supporter Name Address Phone Send to: Socialist Outlook, PO Box 1109, London N4 2UU. of £20 now.
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No. 31 7 Nov, 1992
vice-chair, Islington NALGO ISLINGTON'S Labour counci is now threatening nass sackings of NALGO members on strike for the last five months against compulsory redundancies.
Council leader Margaret Hodge - an erstwhile Bennite who is stepping down to join chartered accountants Price Waterhouse - desperately wants to break the dispute as her parting shot.
A verbal motion was recently put to the Labour group authorised the leader to terminate strikers' contracts if this proved necessary 'at some point in the future'. Within 24 hours, the plan was implemented.
Strikers have been sent letters threatening to terminate their contracts of employment unless they return to work by November 2, the day Socialist Outlook goes to press. Delivery - even to places as far away as Hastings and Andover - was by private mit oycle beer.
will only engaged if they sign a contract specifying that strikers will be first out in the event of redundancies, even ahead of scabs. They will lose even the meagre redeployment and enhanced redundancy pay terms imposeu un the rest of the workforce.
The legal department reportedly warned Hodge that the first draft of the letter, threatening summary dismissal at two days' notice, was too harsh.
Yet this tactic has produced a backlash among Labour councillors who did not understand what they were voting for. The authority has now backed down from its refusal to negotiate and has met NALGO for the first time since the dispute began.
Further meetings are scheduled, with the council promising to hand over vital information about vacancy levels it had previously withheld.
NALGO is now set to ballot Home News the libraries department and some central support staff after the union's national emergenbranch bite age number on branch bring strike up to 1,000. If there are anembership will be balloted. victimisations, the entire But the success of the dispute now depends on the current strikers being prepared to defy the sacking threat. At the time of writing, it seems any drift back to work will be a small minority.
Towards the end of last week, even wavering sections such as managers and supervisors were registering najority votes to stay out. AI strikers were due to be contacted by the union at home over the weekend.
PICKET (SLINGTON NACO The likelihood is the dispute will continue and even escalate. Given that the council is now talking and is due to elect a new - hopefully less intransigent - leader, victory looks increasingly probable. • Pay battles in higher education are hotting up, a university NALGO member writes. NALGO administration workers in the 'new' universities - the former polytechnics - last August rejected a 4.3 per cent 'final' pay offer in a ballot that authorised up to six days of strike action.
Three have already successfully taken. Now national negotiators are delaying calls for a three day strike in order to spread selective action now proceeding in a number of universities.
NATFHE lecturers across the new universities have also rejected a 3.9 per cent offer, with a one day strike due on November 4.
In the 'old' universities, lecturers in the AUT are in dispute after a 6 per cent rise agreed with employers earlier this year was vetoed by education secretary John Patten. A 4.3 per cent increase has now been imposed by employers.
With the likely announcement of a public sector wage freeze this month, both local government and university workers should line up with the miners and many other groups in a public sector alliance against the Tories.
NALGO members fight on in local government, education strikers scent
nalge OFTICAL