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Another round of public expendi- at a time when the Scottish Office public sector unions and Glasgow University SRC. Two special trains
ture cuts is coming through. As usual Scotland is especially hard hit. The government contribution to local government spending the Rates Support Grant -will not be increased ing despite a deficit last year. Once inflation and the difference between regional estimates of need (low) and Whitehall's estimates (even lower) are taken into account, Scottish local authorities will have to make cuts of some £72 million to balance their budgets.
In Strathclyde in particular this spells increased misery and news squalor for the ordinary working people of the region. Even in a field where many might feel tempted to turn a blind eye to cuts, like the £1.7m off the Strathclyde Police budget, the result is not less parking tickets and harassment but the axeing of 53 School Crossing Patrols.
Glasgow Passenger Transport Executive is to increase all its fares including the concessionary fare paid by old age pensioners. The social work budget is to lose £4 million. Children's day centres will be closed and hundreds of jobs are at stake. As many as six sewerage works could be closed with all the health hazards this could entail. In the Council Building Department 800 workers have received 90 days notice. Even if only half of those are implemented it will still add to Glasgow's growing queues of jobless.
The most savage cuts, however, are in the field of education. At the same time as the teachers union - the EIS about overis raising complaints crowding in classrooms, at least £25 million is to come off the Strathclyde education budget, and possibly as much as E38 million when the cut in the rates support grant comes through. There will also be a 30% reduction in the school maintenance bill. Regional Council officials have magnanimously agreed not to reduce the number of teachers any further — but since practically every classroom in the area is already monstrously overcrowded, this is not such a big concession.
The bulk of the education cuts will be in the field of Youth and Community education. Knightswood Youth Centre is to be closed down. And this
have just bought a large chunk of TV viewing time to run a against vandalism. Yet is is firmly held by all interested parties - includsocial workers and the police that youth centres effective check on vandalism.
The reasoning behind the cuts was spelled out by Jim Callaghan at the Labour Party Conference. euphemism for profits" he said. And surplus. And surplus IS in the interests of increased profits that we will have to put up with the effects of all these cutbacks.
clyde workers are leading the way in fighting them.
On November 24th bus and underground workers struck losses and fare increases. A march and rally called by notice attracted 2,000 people; a similar stoppage and demonstration called by Council building workers on December 2nd received support from local
campaign
are the most
*We need in is just a workers.
against job them at short
booked by the Glasgow Trades Council to take workers down to the November 17th demonstration in London were filled to capacity.
Elsewhere too the mood is increasingly militant. On December Ist alone there was a one day stoppage of NUPE members in Birmingham and marches London by Steel and Textile
Jim Callaghan's message has got through. Workers have understood what the cuts are all about. Their answer to the appeal for increased profits has been a resounding NO.
Two things remain to be done if victory is to be achieved. The first is the hammering out by the rank and file of the movement of policies that will replace those of the present government. The other is to build ever more effective action and ever more effective unity around such policies. The numbers and the will power we have with us already.
MARTIN O'LEARY