24.07.2002

Council at arm's length

Last week's industrial action by the three local government unions was well supported in my neck of the woods, Stockton-on-Tees. There was a strong, but good-natured picketing presence at the main municipal buildings in Stockton town centre, and most other local authority offices in the borough saw a similar level of participation. A couple of dozen scabs crossed the line at the civic centre, some shamefaced, but others with mock-defiant grins or sarcastic waves aimed at their picketing workmates. Since the strike was announced a couple of weeks before, some 'colleagues' in my own office must have wasted the equivalent of a full working day discussing with each other the best ways of getting past the pickets. Shop stewards observed that a number of strike-breakers were people who had previously called on their unions for advice and support. The effectiveness of the action was compromised by the recent transfer of all local authority housing staff to a so-called 'arm's length' company, Tristar Homes, owned by the council. These people all still work in the same municipal buildings, but their newly separate employment status meant that participation in the strike would have been classed as illegal secondary action. It seems probable that we can expect this kind of in-house 'privatisation' to be extended to other services in the future. A high proportion of those members of the public who visited the civic centre on the day, usually to pay their rent to Tristar Homes, happily signed a letter to the council leader supporting the demands of local authority workers. Many passing motorists sounded their horns, waved or shouted in support of those on the picket line. At noon, there was a rally for workers from all four Teesside boroughs (Stockton-on-Tees, Hartlepool, Middlesbrough, Redcar and Cleveland) outside Stockton's civic centre. I would estimate that there were 150-200 workers present. I distributed Teesside Socialist Alliance leaflets and some of the CPGB's posh new business cards at the rally. A few of the demonstrators told me that they were regular visitors to the CPGB website and praised its political content, although a Labour councillor from Hartlepool described the Weekly Worker as a "scandal rag" and suggested that the Party was funded by the secret services to undermine other leftwing groups. Fortunately, however, that did not deter other workers, who took all the copies of the Weekly Worker I had. Phil Rawlinson