Part-timers the firing

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Class Fighter, paper of the National Left Wing Youth Movement of the LPYS. 10p plus postage from BM Box ne HOW DO you get rid of part-time workers you don't particularly want? Simple. You lengthen the hours of the remaining full-time workers to do the work of the part-timers. And how do you do that when • the full-timers have got nationally negotiated contracts? No problem!

You tear up the existing contracts, effectively sack all the workforce and tell them the only way they can get their jobs back is by signing new ones.

This didn't happen in some cut-throat capitalist factory - it happened in a local authority. And not even in a Tory controlied one. It happened in Manchester which is solid Last March a one line item on the budget went unnoticed through the council which stated that £400,000 would be saved by altering the conditions of service of further education teachers. NATPHE members soon found out what this meant when the education department came to them with proposals for lengthening class contact hours (these are the hours that teachers actually spend in the classroom).

This would have had the effect of doing away with about 500 part-time teachers, many of whom are single parents.

NATHE flatly refused to negotiate on this point, either at national or local level, so in April the council gave the Chief Education Officer the go-ahead to unilaterally change the further education teachers' contracts. Now Bill Egerton, leader of the Labour Group, has sent a letter to all councillors saying that it was 'NATFHE's intransigent attitude and their failure to accept the reality of the financial difficulties which we face" that is to blame for the present situation.

In fact it is Egerton and his supporters who are failing to face the reality of the Tories' attacks on workers' jobs and conditions.

An attempt was made by left councillors at the last Labour Group meeting to get the whole issue referred back to the education committee. Unfortunately the vote was tied 29 each so the resolution fell.

So now it looks like NATFHE will call a national dispute over the issue and industrial action will start at the beginning of the new term in September. Meanwhile, NATFHE members have been instructed not to sign any of the new contracts.

It is important that the right wing aren't allowed to get away with this one. If they can do this to NATPHE they can do it to any other group of Town Hall workers. Already the Town Hall unions forum has voted to back the teachers. This support will have to be turned into strike action if this measure is to be defeated.

And Labour Party mem -bers in wards where there are councillors who voted for the measure must organise to bring th em to account. Paid ads Sp per word, £4 per column inch. Send to Socialist Organiser (What's On), 28 Middle Lane, London N8. Islington Socialist Organiser meeting "Islington - Women's City?" Speakers. Rachel Lever (Women's Fightback) and speaker from Islington Council's women's committee. 3pm, Sunday 4 July, Thornhill Neighbourhood Project. Orkney House, Caledonian Road. Tea. coffee. sandwiches provided. For babysitting ring 607 5268. 52:77, London WCIN 3XX SOUTH WORK Late ne HOUSE 'wOW

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Socialist Organiser, Thursday 17 June Page LINKS WITH TOR ES NOW!

CALL1-DAYSTRIKE!

Miners march with health workers in Yorkshire Terry THE dramatic emergence of mass picketing and sympathy strikes around the NHS pay claim, together with an overtly political strike by the dockers last week showed the basis to crush Tebbit's anti-union legislation.

Under Tebbit's Bill, it is unlawful to fight for sympathy strikes, and unlawful to stage them. The health workers picketing mines could be sued for damages arising from lost production - and throughout the labour movement for full-scale practical support - sympathy strikes, blacking action, mass pickets and other solidarity - to every struggle against this government and the capitalists it represents.

In this practical way workers can gain in confidence and develop the "custom and practice" of defying anti-union legislation -in preparation for the struggle to come. LEEDS OTHER PAPER HOSPITAL WORKERS THATCHER'S STOP rebbit leaders must

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