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tions to be opened with the trade union side was defeated by only one vote.

Clearly management are feeling the pressure and the dispute now in its eightth week is reaching a crucial stage.

Ann Crowder, senior shop steward in NALGO, outlined to Penny Barnett what has happened so far and what direction she sees the dispute taking.

AC: In Notts, we began escalation after the employers' meeting on the 17th, when they failed to come up with anything. We're using selective rolling strikes -six establishments were out last weekend and 13 this weekend.

People have seen that the minimal action isn't getting anywhere and see the need to step up the action, whereas if we had started off with an all-out strike call I believe we'd have got less support.

Is an all-out strike now?

Yes. I believe we ought to be working towards it. The call has got to come nationally because the people who are involved are becoming more aware of the national situation and the need for the whole country to put the pressure on and take strike action. Branches need to demand that the executive call a delegate conference which can authorise the action.

A recent article in SO talked about closing homes by strike action. How do you view this tactic?

In Notts we'll oppose closures. very divisive. It takes away the focus for the strikers, does more damage to the residents and in cost terms is cheaper for the employers. So it's got a lot of advantages for them.

Here in Notts a document is ready for discussion which proposes closure of at least eight homes. Some members are worried that the ban on admissions is showing that care isn't needed so much for kids which may be good in a professional sense but it's not allowing the debaie to go on in a proper way. It means closing homes from cutbacks rather than because the kids don't need to be in care.

So we've allowed temporary staff to go in to establishments instead. They can't provide the Bury IN BURY, three children's homes remain closed, with the NALGO members locked out by management.

Chaos still reigns in relation to these children who have been arbitrarily moved by management to alternative accommodation as far away as Wales, Southport and Liverpool, without informing the social workers or the children's parents.

Suspicions are growing that the council now intends to keep these homes closed as some form of back-stairs privatisation.

A lobby of the council is planned for this coming Wednesday as we go to press. with the employers _ . are left are left exempt from election or In any event, this' democratic reform' rests not upon the mobilisation of union members to active participation, but upon Southwark residential workers, who thought they had forced th council into 'meaningful negotiations' after a Labour group decision last Sunday night, found that negotiators were in fact unwilling to drop their strings and preconditions.

So the strikers are stepping u their campaign of disruption ag ainst council meetings with aggressive mass picketing. Monday night saw over 50 NALGO militants picketing the town hall.

same services we.do but they can ensure that people are safe and fed.

We have recruited many of these temps into NALGO • and they support the action, of the This is a similar problem to the one faced during the health workers' dispute. It's too simplistic either to adopt the position of the Socialist Workers Party, that all-out strikes should be taken without cover, or of Militant, that sections of the working class doing this kind of work should be held back from strike action.

The question needs a full debate inside NALGO and throughout the labour movement.

Is there any kind of link-up between shop stewards and rank and file members in different parts of the country?

• No. And there is a problem with the union delegate meetings which are supposed to be made Taylor pointed out:

'Yet in the real world - not the legal jungle • union officials intervene in strikes to gain control of them and in response to the pleas of the employer who wants to reach a settlement.' one officer from each branch. But it appears that some branches. do not even send a social worker. So we need to get residential social workers together on an unofficial basis to have a full discussion and come to a broad left perspective.

In Notts we have called such a conference (see advert).

The dispute has exposed the need for a broad left based on the rank and file, not on people at District level who just vote each other in.

Many broad left candidates are not on the left at all but may just support Labour Party affiliation or something like that so they've got on the broad left slate when their politics leave a lot to be desired.

What sort of role council played? objected to the fact that things he says in negotiations are raised at County Labour Party meetings, so this seems to raise questions about the control of councillors.

Yes, definitely. We need to firm un nur control and arrann. tability over councillors. We have raised criticisms right from the start when they refused to meet with us until two weeks into the dispute.

And every time they see us now they complain that anything they say will be used against them. But I think it is quite right that elected representatives of the labour movement should always be looking over their shoulders and know that they are answerable to the movement. like to see the councils doing?

They should support the full claim and be campaigning with us, while not expecting us to against the lory cuts, because that's what is being thrown in our face - cut backs and rate capping.

They can have a far more united fight if they support their workers now and pay proper rates and give proper conditions.

Then they could use the base that we've built up to help fight povernment legislation We wnrld GUINEA then be in the forefront of that fight. But obviously they don't want to stand up and fight.

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reduce our action. They should be united with us in the fight