Force council to pay nursery workers!

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NEWSPAPER OF THE NATIONAL LEFT-WING YOUTH MOVEMENT 'Ist - '22nd NOVEMBER Archway, AFTER another derisory offer, described by NALGO convenor Derek Relph as 'the stingiest I've ever come across" , nursery. workers in Tower Hamlets (East London) last week at their mass meeting voted overwhelmingly to escalate their action.

From November 19 they intend to follow a policy of non-cooperation with management. Fees will not be collected nor registers forwarded. Staff will refuse to communicate with management, and therefore no referrals from the eouncil waiting list will be taken - except that in an emergency situation children referred by social workers will be accepted for day care.

How does such a situation arise with workers who are now owed at least £1,000 each in back pay from a nationally arbitrated agreement from nearly two years ago? Whatever the outcome of the present negotiations for the future pay scale, the council owes money that it has to pay by law from a previous agreement. All other councils have to settle on this agreement, and the majority have done so.

Trick Why does Tower Hamlets Labour council not pay up? Why does it continue to prevaricate?

They are pursuing the oldest trick in the book, to delay money owed and offset any money that they have been unable to calculate and are in the process of losing from the Tory government's Heseltine cuts. They can't work their sums out before new cuts are announced. This inability stems from an arrogant and unclear attitude to fighting these cuts 'in the first place.

They have never gone to the people or even the Labour Party to say that we must fight this one together. They continue to undermine and oppose union action and pressure if it is ever put on them.

Ünder-5s policy has never responded sufficiently to the needs of the children and parents, and the necessity to pay proper NEWSTMrLI wages with good working conditions for its workers. Top management is male, yet the workforce in the nurseries, with one exception, is female.

Decisions over the years have reflected the insensitivity of management, and the pay struggle is another example of this, although the nursery workers are now showing that they are not taking any more of management's bullying tactics.

The way that the under5s management has tried to cut its budget by trying to close two nurseries to gain time and money with the expected cuts next spring - was incredible in its ignorance of people's reaction.

The management strongly resent the fact that parents have found a voice and have organised a campaign. And they find it even more unpalatable IN THE few days before menstruation, many women develop the pre-menstrual syndrome, also known as "Pre-menstrual tension"

(PMT).

Even if they do not know what it is called many women are aware that their NewÝm Eaxton House St. John's Way, • that the parents have linked up with nursery workers and the unions.

The council on the other hand is still looking for the 'soft' targets to please Heseltine. Anything rather than fight alongside the people of the borough and the unions and other Labour councils. It's easier to quietly reduce social services spending, to which it does not have a deep political commitment.

This is the same council who were the last to settle in the national social workers' strike. It took ten months and many Tower Hamlets councillors still maintain that they were right to stand firm, even though people died without social work provision.

(At present NALGO social workers' offices are not open for a full week. They have a no-cover policy after 15 per cent cuts in staffing).

emotions and in some cases even their physical wellbeing alters in relation to the monthly cycle.

In the last few days we have all become aware of PMT as it has now been accepted by the legal profession. This could be a major step forward for women who do suffer from PMT because even members of the medical fraternity have refused to take it seriously and when a doctor cannot quickly pinpoint the organic cause of a woman's complaint, they are quick to suspect psychosomatic causes and prescribe tranquillisers.

Unstable

Now that the existence of PMT has been acknowledged by the establishment, women who do suffer have more chance of getting medical assistance.

But unless we are careful and look at PMT in perspective, this recognition could be a very mived blessing, and the "sickly woman image be reinforced.

In fact the tendency of doctors to diagnose women's complaints as psychosomatic shows that the medical view of women has not really shifted from "sick" to "Well" : It has shifted from "physically sick" to "menThe nursery workers started to ask for negotiations several months ago, and after the normal requ ests to gain the council's ear found they had to resort to a work to rule. In the eight nurseries, conditions have improved, with lower staff/children ratios, but during the summer holiday period some children had to be excluded which the staff found a very difficult policy to pursue.

However, since then, some children have moved on to schools and fewer children have come from the waiting list. The work to rule has stabilised, and staff are finding that they can give a lot more time to the children.

If the council were to negotiate a proper basic wage and expand the nursery sector, children in Tower Hamlets could become the recipients of much improved nursery used to prove "scientifically" that women are unstable and emotional.

