the most militant workers were taking action - and instead suggest that students could win their demands by petitioning Parliament the day before. Dole Queue NUS president Charles Clarke does not think that students have the right to criticise Fred Jarvis and the rest of the NUT leadership, who sit back while 30,000 students are facing the dole queue and then attempt to discipline those NUT members who struck In support or une students on 16 June. Instead the Broad Left say that it is the rank-and-file trade unionists who are backward, who don't really want to fight Labour's policies.
Student teachers have found the opposite to be the case when going to factories, building sites, hospitals and schools. Large numbers of student teachers are beginning to understand which can unite students and workers around the position of no responsibility for the crisis.
Equally, the role of the IMG at the 16 June lobby deserves some criticism. The demand for the recall of the TUC had assumed a central position in the IMG's strategy, and one would have expected, therefore, a clear political intervention at the lobby. The students there were those sufficiently committed to support the LACC demonstration against the instructions of NUS executive; a leaftet ciearly explaining the way in which the campaign could be taken forward woula nave nad a signiticant impact.
Instead, the intervention remained on the level of a contest with IS on organisational efficiency and anti-Broad Left polemic. The only suggestion given to IMG svmpathisers was to pick up the Red Weekly placards after the lobby, and this was no easy task, as they were indistinguishable from those of IS.
These kinds of mistakes must not be repeated during the next IS initiative, the London-Brighton march. Clearly this march should be supported, but again its political basis is inadequate and the IMG must start preparing now if it is to intervene effectively. - MARK WHYTE, PHIL DAVENPORT, JOHN S. EVANS, ANNA BRADLEY, GWYN JONES, DIARMAID MaDERMOTT, BRIAN RUTTER and other members of Warwick University Socialist Society. THE EDITORS REPLY:
We very much welcome the contribution from members of Warwick Univeristy Socialist Society. As they may know, the Red Weekly special supplement on the student occupations issue of 10 June 1976) was compiled with the assistance of many people active in the struggle, student teachers and teachers, both inside and outside the International Marxist Group. Their letter helps to continue the process of debate on the vital issues of the class struggle which we are trying to make a charcteristic feature of the paper - with your help takes and some possible political ones. On the question of opening the books of the local authorities to student and worker representanves uns was raisea teachers and other trade unionists might want to take a few leaves out of Bristol's book. The Avon liaison committee is now supported by a number of schools, Bristol National Union of Teachers (which sends six delegates, including the vice-president), two NATFHE branches and the union's Avon division, RollsRoyce AUEW shop stewards committee and - of course - all six colleges! From the Rolls Royce toolroom alone came back 12 pages of petitions packed with names supporting the occupations and the student teachers' demands.
The occupations launched an enquiry into schooling which the liaison committee now intends to extend with the help of NUT members and others working in the sector. The aim is to produce a report by September which can provide the basis for precise demands on the local authority. Already a pilot study BEL ERI of over 60 with only one qualified teacher.
them last year!
to win support.
12010 35, and some with well over 40. One parent reported a class The occupations have also led to the establishment of a Bristol wide nursery campaign. Supporters are keen to emphasise that nurseries are not just 'good for the kids' - cutting back on them amounts to a direct attack on women and one parent families. In Avon there are only 26 nurseries for a population of half a million - and the Tories tried to get rid of even The liaison committee is also organising a rally for unemployed school leavers at the end of July in order to draw them into the campaign for jobs, and will be continuing the work of speaking at shop stewards and trade union branch meetings highlight the demand for the implementa tion of NUT policy on class size as the most important for taking the campaig forward, and within which specific demands for local action over opening the books and workers enquiries fell.
This does more to advance the political demands that are essential in fighting the policies of the Labour government nan any simoe revernor of formulas. Sometimes we have to do that - but why limit oneselt to ai abstract presentation of the demand precisely at the moment waen a tving movement has allowed us to make it concrete. What is more, demands for action committees, coordinating activities and so on are also profoundly political, building up a consciousness of democratic organisation in contradiction to the reformists of all stripes On the 16 June lobby - yes, comrades the IMG's intervention wasn't the most brilliant intervention in the world. But a large part of the reason for that was that the specially produced supplement for the lobby had sold out along with every available copy of the paper beforehand
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in command - Or were they?