THE OFFER by Camden council's majority Labour group to meet the Battersea and Wandsworth Trades Council support committee, begins at Camden's offer has made a national sell-out that much more difficult. But if it is not to remain a unique exception then the battle has to be taken to the doorstep of every local authority and into the heart of the Labour Party, with As Battersea CLP member Hugh Richards argued in Socialist Challenge last week: "There is a way that Labour local authorities can meet the full claim and increase services and reduce rates at a stroke. That is to refuse to pay interest It means that Labour councillors will The then have to stand shoulder to shoulder with ducation. their employees, instead of praying for the government and the union leaders to get them off the hot seat. A national all-out strike remains the best means of forcing all the public employers, and Prentice. not least the government, to put an end comparability teachers? THE MAGIC word 'comparability" is now being put forward as the solution to all the problems of the low paid.
It is suggested as a crucial plank to the Government-TUC concordat and which comparability is the chief weapon the trade union leaders in the public sector are using to sell to their membership the idea of ending the present strike wave.
But comparability is not a new idea. It has been used before; for example to determine the pay of teachers and civil The 1974 report of the Houghton committee recognised that teachers salaries had talen hehind those of comparable workers. The government accepted Houghton's comparisons and gave teachers a 22 per cent increase.
Secretary of State for Reg Prentice, said: *For teachers to fall behind, year after year, then have a catching-up exercise at long intervals would be to sell teachers short in the future as we did in the past'.
Fine words from the now Tory But just has the exercise of 1974 got Last year the National Union Teachers in conjunction employers conducted a new compar bility' study, using the comparison o Houghton award recommended.
The conclusion is that since 197 teachers have fallen othe non-manual workers by between 18 an 22 per cent.
Fred Jarvis, general secretary of th NUT and one of the more right-win union leaders, has commented: Th years of income policy and the fact tha teachers "productivity" extras have led to th have - HU "fringe"
present sorry state of teachers' pay?
_The NUT has now put in a claim for 35 per cent rise, to bring up their pay t the levels of 1974. And that years on — is where comparability ha got the teachers.
Civil servants' pay is a similar story In this instance there is a permanent pa comparability body which is through a pay research unit governe by a pay research board.
This lays down how far and wit other of