ELDERLY residents are being used as guinea pigs by Tameside Care Group (TCG) in an exercise of cost-cutting and management intransigence. Striking care workers and their supporters are holding a public hearing to highlight the deterioration in care of residents and to break the council's information black-out on the dispute.
The council has banned its libraries from displaying information about the strike, and is charging £60 for a document on the running of the homes which should be in the public domain.
On lune 2 TCG carried out its threat to sack the strikers if they refused to sign new contracts. Since then the strikers have stood firm and have received strong support from the local labour moveLinking up The launch conference for the Network of Socialist Alllances in England takes place on Saturday September 5 starting at 10a.m. at the United Railway Club In Rugby (close to the railway station). Full details and apendas can be obtained from the Liatson Group, clo John Nicholson, 58 Langdale Rd,, Manchester M14 5PN. ment and UNISON members nationally. The dispute is the outcome of eight years of mismanagement and mistreatment of staff. In 1992 Tameside Enterprises Ltd. collapsed with over £2 million of debts, only two years after it was set up by the council to run its elderly persons homes. The crisis was "resolved" at the expense of staff, whose conditions were attacked time and again.
Now TCG wants to pass the council's £300,000 cut in funding for residential placements onto the workforce, cutting basic pay for staff taken on before |992 from £4.50 per hour (days) or £5.68 (nights) to £3.60 or £3.75 per hour, and cutting holiday pay and ending sick pay for all staff. Strike supporters in Manchester recently won a victory against the Left Apex, one of the agencies supplying scabs. Apex has agreed to withdraw from Tameside after a series of pickets outside its head office and recruitment sessions and a campaign supported by Manchester City Labour Party calling on the city council to stop using Apex. However TCG has placed adverts in the Manchester Evening News for permanent scabs to cut the expense of using agencies.
The strike is in danger of reaching an impasse. TCG has no intention of meeting the strikers demands. The anti-union laws give employers the advantage in sitting out lengthy disputes and, with the help of national union leaders, pushing strikers into accepting deals which fall short of their demands. Regional and national officials may negotiate an unacceptable deal as the "best obtainable" and withdraw official backing if the strikers reject it.
There is a need to escalate the dispute to break the deadlock and force the company to give in. So far the strike leadership has stayed within the anti-union laws, in order not to jeopardise the support of UNISON nationally.
But these laws prevent the action which is clearly needed to move forward: solidarity action from workers who deal with TCG, especially council employees, and effective mass pickets.
Afraid of this potential, the council has resorted to intimidation, threatening disciplinary action against UNISON members who attend workplace meetings to discuss the dispute, or join picket lines even in their own time. They have instructed the branch secretary not to represent the strikers during facility time. The council has also threatened police action against the strikers if they hold rallies on the Town Hall steps.
These actions belie the council's attempt to disown responsibility. The council is closely involved, holding a "golden share" in TCG. A victory for the strikers would also make it harder to push ahead with its plans to privatise leisure and other services.
• • • • Flood damage to the • Socialist Outlook offices • must be urgently repaired this summer - and we need extra cash to help us through!
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The role of the Labour Party in Tameside has been scandalous. Local MP Andrew Bennett, who is a trustee of TCG, has failed to intervene, at least publicly, on the strikers behalf. Labour Party members must expose the role of the council and put pressure on the MP to stop sitting on the fence. This is a national issue. What is happening in Tameside is already happening -or will happen - throughout the country as more and more services are sold off to balance the books of cash-squeezed local authorities. 2UU. (Please make cheques to Ernest Mandel Memorial
APPEAL: Help us •We have to buy materials, rent scaffolding, and