decision should be presented at the forthcoming series of members' meetings.
the General Purposes Committee.
encourage and guide an attitude amongst the members of one person/one job.
campaign.?
The above resolution, passed on 3 September by the National Executive Committee of the Civil and Public Services Association, Britain's largest civil service union, forms the mandate on which a series of joint membership rallies of the CPSA and the Society of Civil and Public Servants have been held in the past c weCKs.
However, the fact that these meetings were called to discuss the call for a total overtime ban and a one-day strike on 17 November will come as a surprise to the hundreds of civil service workers who have attended them. It will be even more of a surprise for the thousands of union members who were never informed that the meetings were taking place!
Because the CPSA national officials set about the series of meetings not with the purpose of explaining the NEC's call, but of wrecking it. Not only elected officials such as General Secretary Ken Thomas and his deputy, Alistair Graham, but elected NEC members such as Roger Castle have been fully involved in the attempt to break the strike and stifle the NEC's call to the membership.
In most areas, the "joint membership rallies" have been organised on the basis of cliques and grapevines only. The Oxford meeting, one of Alistair Graham's favourite examples of 'membership aphad not been notified to most ranch and office officials, far less embers, by the afternoon of the meetNewcastle, the NEC member who aved the strike call, secretary of the rgest CPSA branch in the country, had been informed of the venue of the eing by the previous evening. And the Manchester Area Committee roght to campaign for a mass meeting in the 2,500-capacity Free Trade Hall, they were bluntly refused financial aid and intructed to stop by CPSA Head Office.
At all the meetings, CPSA and SCPS members have been regaled with prolonged discourses on the cuts by their "leaders', but nowhere has the policy outlined in the NEC resolution been explained except when the bureaucrats have een forced into discussion from the Noor. When Alistair Graham was forced into such a discussIon at the Glasgow meeting, he made his real intentions quite The resolution, he said, had merely recommended local branches to sound out the possibility of strike action November with other unions. As it was now obvious that there was no support proposals, TeSO UOI clearly a dead letter and would be reconsidered' at the October NEC. 'If we took this action, and were seen to fail*, he announced, 'we would not be in a position to fight in two years time'!
tor lately some members of the CPSA and SCPS believe that the fight against the threat of 60,000 jobs lost "This meeting notes reports on progress of the campaign against the cuts in public expenditure. We resolve that the campaign should go forward and that the following NEC [a] In order to preserve job opportunities a ban on overtime should be made general in November. The implementation of the ban and its application to be the responsibility of /b] That Section Executive Committees and corresponding bodies in all areas should (c] That an all members one day strike should be considered in conjunction with other public sector unions in order to focus attention upon cuts in public expenditure to coincide with the November 17 lobby of Parliament and to initiate a more general cannot be postponed for two years. The Manchester and Glasgow meetings, each attended by over 600 union members, mace nis aouncansy cear.
Manchester voted, with only six against, to call for local and national liaison committees to build for the day of action and the strike throughout the labour movement. Less than fifty opposed the Glasgow call for support for NEC policy, a national overtime ban and strike action on 17 November. Hacks This clear opposition to the manoeuvres and lies of the bureaucraev has rattled the hacks as they tour the remaining meetings. Members at meetings in NorthEast England have been informed that the Manchester decision was 'unusual' and the Glasgow vote 'dubious". The officials responsible for these slanders, Roger Castle of the CPSA and Alan Shute of did not explain why Ken Thomas assured the Manchester rally that its procedure was correct, and did not explain why none of the presiding bureaucrats at Glasgow challenged the vote.
Now Graham's argument that there is no support for strike action has been torpedoed by the decision of NALGO, the largest wnite-conar union, to make orncial any strike action by its members on 17 November. Not surprisingly, having been defeated at the two largest meetings of the campaign, the CPSA leaders now appear on 17 to be determined to delay or cancel the final meeting in Central London.
All members of the CPSA who wish to was uphold the NEC policy against the impending betrayal of the union's record should demand the strike decision by sending telegrams from offices, branches and areas to the CPSA head office, 215 Balham High Road, London. Other union branches, especially those in NALGO, should contribute to the deluge of protests. Ken Thomas strike, the fight to stop the closure of the Elizabeth Garrett Andersor Hospital in London and the East London health workers' strikes al testify to a growing militancy.
Isolated This is accompanied by a growing realisation that the campaign to stop the cuts cannot be waged by iso lated struggles in each area, fighting to stop redundancies here or the closure of a hospital there. Loca action will only finally be successfu when it develops into a unitec national response. It is not just a case of taking on a local council or a health authority - to stop the cuts will require taking on tne TUC leaders and the Government. For that, united action including strike action - by all public service workers will be required.
If a serious ongoing fightback is to be mounted, then a public sector alliance must be built now by work ers in the public service unions First and foremost, THieCi demanding that the leaders of these unions begin to take strike action or 17 November, and attempt to pull in other unions behind that call.