of such rises can argue that such a policy does not hit working people as hard as cuts might do, it still hits them hard It can also in the end hit the councillors them selves.
While some Labou councillors argue that if they didn't raise rates and would go bankrupt and 1 Calls the council would be replaced by commissioners sent in by the Tory government, it also likely in many places that massive rates rises will, in the end, lead to the councillors being thrown out of office by the electors.
Working class people are hardly likely to be encouraged to believe in the socialist credentials of a Labour council which raises rates with as much apparent enthusiasm as the Tores raise unemployment To refuse to imple ment rate rises, as well as rent increases or cuts in social spending, means ir It involves telling the electorate that rather than raising rates or imposing cuts, the council will tace the DIOS OCCL O being expelled from of JUCC Thatcher and Heseltine. It would also mean expulsion before it happens, when it happens and after it happens.
Ana turn would require mobilising TOCA and all working people in that fight; in culoulas ing other councils to take the same stand; in link me lo wila unem wac they do All that might not seem an easy option, and indeed it is not.
It is always more convenient manage capitalist policies than to them root and Oppose branch. But such an op position is what socialists are in business for - and it is what Labour councillors should also be in business for. IN London borough of Camden, Labour councillors are vicious attack by the Tories and the courts for paying their local authority workers a living wage.
Following the local authority workers strike in 1979, Camden paid its workers an extra £10 a week and shortened The authority workers had their the 118S to roya sum of fol •obr week to the district auditor by Tory councillors the cast has now been referred to the High Court If the court upholds the auditor's report that the uneconomic and SUSTTICO inen the loca workers' wages could be councillors could have to ody I2m Daci the counci - £60,000 each NUPE's local full time official John Suddaby told Socialist Challenge:
'The intervention of the district auallo.
If our wages are cut, then w shall certain!! be pushing for strike action must stand up to this attack Only mobilising campaign local trade unionists and the these attacks.
Lamaen demonstration cuts. • Satur February 11am Towi March to Kentish Tow!
Socialist Challenge 5 February 1981 Page 3
regional council in
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the Camden