18 November: Polish workers fight for Solidarnosc. NOTTINGHAM Socialist Organiser meets every Friday 7.30pm at the International Tory governments, But a confrontation over refusal to balance a council budget would be different and unprecedented? What would happen? What tactics would be best? ' Islington Socialist Organiser meeting: speaker, Martin Loughlin. Sunday November 28 Shood Protect Night ko DIE. Hom NedHouse, Caledonian Road. -For baby-sitting, phone-Nik, 607 5268.

SOUTH EAST London Socialist Organiser forums. every other Thursday, 8pm at the Queen Victoria, Artillery Place, Woolwich.

LONDON Workers' Socialist League educationals on basic Mar and nation dism, Fridal '. Friday November 26, 7.30pm. For details of venue, write to WSL, PO Box 135., London N1 ODD.

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followed by moves for a sellout. Martin Thomas asks why SASTRI S&KSTRIKE The strike continues at S&K cash and carry in Birmingham.

Messages/money: S&K strike committee, c/o 88 King ANNE Marie Sweeney, the NUPE militant threatened with expulsion from the union by witch-hunting Oxfordshire officials, has received strong backing from the local Trades Council.

When the letter from TSKE BUILDIN George's Avenue, Coventry. area officer Alf Collier, announcing that Anne Marie (because of her suspension from NUPE) is no longer a delegate, was read to Oxford Trades Council, delegates reacted with anger and surprise. As a consistent attender and activist in Trades Council campaigns, Anne Marie has been at the forefront of struggles - particularly those involving defence of public sector jobs and services.

A fellow NUPE home help spoke out strongly in Anne Marie's defence, and Trades Council secretary Marie Campbell was instracted to write to NUPE stressing the value of Anne Marie's contribution and the Trades Council's surprise and concern at losing her as a delegate.

There was a similar response at the next day's meeting of the Oxfordshire County Association of Trades Councils, of which Anne Marie is President, and a letter is also to be sent from the CATC to NUPE on the issue.

Anne Marie's 'crime' is to query ballot procedures in election, in her branch, NUPE County, where she has been assistant secretary and shop steward representing home helps on a county level.

She is at present suspended from the union pending the outcome of a branch appeal to the National Executive Committee demanding she be expelled. - NUPE branches and committees across the country should add their voices to the Trades Council protests, by sending resolutions to the NEC. Please send copies of any resolutions passed to Anne Marie Sweeney, c/o Oxford Trades Council, 167 Walton Street, Oxford.

The 'all-out ON October 28, the health workers' pay dispute reached a high point. The union leaders of the TUC health service committee called for an all-out indefinite strike (with accident and emergency cover). . Within days the dispute plunged to a low point. Union leaders called off the November 8 transport/ health strike; and then agreed to put to their members a pay offer worse than the previous one. - Why the turnabout? The truth is that both high point and low point were sides of the same coin.

If the union leaders were really out to win the 12% claim as swiftly and surely as possible, then the all-out strike call would have come months earlier. Instead they organised a level of activity which showed them as maintaining the campaign - without raising the heat too much. • Such a stop-start campaign could indeed, as Albert Spanswick of CoHSE once declared, continue until next spring at least. Spanswick: "We'll carry till spring".

For the union leaders, that would be fine; for the government, it would not be much worry.

Health workers, however, wanted a pay campaign not for show but to get results! By October all the varieties of token action had been tried out - and the rank and file were sick 1 • 800] of it.

Thus the call for all-out strike - which put the union leaders on the spot.

While the campaign remained at the level of one trial shot after another, it was no trouble for the union leaders to take a principled stand and reject the Tories' miserable offers. But after October 28 matters became serious!

Settle or escalate decisively, was the choice. So they rushed to settle at all costs.

The NUPE leadership have generally maintained a more combative stance than CoHSE and most other unions. They have described the offer as 'ludicrous' and may well recommend rejection.

Good. But their line -as expressed for example by leading NUPE official Ron Keating - runs something like this: "The offer is lousy. But you must understand that the Tories are stubborn, and the only other option is all-out strike.

'As tor us, ot course, we would be happy to lead the most militant action imaginable. But members should think over whether they are really ready for indefinite action'.

In short, they keep their noses clean while doing everything to discourage the members.

These manoeuvres harm the campaign. They cannot, however, wipe out the no.109 November experience gained in seven months of action, or the sinews developed through joint shop stewards' committees and local coordinating committees.

Even trial-shot actions develop local leadership and organisation. And that rank and file strength -beginning to link up nationally, in a small way, through networks like the Sheffield stewards' meetings and Health Workers for the Full Claim - can thwait the union leaders' attempt to lop the head off the campaign at the point where it is about to reach beyond trial shots.

The miners' vote not to Stake dis puken ock strike • а клоск го tht that's true.

But Arthur Scargill and other militant leaders of the miners themselves have not let that vote knock them flat on their backs - on the contrary, they are talking about a new baliot for action on pit closures alone. So what justification can there be for health unions collapsing?

The 12% can still be won. Maintaining and extending the local committees, making them pressure on and alternative to the top official leadership, is key to victory.

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

loto NUPE expulsion Why the turn-about on NHS pay?

TIGI NO No REDUNDANC

&GW DUNDAN

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