UNION leaders have warned red-hot militants - keep out of our struggle.

Town hall union Unison is telling avid left-wingers they are not needed in the battle to save council jobs and services.

The call comes after Unison lobbied local MP Alistair Burt outside Bury town hall last Friday, February 7.

After waiting more than an hour, union representatives were finally allowed in to see Mr Burt at his surgery once he had met other constituents.

But of the dozen protesters who faced the MP round the table, several were banner-waving vendors of the Socialist Worker, who preferred to talk about poverty and the miners' strike rather than Bury Council's financial crisis.

Phil Stansfield, branch secretary of Unison, wanted to make it clear that their presence was nothing to do with Unison.

"They're not members of my branch, they went as a separate lobby," he said.

"At least 50 per cent of our members are not affiliated to Labour or any other party, and that includes me."

Mr Stansfield added: "You cannot stop people lobbying, it's part of democracy, but we'll be asking them to lobby separately in the future."

At the lobby, Alistair Burt said he had warned the council years ago that large extra sums of cash were not on the way, and there was no point waiting for a Labour government because they would not bail them out. The Bury North MP speculated that the council could put more services out to private tender, but said that was up to local authority leaders.

"It's not possible for the public purse to pay for everything," said Mr Burt.

"Government has to set its limits, and the council has to work out its local priorities."

Afterwards, Mr Stansfield summed up the meeting as disappointing.

"It seems that no matter what the formula is, Bury would not come out well-treated, and there's nothing he can do about it.

"I don't think he had the will to do anything if he could.

"The only thing he harped on about was having more privatisation, and more people working part-time."

He said Unison might lobby Bury South MP David Sumberg, and might take a coach delegation down to London if the planned mass rally outside Parliament went ahead.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.