Cuts strike n Coventry
Socialist Organiser1981 1981-11-12Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 16 →
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Out - and staying out until the cuts are withdrawn!
Ablished by the Socialist Organiser Alliance, y Pyushi Kotecha DEFINITE strike action : 4,000 NUPE workers in pentry last Friday has led ¡ the closure of all the i's colleges, junior and pndary schools and DOO school students have in sent home.
The Labour council has *sen public sector workers the first target of their f2 lion spending cuts after fing a fake referendum ter this year.
NUPE members are king over a package of Frations in their condias of service. The council idemanding that cleaners te a 10% wage cut and a laction in working hours: In doing so the Labour incil is breaking all the rious agreements with the tons and are making IPE members pay for the my policies that they have *ed to implement. ; It was in response to this *st attack upon one of the takest sectors, most of am women workers, that UPE received a mandate i all-out strike action. The effect of the strike is instantaneous. However, i Director of Education, ›bert Aitken, has made rious provisions which the iderships of the NUT/NAS me agreed to.
Aitken issued a directive which asked all head teachers to collect keys from the caretakers to open schools and teachers have to report for work each day.
Aitken has also ensured that school meals are prepared and frozen by non-union staff.
This is a conscious move to sabotage the strike and to set one group of workers against another.
The response of the NUT leadership was to advise their members to explam to NUPE members on the picket line that since they were not in official dispute with the authorities that they would have to cross the picket lines. this as a strike-breaking manoeuvre and petitions are being organised in various schools to reverse the decision. . The NUT leadership has, as yet, made no public statement of support for the NUPE workers.
It is vital that this struggle is won. The Labour Council has chosen the public sector workers in enforcing its cuts to make an example of them to the rest of the labour movement.
Militants in the NUT, NAS, NALGO, NATHE and NUS must take up the fight for solidarity action and join the struggle against the education cuts. councillors a rebel Labour rebe called upon lo give total support to the strike. support to the strike.