council is threatening 750 blue collar redundancies as part of a £7.25m cuts package, after losing at least £10.4m thanks to incompetent handling of last year's world student games.
As one of the city's largest em oloyers, the authority has around 27,000 staff. Employees in works cleansing and cleaning will bear the brunt of the sackings.
Areas to be hit include libraries, council house maintenance and school clothing grants to hard-up parents, while some public toilets and a swimming pool will be dosed.
Yet according to a district auditor's report leaked to local paper Sheffield Star, key student games decisions were made without proper financial information, while councillors failed to impose their will on officers. last week, with the possibility of further strike action later. Many members of other unions refused to cross picket lines.
Unfortunately, NALGO's Demo cratic Left leadership is calling for workers to take unpaid leave in order to finance an early retirement scheme, effectively a call to fund your own redundancies.
Paul Davidson, senior UCATT steward in the work's department, told Socialist Outlook: 'All such pay cuts will do is demoralise people against the real fightback which is obviously going to be necessary.
Currently isolated struggles in local authorities across Britain have to be linked up into national action, with users of council services drawn in, he argued.
In the middle of the 1985 struggle against ratecapping, Sheffield - then led by David Blunkett and branded the Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire' - ditched its refusal to set a rate and became a prominent exponent of Kinnock's 'dented shield' strategy for local It borrowed heavily, on a deferred repayment basis, in the hope of being baled out by Labour government. Now the creative accounting chickens have come home to roost. Next year could see cuts of up to £40m on some estimates.
Taking on responsibility for funding community care for the elderly and the disabled from next April will add to local goverment's financial burdens.
Yet plenty of money is available to save council jobs. English councils alone now hold £7,000m in accumulated capital receipts, largely from sold off council homes, but Tory legislation means it can only be spent on repaying
Home News