STA, explains how he sees its role.
How and why did this new organisation for socialist teachers come into being? More than ever before there is a need to organise the left in the National Union of Teachers. On the one hand teachers face the attacks of the Labour Government. On the other hand the leadership of the NUT. who stand firmiv behind the Social Contract, have directly aided the Government in these attacks.
This is shown in their scabbing on the defence of the Tyndale teachers, and their atempis to vicumise umon mempers al Little Ilford school for taking action against the cuts. That is why we need an organisation to unite the left in a fight against the union leadership's collaboraton and might for tne broadest acuon Dy the union membership against the Government's attacks.
Could the existing organisations in the NUT, like the CP and the IS-sponsored 'Rank and File Teacher", not have played this role?
The Communist Party has failed completely to show any alternative to the polcies of tne union icadersmip, practice backs up the right wing's attacks on teachers taking action.
As for Rank and File, it has been going through a major crisis over the past few years which has shown up its inadequacies more sharply. Those inadequacies are three-fold:
Firstly, R & F has paraded itself as the left in the union, whilst the undemocratic nature of R & F itselt has prevented many socialist teachers from being involved in it. This led many teachers to despair of any left unity at all.
Secondly, R & F appears to be unable the left in the union and organising the mass of teachers in action against the and in Government's attacks. We believe that the mass of teachers can be won to that nignl, but in oraer to necessary to do more than denounce the refusal of the leadership to fight and then trv to organise mass action vourselt as R & F.
This is what R & F attempted to do in the 1974 teachers' struggle for a London allowance, when they R & F rather than elected action committees could centralise the schools taking action; fortunately they were defeated on ISILIS Wnch KanK inadequate.
proposed that this and a London Teachers Action Committee was set up which was very successful in mobilising teachers. But they learned nothing from that struggle.
Thirdly, we also think that the policies and File stanas lor are However, if R & F Was democratic, and if it was oriented to fighting the union leadership and uniting the membership in action instead of just in R & F, then we would still be inside R & F fighting for our policies and for I think the STA now has to throw its weight into building a broad defence campaign for the Little Ilford teachers, and into campaigning for national action aramest mne cur IOoa ECuar To national no-cover action, and for a day of national strike action against the cuts.
Is there not a danger that the very real differences within the left will be blurred over, insteaa oj oeing jacea up to so tra those differences can be fought out? After all, the unity resolution only outlines the most minimum areas of agreement. Don't you think that if these differences are not faced up to, then the STA will in reality represent a very flimsy unity?
•Yes, I think that is a danger. Some comrades, including members of the International Communist League and Workers Socialist League, argued at the *Unity ResoluConrence Lor tion to include the demands for th sliding scale of wages and work-sharing with no loss of pay.
I voted against this — not because I did not want these policies to be adopted, but because we felt that it was premature to force a vote on those policies. We want to win as many people to those policies as we can by means of a continuous debate within the campaigns STA supporters are waging, so that these policies can be thoroughiv discussed and voted upon at a future conference.
The debate over policies should not b seen as an academic campaign confined to the bulletin, but as an essential and living debate which the left must confront if it is going to provide a set of alternative poncies to tnose or tne soclal contract
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Last week we reported on the founding of the Socialist Teachers Alliance, an organisation of socialist teachers. This week BERNARD REGAN, a member of the IMG and elected Convenor of the