The Government'S polley is to and rule "—to divide the NUM politically aver the productivity issue and to divide it industrially by concentrating considerable amount miners' wage packet, and there. fore his potential militancy in pits and individual coal felda, In this way the national solidarity of the NUM would be broken and the chance of it once again being able to chal lenge and defeat a Government would be considerably reduced.
Now the risk is that the row aver productivity could, by basic pay claim, cause the type national tne which Ministers have been anscious to avoid ever since the last miners' strike led them hack into power at the expense of the Conservatives last February Financial Time Monday 4th Novenibe In 1972 and again in 1974 the miners, by the use of their united strength, showed the rest of the working class how to deal with wage freeze policies.
Once again the miners are in the forefront of the struggle. A powerful thrust from the miners can blow the social contract sky high. It will show to all the other sections of the working dass that the only effective way to defend living standards is by the use of their own strength, not by reliance on Labour's class collaborationist policies.
AT STAKE Varley, the Lahour Minister of Energy, will try to blackmail the miners by threatening that the EZC million being allocated for A full delegation of Yorkshire miners were down last week to urge the execroscarch into the coal industry will be withheid unless the miners play ball and accept the dent.
Varley knows that this is che weak flank of the left on the NIM executive. Miners are worried about the fulure of the coal industry. The working class is concerned about the energy crisis. Even if there is no minen' STRIKE IRS WIRICE INCTOES LIER strong possibility of electricity cuts.
The fight against the the social Labour's contract is got simply a struge e for higher wages it also involves providing i socialist alternative to the capitalist solutions put forward by the Labour leaders. WORKERS' PLAN The left wing in the NUM must raise the issue of a workers' plan for all sections of the energy industry. They should be calling for u meeting of the unions in all the various sectors of that industry so that such a plan can be worked out, An inquiry should be instituted by the trade unions into the needs of the industry:
The unions must demand the nationalisation of all privately owned sectors of the energy industry and that the accounts of every sector be opened up to the inspection of the workers.
The NUM left wing have begun a serious fight against the social contract, but to win that fight they must go beyond the contines of wages and light Labour's pro-capitalist plans ut every level.
capitalist press and the Coal Board are waging a mighty campaign to force the deal down the throats of the miners. They know what is at stake. To achieve their ends they will pull every trick in the book, The NUM left wall be hounded and attacked. The deal will be lied about and tarted up to try and sell it to the labour force.
offensive by poing inco the tightwing dominated coalfields and chullenging the moderates" head on. and winning their members to a fichting policy.
Wilsun and Erra a sharp warning by telling them that in the event of another miners' strike the full resourees of the working class will be mobilised to make sure it succeeds.
BORROW mercial cOnCErOS rates of interest.
The right, in alliance with the list untilled.
150,000.
The left nuse launch a counter25 per cent.
Other trade unionists must give Education Authority's developnient sub-conmittee reveals that costs approved for new buildings in June this year have since gone up another I0 per cent. A fat-rooted classroom estimated at C26,000 in June was costing E29.000 by August.
It is not just building costs which are rocketing In order to carry out any huilding programme, the local authorities bave to borrow money often in competition with com al extravagant For every E1,000 least EJ0O yearly interest After teachers pay, debt charges are the largest single item on a local authonty's budget, and they have gone up by a stageering 50 per cent since 1972-73.
Dr Eric Briault, education ofticer of the Inner London Education Authority, talks ahout a "hard financial climate'. What he really means is that the Authority is heading for the brokers.
Brault admits that London's education system needs C105 million added on to its present budget, just to keep up with inflation and meet any pay increases that might come out of the Houghton Inquiry.
The most devastating single blow to the education system was the Tory Government's cuts in education expenditure made in December 1973. which totalled a cool L182 million. The cuts read like a World War One casualty - London: 31 primary schools Aron: 215 teaching posts left Buckinghamshite: nursery procramme cut from C241,500 to • Darbam: school replacement East Sussex fees in Colleges of Further Education to go up Hampshire entire nursery programme postponed.
Lanes and Isle of Wight: extension of Xmas holidays to save money on light, fuel etc.
- Leicester: Cl million off repairs and maintenance Oxfordshire: £159.000 off books, stationery, ete.
The Labour Government and its Edacation Minister, Roy Prentice have refused to restore the cuts. Apart from a grint of C3l million to replace buildings which have nearly fallen down, Labour has stuck in the knife.
FORECAST In August there was a 40 per cent cut in teacher training places in Inner London alone. The 1972 White Paper forecast that this year there would be 750,000 places in Higher Education -has now been chopped to 600,000 By 1981 the Department of Educ alien and Science plans to reduce its teaching force from 510,000 to 488,000.
The much vaunted mursery schoo programme has also been hard hit In the coming ycar London planner to provide 2000 places. Now that figure has heen haired.
Another way the local authoritie try to save money is by feeding the school children on kesp which is a fibre yarn Navoured to taste like meat. This will make a lot of mone for Courtaulds, who concocted the monstrosity, but its nutritious value is rather doubtful.
The cuts in education are not shoply restricted lo school children and teachers Even off-building' which is financed by the sale of unused schools is facine cuts SCANN DEMAND S £15 As the entire building programme has fallen apart this means those 120,000 building workers now unemployed bave little chance of Betting Jobs The old decrepit schools will now bave to he kept in use. Three hundred of Inner Loudon's 870 primary schools were built before 1930, but there is lictle or no chance of them being replaced. Children net new sebools. Building workers seed johs, But school building is cut and both suffer Worsen will be really hard hit by the cuts. As inflation erodes family incomes, more and more wives are forced to try to get jobs. The drastic reductions in the nursery school programme nean that for many of these women this becomes an unpossibility. They will be forced to pay through the nose for private mursery facilities if they can find any -or seek jobs where they can work in
the classroom wall.
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. We need £15
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