THE DEPARTMENT of Trade and Industry has hushed up a secret report which may prove that coal is the cheapest source of electricity, top industry commentators claim.
The charge - denied outright by 28 edition of Financial Times Coal UK newsletter, edited by leading industry expert Gerard McCloskey it is alleged that in addition to the four speciaist reports published late last month, the DTI commissioned further work from consultants Caminon the key question of which fuel produces power at the lo. westcost. Yet the goverment has no intention of making it public, it is charged.
The published Caminus report on the size of the future market for coal ignored key options such as decom Heseltine: don't tro le him with the facts No. 38 missioning Britain's ageing magnox nuclear reactors, limiting imported power from France and halting the construction of further gas-fired stasons.
We understand the DT toid Caminus to ignore at least the first two of these: effectively all three were fitched. This is called fixing the race. comments the publication. Why Caminus has skipped these questions is It goes on to pick gaping holes in Caminus's "deeply flawed" methodology, arguing that it is based on highly unrealistic view of current and protoring of evidence stolen from other Branding the whole review process a mess", Coal UK adds: "Any sauvon what emerges may nave an ephemeral political appeal, but noth. ing that smells like, looks like or feels Ike a lasting solution."
FROM JUNE 1992 to the end of January 1993, NALGO local government workers in Islington fought a nine-month strike over cuts and redundancies. It ended with substantial concessions by the council, but not total victory. Socialist Outlook supporters played an important role in the strike, notably through branch secretary Brian Gardner and vice-chair Doug Thorpe. We asked DOUG THORPE how the strike was fought, and what the lessons were for the tens of thousands who still face the sack in local authorities. How did the strike start?
IN THE mid-1980s, Islington Council under leader Margaret Hodge managed to avora major cuts. but tis was through creative accountancy, essentially postponed the worst. In the last couple of years they've had to make The heaviest cuts have taken place in and the housing and social service deAs part of this the council last June vious aim of being able to make people compulsorily redundant: up until then they d mainly relied on carly retirement and redeployment.
The council brought forward a plan for 900 job cuts; they never said how many would be compulsory. At one stage they mentioned 300 compulsory kings, but the figure was never sure.
So we decided that we would have to go for strike action. There was a debate with the SWP, who wanted a ballot of all 2700 NALGO members for all-out action. We argued for taking advantage of NALGO's national cuts strategy, which meant bringing out key sections on full pay.
This was a much better way of winning ballots for action, and would involve the branch in a rolling programme of action. Everyone knew a ballot of the whole branch for immediate all-out action would be lost. How many came out to start with?
WE intended to bring out between five and ten per cent of the branch, about 200 people. But there was a reluctance of any section to come out. However a management provocation made the Housing Benefit section walk out. This gave the confidence for other sections to come out, too. The strikers went round mobilising the whole branch for eight days of all-out action last July. If some people had not already been on strike, we would never have won that ballot. Did the council respond to the eight days of all-out action?
No, they didn't budge. In my view wouldn't move in solidarity with us. trength to hold out. The most we got from the other unions was a decision not to sign the redundancy agreement with the council while NALGO was still out.
Features But after the 8-day action the morale of the strikers was still strong; it was weaker amons ine sections of the branch not on So we moved rapidly to get NALGO to agree to esca. lation, to bring more workers into the strike action. We got this agreement, to bring out the whole of Neighbourhood Services, which includes Housing and Social Services. This enabled us to start picketing, which would have been difficult with some people still working NALGO nationally backed this strike, with full-take home pay for selected groups of workers. Was this their anti-cuts strategy, to back individual, localised strikes, rather than take naTHIS was exactly NALGO strategy -to be prepared to use a big national strikes. This gave them an image of acWe need real national industrial action against cuts and jobs losses, but also a public sector alliance. No branch, no union, no group of workers should be left to fight alone. tually doing something; but in fact there was little use of the national strike fund, which was at times up to E20m.
"There was extreme reluctance to take this kind of isolated action, branch by branch. People were extremely sceptical about the chances of winning. This localised form of action was never an effective way to fight the cuts. People would look over their shoulders, and ask why neighbouring branches were not taking action.
Now even the branch-by-branch strategy has been junked, since the Emergency Committee has decided to fund only strikes of "national signific ance' - and who decided what they are The council brought in scabs and maintained a skeleton service. What made them eventOFFICIAL PICKET /SLNGTON NACO ually decide to negotiate?
IT WAS CLEAR that the original council leadership, under Margaret Hodge before she went off to her well-paid job at Price Waterhouse, wanted to smash union organisation in the boNALGO. That's why there were no - and that meant smashing negotiations. But when Hodge resigned, they were keen to settle the dispute, so we were faced with the carrot and the stick; new negotiations opened up at the same as strikers contracts were The council's services, especially Housing Benefit, rent collection and social services, were being severely disrupted, and it was costing them money And public pressure, by the end of 1992. was building up for a settlement. NegoIt became clear that there would be an offer for a new traw! for voluntary redundancies, and that there would be an effort to avoid compulsory redundancies, but no cast iron guarantee. Was there a debate on this in the branch?
AS WE approached Christmas there was some weariness; but at the same time we had cone up to about 1uu people on strike, so we had to make a judgement.
The council was making us offers which were a big step forward on the situation we faced in June, but we did not have binding agreements any compulsory redundancy. NALGO nationally was beginning to make noises that the dispute had gone on long enough. It was clear that national fund. ing was under threat if we didn't negoOn top of that there were new sacking Islington strikers on the picket line: management provocation triggered the initial walkout threats, and some groups already had their employment contracts terminated. Incidentally, so far there have been no compulsory redundancies. What was the role of the SWP during the strike? How did they react to a proposed deal?
AT THE START they disagreed with the strategy of the strike, calling for a ballot for all-out action. This of course would have failed. But once the strike got under way, they played the role of good activists, helping to run the strike. Sut when we got to the critice point of the strike, when we were threatened with sackings, and when we had to go back to NALGO to get escalation, the SWP chair of the strike committee suddenly resigned.
The explanation was that the SWP had every confidence in the branch lieved by the strikers. My belief is that he did it because it was obvious we were getting into a critical period where a compromise deal was inevitable - and the SWP wanted to keep their hands clean to criticise any deal from the left.
They had a negative attitude to negotiations - that we should just go in and restate our demands. But at no stage did strategy rat at forward an alternative small amendments to the position of the Towards the end in fact they were not really arguing for an alternative strate8y, except the nonsense that we should make no compromise and escalate; in Broad Left in the branch to recruit to the SWP. That was their priority, not doing work for the strike.
In the end the SWP argued to reject the strike deal, and go back to NALGO and argue the whole branch should be brought out on full pay. But everyone knew this was abeolutely unrealisable NALGO would simply refuse and that The outcome was a partial victory, not outright victory. It was the best we could get, after nine months of strike acion. And branch organisation has been greatly strengthened, with more I don't think what we did shows the way forward, though. Yes, if a branch can fight and make limited gains, OK, go ahead, defend jobs and services the est you can. Of course, that is ABC for good trade unionists.
But in the end, faced with up to tood redundandes in local covern ment, local action, now matter how exempiary, will not win - i juss can y That's why we need real national industal action against cuts and jobs losses, but also a public sector alliance. No branch, no union, no group of workers should be left to fight alone.
No: 38 Feb 27; 1993 •Page 5
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