Vice-chairperson, London divisional council, NUPE THE Tories' six per cent policy shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone. Many militants the National of •Public Employees conference in May pointed out the likelihood of the government imposing pay norms.
Delegates argued that NUPE organised national campaign to win an index-linked national minimum wage, our members would be facing a massive cut in their living standards The conference decided to wait and see what happened. As a result of this positior argued for by Alan Fisher, the ourselves facing a 12 per cent secretary WC find cut in real wages Leaders The six per cent cash limit represents just one part of the government's attack, the other is direct cuts. There is now a real prospect of 3 and NUPE's membership being redundancies over the next iwo years.
Given the inability of the NUPE leaders to prepare for the present Tory attacks, the facing , but not hopeless.
When the delegates from the union's London division The NUPE executive's resolution at the recent Lambeth anti-cut's conand supported the resolutions Lambeth Trades Council, all the 33 NUPE delegations supported our position At the Lambeth conference, the NUPE executive simply wanted to make the change Coverin This type of talk is a waste ol time and energy. We've got to get rid of the Tories as soon a possible.
Steps The first sited action step organise for now against the six percent. During the 1978-79 'winter of discontent' the NUPE leaders brought forward all the various united fight on wages. This should be done again, but alongside the firefighters, not arter they ve naa to come vui alone The London division is now urging all branch and stewaras communices to nicer sow to plan opposition these meetings, members the divisional council will be arguing for action on cuts and Response want to restore the finks between the various tors that were established during the last stike. response to fight the tones need effectively, so we are als demanding recall conference to decide on the type of action needed. We want a united public sector fight against the Tories.