it proposes to freeze expenditure for next year.
With inflation still running at 25 per cent per annum, this represents a savage cut in real terms. The circular also calls for cuts in the number of teachers where the school population is falling, the cutting back of small group teaching, and an end to children starting school in the year they are five.
Up and down the country teachers are facing staff cuts of up to 10 per cent in their schools. Several thousand teachers are already unemployed, with the prediction that between ten and twenty thousand will be unemployed by this time next year. Class sizes are hovering around the 35 mark and rising.
One of the important things militant teachers have to do is to help alert the labour movement to the fact that it is only they who can shape the education system to serve the needs of the working class. The lobby of Parliament against the education cuts on 21 October called by the SouthEast Region of the TUC can begin to point the finger in this direction. Workers in the Merton (Surrey) bus garage, for example, have asked the Transport and General Workers' Union central bus committee to be represented on 21 October.
CAVALCADE
And last Saturday 120 delegates at a Conference organised by Brent Trades Council, not only decided to back the 21 October action, but support a local motor cavalcade on 18 October organised by the Trades Council and teachers' organisations against the educational cuts.
Militant teachers must also campaign for trade union action to implement the resolution on education calling for no cuts which was passed at the TUC Conference. In Liverpool, where a joint trade union delegate committee exists to coordinate education, public sector ment of the Environment and addressed to Local Authorities, and industrial unions in action against the cuts, a propaganda campaign, a week of action, and a picket and demonstration are being discussed.
Unfortunately, militant teachers are far from united on the key issues facing them. On 18 October the International Socialist-dominated *Rank & File' group in the National Union of Teachers will be holding a national conference. But instead of discussing how to build a classwide alliance against the cuts in caucanon, It seems ukery to spend most of its time in exhaustive discussion on the situation inside individual delegates schools, cataloguing local tactics and making links with IS-dominated 'Rank & File groups in other unions.
CRITICISM
It is this sort of criticism of Rank & Fle - once the dominant force on the far left inside the NUT -which has led to the reconvening of the Socialist Teachers Conference in London on 25/26 October. And despite the fact that teacher members of the International Marxist Group will be raising the arguments pur forward nere al the Kank d File conference, it is to the Socialist Teachers Conference that mil itant teachers must look for the vegangs l class wide response to the crisis in education.
Nigel Seel (Maghull Teachers ASSOCIaLIOn!
2nd CONFERENCE 10.30am, 25-26 October Saturday: Argyle School, Tonbridge St., WC1 (opp. Kings X station)
Sunday: Conway Hall, Red Lion Sq. Creche, accommodation provided. Fee for two days: E1. For more information, contact B. Regan, 24 St Agnes Close, London E9 (01-986 0570) GEORGE HARRIS, T&GWU 1/667 branch, Ford's Dagenham *If I was to go to my branch or my shop stewards committee and give them the four demands put to this Conference as a oasis tor a stoppace in tne oublic ser vices, they would see that these demands must automatically be taken up in any part or industry tnat nas come under the attacks of the Labour Government.
"In the four years we have been trying to get something done about the hsopitals, we went round the flats and the maisonettes of the East End of London. We never got any real support. This was because we had nothing to give them.
'But I bet if we went round putting leatlets in their letter-boxes saving we are asking for these demands we would get support. If we offer them some thing concrete that hospital workers can take action on, ten this will get support from the rest of the community.
ISLAY FULLERTON, Wandsworth NUT 'Until we have free abortion on demand, on the NHS, until we have full and well planned contraception tacilities, women will not be able to play a full role either in organising their own lives, or in making their full contribution for improved health conditions and better living standards for the whole of. the working class. me. attacks. The MCAPP Conference on 11 October showed the determinaThe resolution - passed with no votes against — offers a programme around which a fight back can be made and at the same time mapped out practical ways that the workers movement can fight for that programConference correctly rejected the amendrents from the East London IS Health Workers Branch, which would have deleted the demands for the opening of the books, a sliding scale of expenditure, and the call for a workers' enquiry. These amendments got less than 20 votes.
Transform
The delegates understood that the fight to defend and transform the NHS is a matter of concern to all the working class. Its future cannot be decided by some neutral' Royal Commission but has to be determined by the workers' movement. The fight for the opening of the books and the struggle to win a sliding scale of wages and social expenditure are inseparably linked to the battle against Labour's The acceptance of these demands also takes forward the fight for workers' control inside the labour movement. Unless the working class decide themselves on the allocation of resources, and control those resources and staffing levels, the resistance to the Government's attacks will remain purely defensive and localised.
One of the amendments from the Oxford Health Service 783 Branch of ASTMS, which was accep accepted correctly explains that the £1,000 million that the resolu tion demands should be injected into the NHS 'should be under the supervision and control of the workers' committees.' By coming out clearly for a sliding scale of public expenditure, for a complete ban on all private practice inside and outside the NHS, for the nationalisation of the drugs industry under workers' control, and for a workers enquiry, the MCAPP Conference did more than offer a programme around the NHS.
It showed the way that workers' unity can be established on a series of fighting demands.
The MCAPP Conference was important in that it showed the course the workers' movement must chart to counter the attacks of of the Wilson Government. Militants from different organisations - often with different political ideas - are fighting against capitalism's attacks on a series of different issues. The fight on the Shrewsbury pickets, against Government betrayals on Chile, against unemployment, and for abortion on demand, have already involved PAUL STERN, MCAPP Secretary ne buroose or today s conterence is to formulate a workers' plan to resuce the health service. But it also has to transform it from a health service that has suffered from the chronic ailments of underrinancing and understarring, anc turn it into one that can meet the needs of workers. This means an NHS under workers' control, responsible to the neeas or the working class
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gy and resources to the socialist revolution. FIGHT CUTS Oversized classes, old buildings, inadequate resources and prime cuts all round. This is the meaning of the Labour Government's "education' policy for school teachers and children alike. Now a recent government circular (D/E 08/74) aims deliberately to worsen these problems still further. Coming from the Depart-
$15,000 The International Marxist Group is an organisation dedicated to the overthrow of capitalism. It is engaged in permanent struggle against the ruling class, and its members devote their time, ener- But the revolutionary work of the IMG takes money and re- sources. We have no rich backers or sympathetic capitalists to
tion of growing sections of the labour movement to fight back against Labour's attacks on the NHS.
CANGER VHS IN DANGER BROAD