CPSA claim £ 12

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payment centres run and ine, rather than of the organised by management, lives ofthe unemployed. trary arguments from the strength, and our possibiliright wing and (from a ty of victory, lies. 80 DHSS workers in Oxfor and over 500 in Birmingham are on strike to win extra staffing to deal with the extra workload caused by escalating unemploy. ment.

There are mass pickets i Oxford every Monday and Friday morning, from 7am at Harcourt House.

Donations to M.Robertson, 24 Beechcroft Rd, Oxford; and to Richard Horton, CPSA, Room 337, Fiveways House, Islington Row, Birmingham B15.

TG WU members at Air India struck on July 2 after the sacking of a shop steward, and are fighting for management to abide by agreements signed with the union. Air India has sacked the strikers, in a clear move to break the union.

Help on the picket lines at New Bond St and Heathrow, and send donations to Air India TGWU, c/o Transport House, 7-9 South Road, Southall, Middlesex.

ASIAN workers at the Sandhar and Kang cash and carry warehouse in Coventry came out on September 22 demanding unconditional withdrawal of redundancy noticeds and recognition of their union, the TGWU. Their biggest handicap has been the refusal of the TGWU to make the strike official; contact strike committee, c/o 88 King George's Ave, Foleshill, Coventry.

AT P.S.Raindi in Smethwick, 200 Asian women and men have now been on strike for ten weeks.

Raindi last week called for ACAS to arrange talks CPSA's Special Pay Conference saw no surprises. On every major issue the Civil Service Executive Committee (CSEC) got their way.

The conference agreed to carry on talking to the Tories with commitappeal ON December 8 at Halifax Magistrates Court two pickets arrested on August 12 at Halifax General Hospital had their trial postponed for six months.

The postponement was due to an appeal by the West Yorkshire police prosecutor against a not guilty verdict returned two weeks ago on six pickets arrested at the same hospital the day before and charged with obstructing the highway.

This sort of appeal is extremely rare. The reason given is to ensure that future trade unionists tried for similar offences (most pickets are tried under obstruction laws) cannot use the Halifax verdict in their favour.

The Magistrates accepted that obstruction was indeed done, but that the offence was so minor it was a waste of time bringing it before the courts. In fact the Official Prosecutor sees it as a threat to the new Tebbit laws now in force. Two of the six arrested were secondary pickets.

Mr Tebbit and the West Yorkshire police wouldn't like to see all of Tebbit's hard work undone on a decision made by local magistrates. If the magistrates decision is overturned, the only part of the "community" • to benefit will be the police, Tories and bosses. ment' about pay bargaining and the Megaw report. Many delegates, however, argued that the Tories warnings of a 3½ % cash limit, 'no strike clauses' to be attached to any future pay bargaining system, and the general Tebbit offensive against trade unions, make such talks futile.

On this year's pay claim, conference backed the CSEC line of going for £12 and supporting an underpinning percentage (less than 12% for higher grades organised by other unions. Unfortunately the middle-grade SCPS has already gone for a £12/12% claim, and this will strengthen the hands of the higher grade unions when a joint claim is formulated in the Council of Civil Service Unions.

The only surprise was that delegates insisted on including a 35 hour week and six weeks annual leave in the claim, against CSEC opposition.

The major debate in the afternoon centred on the proposal that future industrial action would be all out.

The CSEC opposed cooperation with emergency and easily defeated condifferent angle) from Militant.

But the speech for the victorious policy by senior vice-president Ray Alderson, a Morning Star supporter, showed its major weaknesses. He argued that with no emergency centres the strike action would be for a shorter period. This is untrue - and seems to imply that we would want to use the plight of claimants as a weapon.

Such a tactic would be wrong. And it would hand a major weapon to the hypocritical Tory governany price' Together with no cooperation with the emergency, centres, socialists should propose fuil support for other unions such as NALGO and UCW to help in getting claimants their money. while safeguarding members' conditions, and showing that unions care about claimants where the Tories do not.

We must also build towards an effective all-out strike with mass picketing of fuel depots etc., and mass disruption of tha renrommont manh- governmenl That is where our

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SOCIETY SERVANTS

ment, and to those in the TUC who want 'peace at