Last Saturday, Harry Feldman found his home picketed by almost a hundred angry squatters and their supporters, Feldman is a director of Berger's, a property proup notorious for keeping flats empty while their capital gains pile up. The squatters are occupying 11 such flats on one of Berger's private estates in Herne Hill in South London. They are protesting against an expected Court order giving Berger's the go. ahead to send in the heavy boys to evict them. The Herne Hill squat is a new departure for the squatters movement. Usually squats take place in evacuated council houses. Councils often turn a blind eye to squatting because it serves as a means of 'solving the problem of hamelessness. They then evict the sguatters when All out for equal pay Men have once again come out in support of women's demands for progress lowards equal pay. H.K. Porter, an industrial rubber goods factory in Stirling, is in the throes of its first strike in 50 years after management refused to increase the female rate hy HOp to E18 n week, the mimum level essesoc prefec the demolition squads move in. But in Herne Hill, squatters have occupied profitable com mercial property. For this sin, they now face the combined force of the property sharks, the bailifts, the police and the Courts.
Usually, squatters' struggles remain isolated both from one anather and from the other struggles of the working clasa. In this cano, However, the local tenants association is supporting the squat, The tenants have their own landlord problems, as Berger's have continually harassed tenants with fictitious rent arrears and have failed to carry out necessary repais. sup port is aiso coming in from local trade unionists, including some local government workers, and political groups. agreement covering the industry. A deal worked out by union officials and management on Monday, by passing the shop stewards, was overwhelmingly rejected by a mass meeting of strikers the following day, and it looks in creasingly as if the compnay will be forced to concede the workers" demands.
The unoffical strike, by 13 women and 74 men - members of the T&GWU - began on. 19 June, immediately after a pay rise witbin for the squatters movement. The urban housing crisis, in its many aspects, is bemoaned by tenants, the homeless, the Labour Party and trade union mamhers abike. But the many aspects of the crisis are in fact linked together. Booming property values in the private sector, for example, drive up the price of building Land, strangling council housing schemes. By selecting tärgets like Lose in Herne Hill, it is possible to develop centralised campaigns, involving squatters, workers and tenants, Solidarity in such strugeles is now nore vital than ever after Lord Denning's recent ruling that the Courts can no longer delay the execution of an eviction order. Denning also reaffirmed that technically no court order is needed at all by owners wishing to evict squatters. Tha offensive must he countered by stepping up the fight against eviction as the Herne Hill squatters have done. Anne Samson the El plus 4 per cent nori. The management chims that any additional increase world he ilegal, but Phase Two provisions allow the differential between male and female rates to he reduced by a third in 1973.
It was this clause in the pay code which also brought out industrial clerical workers at two GEC plants in the North-west earlier Elts month. with the official backing of the clerical workers" union APEX.
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