Wakefield occupation

Scan page 14

RITA HALL was at the Health Fightback conference from the Sandal nursery occupation in Wakefield.

The nursery has been occupied since December 23 in response to the Labour council's decision to close it.

The 11 nursery workers, members of NUPE and NAIGO have support from parents and from the local Labour Party.

Council unions are refusing to cooperate with the closure, and the rades Counci has called on electricity and gas workers to maintain supplies.

Glasgow's Labour-controlled The District Labour Party has voted to keep the nursery open, and expressed no confidence in the council.

Councillors involved are liable to be de-selected. 8,000 signatures were won in a single day for a petition to keep the nursery open.

But this has had no impact on the Labour council leadership -run by Jack Smart, a prominent dignitary in Labour local government decisions.

They have already broken another nursery occupation, at Langthwaite Grange, sending in private contractors.

Langthwaite Grange nursery was sited in an industrial unit, which has been sold to a neighbouring company. The land on which Sandal nursery stands has ready been sold - but the council isn't saying to whom.

Both nurseries cater (or catered) for families with severe problems, children at risk of battering, elc.

The council is pursuing legal action to get possession of the nursery, and the occupiers need financial support for their legal costs. Send donations to Sam Steward, 'Save Our Nurseries Appeal Fund' , c/o Labour Club, Vicarage St., Wakefield.

fignt the more active Glasgow Freeze Campaign.

The campaign lacks a clear leadership committed to serious fight.

Socialists have to take the campaign into Labour Party and trade union branches and tenants associations at grassroots level, arguing the case for opposition both to rent and rate increases and to job losses, using the forthcoming District Council elections to help build a campaign, and stepping up the fight for accountability of the District Labour Group.

By May we need to have a newly elected Labour council, committed to fighting the Tories, with all escape routes blocked off to prevent it ducking out of confrontation, and backed up by a united, Glasgow-wide campaign, based on trade unions, the Labour Party and tenants associations. bers?

Ford workers' unity? FORD plant shopfloor leaders who met at the weekend, issued a statement saying that all plants would act in mutual solid. arity if the future of any was threatened.

Representatives from most of Ford's European car plants called for full consultation on the company's future plans; with a ban on any investment in one country which leads to disinvestment in another, and a call for a shorter working week.

Under threat now are the Dagenham foundry and petrol engine production in the UK, Eire's Cork assembly plant and plants in Portugal.

Ford is planning to open a new plant in Mexico. The Mexican workers — with maybe 40% of them unemployed or only casually employed - will understand why European workers want to defend jobs.

But how can they understand European workers making opposition to the Mexican plant part of this defence of iobs?

International workers' unity should not stop at the frontiers of Europe.

Low pay

A REPORT by the Low Pay Review "Setting Record Taxes Straight" - says that the poor in the UK are now the most heavily taxed in Europe.

Since 1979 the low paid have seen their tax bill double, with taxes on the average family increasing by 6%.

The UK also has a higher starting tax rate on the low paid - greater than any other EEC country, the US, Canada, and japan.

However, the rich over the same period (since the Tories took office!) have seen : their taxes decline to a point where they contribute only three pence in the pound of all tax revenue, 25% less than five years ago.