Who fetches the water

Scan page 12

rather than the usual rate of in the failure to take up under 50%. another health-promoting The male lack of inter- technology. Efforts to introest in energy for cooking duce sanitary toilets to Third explains the failure of India's World villages have been first community Biogas plant almost universally unsuccessin a village in Uttar Pradesh. ful and there are now some The plant, which supplies 1500 million people without cooking gas from cow dung access to adequate sanitavaca of aoout excrenon.

Male domination of drinking water. Fetching decision-making has resulted water is exclusively the job *Last chance to go to the BSSR Conference in Manchester. Major debates will be held on developing socialist policies for science and technology, both in Britain and Europe, with speakers from France, Germany (the Greens), and from the Dutch "science shops"

There will also be discussion groups on Science, Medicine and the Bomb, Politics of Cancer, Media and Propaganda (2.4,5T and byssinosis, Public Health and Pollution and The conference starts at 10.30am this Saturday at Manchester Business School, Booth St. West, Manchester women, young, old and even pregnant, do this work.

If the forest were sold, each would have to walk some 50% further for wood, a crippling burden which far outweighed the alleged benefits of the potato farm. Though opposed by fathers, husbands and sons, the women fought and won.

Women also form the backbone of support for the Chipko movement, based in nearby Gopeshwar. This movement protects forests from government-sponsored logging companies. Its members buy trees to stop their being cut down. The history of the mavamant ie of a HUYCHIVIIL 1O us a series of spontaneous risings by village women to protect their last reserves of fuel and fodder from commercial lumberjacks, and even from their own men who would rather have the cash.

The Chipko movement is currently running the most successful re-foresting scheme in India, precisely because it recognises the interest of the women in fuel and fodder trees (as opposed to cash crop trees). The women take regular care of young: trees, resulting in a survival rate of up to 90% to all households, was a great technical success. But the "community" started losing interest in it and supplies of dung. dwindled. (Male) community leaders explained that they were more interested in power for agricultural machinery than with cooking energy. Meanwhile, the women have gone hank tn tho Arudmartr of collecting wood and dung to burn on family stoves. many more.

13.

Scan page 13

-outrejected -Foot backs picket— -oste LOCAL Labour MPs Frank Dobson and Jock Stallard will be among those supporting the demonstration outside Arlington House hostel, Camden, this Thursday 25th.

42 workers at this hostel for single men are on strike for an increase in their wages of around £30 per week. On Thursday night the hostel owners, Rowtons, will be implementing the court order they have obtained to evict the strikers from their rooms in the hostel.

A vigil will start at 8pm and run through the night. Also expected to. attend picket are Camden and I Greater London Labour cour icillors, Fire Brigades general secretary Ken Cameron, and newly-elected Peckham MP Harriet Harman.

Lack of active support from the strikers' . own union, the. TGWU, has been a major problem in this dispute. But the strike was on the agenda of the union's General Executive Committee last Saturday, and convenor Jack Jenkinson told us that he hoped to see moves soon for official blacking.

The strikers are picketing and seeking blacking at three London hotels owned by Rowtons - the Mount AT LAST Friday's mass meeting of the 80 DHSS strikers in Oxford, CPSA Section Executive Committee member Mick Duggan moved acceptance of the latest offer to come from talks between the unions and the Department.

The offer was unanimously rejected, and the strikers have sent the CPSA National Executive Committee off to re-think how to lead the fight for jobs now being waged in Birmingham and Oxford.

The CPSA NEC had voted only 13 to 12 to recommend acceptance. The SCPS NEC continued. to recommend rejection it was virtually the same offer as was rejected by the strikers back on October 27.

In his speech Mick Duggan said that the establishment of a Joint Working Group to discuss the comdiementing system in the DHSS was seen by the CISA NOC the hook'.

This is leading members from behind. DHSS ministers have the firm backing of the government to ride this dispute out. This strike is a challenge to the government's policy of job cuts in the public sactor, and most of those on strike are beginning to realise this.

They went on strike for permanent posts and are determined to get them. The CPSA NEC now has to back this determination by escalating the dispute to an all-out strike in the DHSS.

Possible ways of escalation such as a one-day department-wide strike in support of Birmingham and Oxford were raised by SCPS official Geoff Tice when he moved for rejection of the offer. CPSA president Kevin Roddy came in at the end of the meeting, after the vote, to say that such a one-day strike would have to be worked for by the delegations going out from Oxford to other offices. He said its success or failure would show whether continued escalation would be possible.

Those on strike should be asking Roddy and the rest of the Executive what they are going to do. Will there be a national instruction, with Section Execu tive members touring branches to argue for strike action?

An excellent opportun..

RICHARD HORTON, Midlands regional secretary of the CPSA DHSS section, spoke to Socialist Organiser. November 1982 13 ity to esk such questions will arise at this weekend's CPSA Broad Left conference in Leeds. The importance of the DHSS strike makes it imperative for all SO supporters in the CPSA to attend.

ALAN STEPHENS • Oxford: mass pickets Monday and Friday, 7am to 9am at Harcourt House. Pickets all morning, and then 3pm to 5pm. Donations and messages of support to M.Robertson, 24 Beechcroft Road, Summertown, Oxford.

options now are pretty limited.

The obvious aim must be to extend the action to other. areas. We certainly rised to