WHAT does the government's offer of 5 per cent really mean to public sector manual workers! The pittance. To some local authority workers it will mean a measly 60p before tax each week.
The offer to all sections of public employees falls within the 5 per cent guidelines. In fact a large number of workers will not even get 5 per cent on their basic pay.
Take the example of health service ancillary workers. Of their 5 per cent a substantial proportion is devoted to the restoration of differentials - 20 per cent of the overall 6lfer in fact.
This particularly affects the low paid workers in the bottom grades, domestics and porters, increases of £2.10 to £2.78 — scarcely 4 per cent.
Women make up a huge proportion of the lower grade discriminates against them too. women have even more ground to make up if they are ever to approach the average private sector wage.
The offer does nothing to solve the huge problem of poverty and low pay among the low grades of public sector All industries and services Male 1975 60.80 1976 71.80 1977 78.60 1978 89.10 Female 1975 37.40 1976 46.20 1977 51.00 1978 56.40 Scotland is not published.
same basis as others in the table.
manual workers.
answer Is g if they work a 40 hour week.
But many ICICIS bealth service ancillaries — of tax.
who will get The public demanded a two-thirds of the workers, so it And begin to It simply sinicken and te reasonably AVERAGE WEEKLY EARNINGS Average gross weekly earnings: 1975-1978 Local authority manual workers [England and Wales] [Scotland] 47.50 47.50 55.10 54.70 58.80 59.10 66.70 66.30 32.80** 39.10** 41.50 46.30 *A full run of figures for female local authority manual workers in **These figures combine local authority manual workers and the Groups 1 to 4, which include 84 per cent of all health ancillary workers, will earn between £44.50 and £46.86 after the government's proposed increase -workers, LAESE particularly female domestics, do not work a 40 hour week on average, so their increase will be even less and their pay will hardly come up to subsistence Women workers in Group 1 - 60.9 per cent of all women employed as work an 27.5 Their average increase will be £1.44 before sector unions have £60 minimum average industrial wage of £90. Such a minimum would manual workers out of the poverty trap that they have been caught in for so long.
The government's offer is derisory.
keeps the poor poverty well off won't be as well off as they were before.
NHS ancillary staff national 50.80 57.60 61.40 67.70 answers.
38.60 44.70 48.10 51.90 be out. sector wage of £60 and a 35-hour week.
conference.
organising action on the pay claim.
policies it is helping to establish.
An odd thing happened at the meeting of NUPE's London divisional council earlier this month.
The pay claim and the impending action to fight for it were at the top of the agenda. The members of executive attending meeting were questioned about the leadership's plans.
nearly a sixth of NUPE'S 650,000 members represented by the divisional council, delegates naturally expected After all, the national leadership had postponed action on the claim last November in order that it could be properly prepared.
But the executive members could offer few clues as to what was planned.
The union's entire membership is to levied at 1p per hour worked, yet the executive members had no idea how this was to be organised. Nor did they know how much strike pay would be or, come to that, which sections the union leaders were preparing to call IT WAS the annual conference of the Public Employee's union last May which formulated the present claim for a minimum public CAN, the Campaign for Action in NUPE, was surprised to find that 22 delegates attended its caucus meeting at the conference. The year before the campaign had just four supporters at the annual Yet now — although CAN is still a very small oppositional group within the union - campaign activists are playing a leading role in RAY VARNES, secretary of NUPE's Inner London Education Authority district, told Geoffrey Sheridan about CAN and the To cap it all, says Ray Varnes, who is a delegate to the divisional council, the executive has no plans to meet before the second week of February will be a lot of use to the public sector the workers brought the immediately after the day of action next Monday.
In other words, Ray explains, the leadership of the union and the strike would be firmly in the hands of general the secretary Alan Fisher and the NUPE full-time officers, whose conception of SULLIC winning the claim centres on pleading with the Labour Government to be sensible and recognise the plight of the -OW 020.
That's the aim of the day of action, which as far as the leaders of the public sector unions are consist simply of a large march and lobby of Parliament.
Large it could well prove to be. The trains and coaches already booked to bring public sector workers to London on 22 January suggest the turnout may not fall too far short of the massive which out on strike London concerned will well RAYVARNES was among the speaker at the 300-strong rally held by NUPE divisional council las Thursday who called for an all-ou strike as the way to break the pay polic in the public sector. anti-cuts march held two years ago.
And the plans laid by the Londo divisional council, in line policy of the delegates on the counc who support the Campaign for Actio in NUPE, threaten to take the actio beyond the expectations an