solidarity from other public Only a victory in the national struggle can really guarantee even the settlement in Camden and secure the solidarity of all public sector workers on which will have to Camden's return to work now weakens that fight for the branch had the offer anyprobably was in the best long-term interests not only of the national struggle but also of workers to continue the fight as part of driver.
A purely local struggle to defend Camden's gains outside action has no way forward. This position of the leadership even if *Pathetic rejected now, would have been shown to be right in the coming month, and it needed to be put.
But the Camden settlement can be strike action. It even the present settlement were achieved nationally it would be a major victory. With national all-out strike action the full Camden leadership made an error in recommendung a return to work wach tae did. But the struggle in Camden which has been the industrial probably the most advanced in the whole country, shows that WIl! increase.
* The line of this article was endorsed by the IMG Political militancy.
the dispute the action government sections. BOB CARVER, according to electricians' union leader Frank Chapple, is a terrorist. The commentators of the mass media share the same view, in so many scarcely-veiled words.
Bob Carver is an ambulance He is secretary NUPE's ambulance branch in Solihull. And he has one word for the pay offer that has been made to public sector workers:
Bob Carver has no time for percentage pay rises. "To my mind,' he says, 'percentages are the most evil bloody weapon that's ever been devised against the working class.' An ambulance driver's basic pay is £44.80. Their officers earn more than twice that, and this is an abiding grievance.
an across-the-board percentage rise, the differen- time tials would widen even further.
Bob explains: "The people on high rates sit back, take no part in the low pay campaign, or in action which loses us pay. And now they're due to collect double our paltry A battery of grievances have accumulated since the ambulance service was transferred from local government to the health service in 1974, and it is these as much as the pay claim which have spurred the present It has led to one of the most important developments during month ago of a national shop stewards ambulance commitunion these committees to be transformed into strike committees.
If these organise support by way of picketing, sympathetic and boycotts, the and une Civil Service Department will find it harder to use scabs or transfer work outside the computer Our executive has decided to remove the right to strike from the two most militant sections - workers in the DHSS and Department of Employment; a DIA VAT TONDO BOB CARVER tee, an unofficial body open to every ambulance steward Bob is one of its founder members, and he says that it has enabled them for the first to find out managements and ambulance staff are up to in different parts country, and take appropriate action.
The union leaders panicked a fortnight ago when the called for a 24-hour all-out strike. A meeting was quickly arranged with the Ambulancemen's (sic) Council - the first time that stewards had CVC collectively with this officia union negotiating body.
•We're not a splinter group,' Bob says. 'We want to take up our issues through the official channels. But getting our concerns recognised mav wel mean initiating our own action."
spares depot, and tax offices.
Cleveland CPSA spokesperson Phil Eglington said: •We expected about a 90 per cent turnout, but the response has been almost total. We have even had non-union staff coming out.' A CPSA picket outside the development land tax office in Middlesbrough, the stoppage was total, had no doubt about the need for the claim.
*Lots of civil servants receive family incomes supplement, he said. "Low pay is so bad that
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WAS Are ambulance drivers terrorists?