strike against racism and Council complicity By MICK WOODS counts got around to taking disciplinary ac- tion, three of those accused found quilty. Vi Howell was caution- ed. Pledger cautioned and reprimanded. number union workforce, fered harassment outside work. com- to not Opportunities Employment the that section be split up and employed dealing with the public. had
this ment order. chosen to ignore it. He said that he who had interfered with the wiper and jury" Pete Williams himself then went on in Cullen, they Farrants was then called back to to name Section of the Housing Department. When the council finally refused to do. were and Steve Henney and Rene the Council, After this half-hearted response the number entonion once and officials witnesses involved in the case suf- the In May a NALGO meeting in the Housing Department agreed to write to the leader of the Council and the take Chair of Personnel protesting at the Council's failure to maintain its Equal Policy and demanding that the racists on Under not In the case of Vi Howells, a super- visor, who in the opinion of the union merely colluded with, rather Socialist Viewpoint, No. 7. September 1985, Pope 13
In the summing up the council for ARG conceded the whole case. He said that management now recognised that they had sacked the wrong man. They felt, however, that Mr Cullen had contributed to his own sacking by not himself naming Mr Williams during the procedure. On
basis they were urging the Tribunal — in the event of a finding of unfair dismissal - to look towards a cash settlement and not a reinstate-
Although the Chair had been in a position half way through the case to make an "interim judgement" he was not in a position at the end of the case to make a verdict. He announced that it would be a "deferred judgement".
Five weeks later the decision of the Tribunal was announced. In finding for unfair dismissal they heavily criticised management. The decision said that a part ofthe disciplinary procedure had been a "farce" and that top managers had acted as "judge
But the finding itself was exactly along the lines of that appealed for by ARG in their summing up. Bob
declared, was partly responsible (they chose to call it 35%) for his own sacking for failing
Othe juilty party. and herefore they had decided to make it
financial settlement and not a reinstatement order.
Bob Cullen is now taking legal advice on the possibility of an appeal against the finding. than had been involved in, the harassment, NALGO merely called for her to recognise that she had acted in contravention of the Equal Opportunity Employment Policy and undertake not to repeat this. This she
After 3 months of negotiations with
Ta meeting representing all the neighbourhood office workers voted on August 1 by a massive majority not to open the new decentralised neighbourhood housing offices for so long as any of the proven racists were in jobs giving them contact with
public. Subsequent to this management withdrew their threat to
disciplinary action against workers refusing to work with those oroven racists and agreed to isolate lenney and Pledger but still refused to do this in the case of Vi Howell.
these circumstances NALGO had no option but to call strike action and, on August 5, of the 469 called out 450, many of them new starters, came out and have held