Therefore they can be "legitimately" discriminated against when jobs require stability and emotional strength.whether these jobs are in the field of employment or political leadership.

What we have to realise that in fact the opposite normally the case.

PMT is different in each woman. For a few it is a time of great achievement e.g. some athletes perform at their best in this part of the cycle. In some women it is not noticeable while fir others it is a time of depression and stress. But most women cope with the continuous change in their nature which is beyond their control as well as coping with home, children, work, training, relationships, politics, or a combination of these with only an occasional acknowledgement of a regular problem.

If anything, this shows that women can cope better with jobs requiring stability and emotional strength because they have to learn from puberty to regularly cope.

The question of women

Sue Car

defence Hamlets.

care.

Unfortunately the council has chosen to delay the closures of the two nurseries, but only on a temporary promise until the spring -and have offered the nursery workers the lowest rates of all the London boroughs.

In an area of exceptional high unemployment for the south-east, and an area known for its inner-city deprivation, many parents are going to be waiting even longer for nursery places.

The nursery campaign which was formed in response to the closures is trying to link parents and nursery workers in the area. After successful joint fund-raising events and petitioning, a huge lobby of the pay talks was organised at the Town Hall.

Nursery workers and parents and children crowded into the council chamber where the pay negotiations were taking place, and were ill-received. Rather than suspend standing orders, the councillors preferred to turn their backs and refused to talk to the workers (perhaps they had nothing to offer). But in fact they were waiting for the police to arrive to escort the crowd away.

The outcome of that afternoon's events was that all matrons were summoned the next day to have their wrists slapped by management. When leaned than hormones. By education and upbringing, most women have a lower selfimage than men and in general feel inferior.

But unless we acknowaccount and not ignoring it, we will fall into the same trap as male dominated organisations (especially the trade unions). We must constructively fight the attitude that all workers are equal, therefore all workers are men and stop ignoring the fact that women have different problems to men that do not make them inferior and that the male way of doing things is not necessarily the only way or the best.

repo ist cuts wages in Tower vages • the ind in Tower on to give the names of staff at the lobby, they refused - 80 management will have difficulty in docking the pay for half a day.

This was a very brave stand by matrons who have been received by management with quite substantial pay rises and given preferential terms over nursery nurses in the negotiations.

Hopefully they will continue to stand firm, since they are responsible for the collection of fees, and will bear a lot of the pressure from management when the action starts on November 19th.

In London there is a precedent for this type of action. One member of Hackney's nursery workforce came, and spoke to a Tower Hamlets mass meeting, and described how she and others had to stick it out for 18 months before the Labour council there agreed to a local formula.

Nursery workers in Tower Hamlets should be under no illusion that their employers will be any quicker to settle, given some of the reactionary ideas around the council on the importance of providing day care facilities and allowing women out of he home to work.

Hopefully they will continue to stand firm, since they are responsible for the collection of fees, and will bear a lot of the pressure from management when the action starts on November 19.

In London there is a precedent for this type of action. One member of 17 18 =E 1 = 242 WHAT'S YOPs LOBBY AND DEMONSTRATION 11.30, Wednesday 25 November at MSC Headquarters, Selkirk Iouse, High Holbor London Greenwich Labour Party DAY CONFERENCE:

IRELAND-A WAY FORWARD?

Saturday 28 November 9.30-5.30 Goldsmith's College Students Union New Cross, London SE14 Creche available. Lunch irovided. Registration £2.5 Details from Greenwich Labour Party, 32 Woolwic Road, London SEIO London Workers Socialis League classes on basic Marxism: a fortnightły series, alternate Fridays from 1 December 4. For details and venue, write t PO Box 135, London N1 ODD LABOUR COMMITTEE IRELAND Public Meeting "Ireland and the Missiles Monday 23 November 7.30 pm.

Basement Theatre Manchester Town Hall Lambeth Socialist Organis educational programme. Sundays at 7pm: for venur phone 609 3071.

Nov.29: State and revoluti Dec.20: The Russian revol tion.

Jan.31: Stalinism Feb.28: The origins of the Leicester Socialist Organis Alliance - weekly Marxis forum. Sundays at 7.30, a

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