NALGO must fight privatisation

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WANDSWORTH dustmen have returned to work. The council meeting on Thursday May 27 decided by 2 votes to sack them if they had not returned to work by June 7. The following day saw union officials locked in secret negotiations with the council to end the dispute.

The deal they cooked up means council workers will be allowed to put in a bid, drawn up by the council Director of Technical Services, for their jobs. They will be competing against 14 tenders from private contractors, including Pritchards who already have the street cleaning and who started the workers get the contract, at least 50 jobs will go and new working practices will mean speed-ups and inevitable corner-cutting on safety.

In effect, after seven weeks on strike, the dustmen will have the dubious privilege of selling their own jobs and worsening their conditions in competition with private firms who will have no qualms about pitching their estimates artifically low and upping charges for little "extras" once they've safely landed the contract.

So how did it happen that when this appalling package was put to the strikers they voted overTWO ISSUES will dominate NALGO's conference in the coming week: privatisation and the fight against the Tebbit Bill.

The conference comes at the end of a year when the trade union has been shaken by struggles against the cuts (as in Islington) and privatisation of services (in Wandsworth). It also follows rry be balanced against conference decisions from both NUPE and GMWU, which if acted upon, would have meant a massive escalation of action within the borough and of support from outside.

It was probably this, rather than the sackings, which panicked officials into pushing for a deal on any terms.

There was a lot of talk privately from the officials that once the Tories had won the council elections, the dispute was already lost.

But the logic of that is that there can be no victory under any Tory council. Or a Tory government for that matter. national ballot call for iation was defeated.

The conference agenda includes calls for:

* disobedience against the lebbit law, and strike action to ensure its deteat, * renationalisation without compensation of privatised' assets. in which a Party affil decisively But it is clear that NALGO's NEC will be out to block any calls for decisive action against the government, in lavour of the moderate' approach that resulted in NALGO abandoning the Wandsworth refuse strike.

Two other important debates will be on rape and nuclear energy.

A resolution from Eastern District Council calls for reform of the rape law to protect the victim from harassment by the police, and to recognise the severity of the offence. On energy, amendments to the NEC's policy statement call for the extension of full trade union rights to all workers in the energy industry.

BOB ŚUGDEN by Rob D (Sheffield NUR)