MOUNTING CONCERN among ENC membership over threats to jobs and serVices nas forced the leaders of the National and Local Government Officers Association to support the 17 November day of action against the cuts.
A recent NALGO survey revealed that 30,000 White collar local government posts are vacant. And figures discussed recently by Government and local authority officials are said to imply that 9,000 further jobs are about to be lost, including 4,000 through redundancy.
Yet despite this increasing danger to their members' jobs, the NALGO bureaucrats have been two-faced in their support for 17 November and have made no effort to build a united turn-out of NALGO's 600,000 members.
In a letter dated 20 October, NALGO general secretary Geoffrey Drain told branch secretaries that members have THIS IS IT! Your bia chance to show the world your unrecognised literary genius. Red Weekly plans to publish issue and invites submissions from budding authors. There will be a host OT Dizes ano or course mes magic Suggested length is 2,000 words.
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All readers are encouraged to submit Weekly (Short official union backing to stop work for half a day in the London area and a whole day in other areas, where necessary ....' But Drain also writes: No memoer, however, can be instructed to take part, and no-one, therefore, can be disciplined for not participating.
This scabs' charter, which deliberately strengthens the hand of the right wing in every branch, will ensure that only the most militant minority of branches take strike acton on it Ivovember Most branches will only be able to send delegations of members who take a day's Cave The reason for this double-dealing by tne NAbOU bureaucrats is nei conunu ing support for the Social Contract. A massive mobilisation of workers against the Labour Government's cuts would ir effect challenge the Labour leaders entire economic policy.
If 'natural wastage' has frozen 500 jobs a week for the last two years, and if tousanas or public service workers are now faced with the sack, it is because the NALGO leaders' support for the Social Contract has allowed these attacks to take place without any real national fight from the union.
Many public sector workers will feel let down by their leaders" failure to mobilise Smp, out mey will not mincenately recos strike in the entire public sector early next year.
However further manoeuvres are on the way from NALGO's leaders. They have been forced to call a special national delegate conference on the cuts in January. But plans are afoot in some quarters of the leadership to use the conference to minimise the union's opposition to service cuts in the name of greater emphasis on job protection.
This would be disastrous. Jobs are highly dependent on the provision of services. To drop the defence of services can only mean weakening the possibility of job protection in the long run. It would also cut off the potential of solidarity Irom private sector workers, wnose.lterest in defending services is clear but who might otherwise see NALGO as selfishly looking after its own jobs alone. the Labour Party.
those like Jack Jones who desperation to the solutions of the racists.
lefts must be forced to fight or stand revealed as fakers.
lefts' vacillating class collaboration. unemployment and racism. Instead they subordinated all these activities to the building of the Socialist Workers Party. In this way they cut themselves off from the potential support which exists among militants who are prepared to fight against the betrayals of the Labour Government but are not prepared to join organisations created by small revolutionary groups - particularly those which proclaim themselves the alternative to The Socialist Worker vote - between 1.5 and 2 per cent - was much what could have been expected of a far left group standing in a by-election. This in itself makes nonsense of any claim that the Socialist Worker candidacy in any way contributed to the defeat in Walsall. It is call for continued support tor the Government's policies who are dragging this Labour Government to defeat at the hands of the Tories. It is Jack Jones and those of his persuasion who drive more backward sections of the working class in But Denis Healey's statement does have a grain of truth. The lefts do share some measure of blame for the defeat - because they have failed to fight against the Tory policies of the Labour Government. Now those A full commitment to a giant mobilisation on 17 November is the first step in that process. But hand in hand with that campaign must be the job of creating a leadership from the rank-and-file of the trade unions and Labour Party who can develop a policy of class struggle to oppose the
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