The fiscal 1996-1997 year has been filled with cuts in services and job losses across the whole of Scotland. Last April, London replaced the former 62 regional and district councils with 32 "unitary" councils. Eight thousand jobs were slashed in the initial six months of the reorganization.

No council has challenged the budget cap limits imposed in mid-December by the UK government's Scottish Office. The Highland Council threatened in February to break the government capping levels in protest, but backed down at the eleventh hour.

Local councils announced new budgets that comply with the spending limits March 6. They include major cuts in social services and an average increase of 10.7 percent in council taxes - three times the rate of inflation. In comparison, the average tax increase in England will be 6 percent. In Glasgow alone, 80 million (US$128 million) will be cut from the budget, 1,500 jobs lost, and an increase of 22 percent in the council tax.

Added to this was the announcement on March 1 that water prices will go up 50 percent due to cuts in the government subsidizing of sewage charges.

Unemployment is mounting here, as reported by the Scotsman October 18. The article announced the Department of Employment's the latest statistics for unemployment in the UK at 7.7 percent for white males and Black males at 17.6 percent. The same article described another study that found the jobless rate for Black males to be as high as 60 percent on one housing estate in Edinburgh.

The new council budgets introduce compulsory redundancies (layoffs). The January 15 Scotsman quoted Glasgow Council member Robert Gould saying, "It's now clear that compulsory redundancies are unavoidable." Until now redundancies and job cuts have been carried out through volunteers, early retirements, and hiring freezes.

These attacks have met with resistance by workers. On February 1, a demonstration in Edinburgh of 20,000 teachers and their supporters from all over Scotland rallied in Glasgow. It was organized by the Education Institute of Scotland (EIS) and the STUC.

Hundreds of schools were closed March 6 by Unison workers opposing the cuts. Some 25,000 janitors, administrators, and clerical staff from Edinburgh, Midlothian, Glasgow, and West Dunbartonshire took part in what was the latest in the largest series of council strikes since 1989.

In Glasgow, the council officers were prevented from meeting March 6 to adopt the new budget because, as Gould explained to the Scotsman, "staff and councilors would have had to run the gauntlet of striking Unison workers picketing City Chambers in protest of the cuts."

On March 5, teachers in Glasgow walked out for the first time in 10 years. Five thousand teachers and their supporters gathered in George Square later that day to demonstrate against planned cuts in education. Further strike days and protest actions are planned.

University workers walk out in Ontario
WINDSOR, Ontario - "Their real target is to break the unions. They started with the hospitals - they just closed 10 in Toronto. We're target number two," explained Tom Amdonov- ski, a member of Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 1001, as he picketed a drive leading onto the University of Windsor.

The 270 CUPE members - custodians, maintenance, grounds keepers, and food service workers - went on strike on February 19 in face of major concession demands. They have kept up picket lines around the clock.

John McGinlay, the local's vice president, reported that "the university administration originally demanded a 27 percent wage rollback" from the 153 part-time food service workers, most of whom are women, as well as cuts in medical benefits. "After the union appealed to Pay Equity Board they came back with a demand for a 14 percent rollback to all food service workers. All workers in other classifications would face a 13-week layoff with no right to bump to other jobs. They then modified that to four weeks layoffs."

The strike is evident everywhere around this campus in the shadow of the Ambassador Bridge, which links this city with Detroit. Trash is piling up, parking lots are almost empty, and every entrance has a picket shack, fire barrel, and pickets.

Students who live in the dormitories and relied on university cafeterias before the strike can now be found in the restaurants in the area.

Strikers describe the actions of management as an attempt to divide the local. With the demand of wage cuts for a majority of workers, the 100 full-time union members in other job classifications were offered a 3 percent wage increase. Full-time workers haven't had a raise in five years. The part-time workers were only organized two years ago and their wages were increased to union scale then.

The campus workers are reaching out for solidarity. They urge other campus workers and students to honor their picket lines. The union organized a rally of 500 on campus March 18.

The faculty union's executive board voted to support the strike, but allowed each union member decide whether to honor the picket lines. Pete Thomas, a student strike supporter, reported that "only two out of the nine professors in the Social Work Faculty are holding classes and many of the secretaries only come into work one or two days a week."

John McGinlay estimated that over 40 percent of the professors had either suspended classes or were holding them off campus.

Workers on the picket line quickly point to the provincial government of Michael Harris as emboldening management. Pat Hunt, a custodian, said he thought, "The Harris government has given them a shield to hide behind." Because of recent labor law changes the university will be able to contract out the unionists jobs in mid-August if there is no settlement by then.

On March 20, the university went to court demanding an injunction against the union to bar picketing at the campus. The court limited the union to four pickets per entrance and set a maximum of a two-minute delay for anyone demanding to cross the line. Hunt explained that the injunction "hadn't changed much, we usually only have four pickets anyway. The court order recognizes our right to hold support rallies."

He pointed out that the unionists were facing harassment. "Several pickets have been hit by cars speeding onto the campus. One person was in the hospital six days. A student sitting on his bicycle at a picket line was hit yesterday by someone racing through an entrance."

Strikers are upbeat. A button on most coats around the campus sums up what they are demanding: "All we want is fairness."

Elizabeth Kealey in Manchester, England, and John Sarge, a member of United Auto Workers Local 900 in the Detroit area, contributed to this week's column.  
 
 
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