N.U.T. Coventry deal Blueprint for a betrayal

BY ACCEPTING the sacking of 133 Coventry part-time teachers and agreeing to further cuts in the City's education service, National Union of Teachers' leaders are preparing their blueprint to sell out the national pay claim.

The teachers were demanding £135-a-year increase when the claim was formally lodged with the Burnham negotiating committee last Wednesday.

At Coventry the NUT aided the Education Committee in carrying through government education cuts.

This the NUT's journal, "The Teacher', has the cheek to describe as a victory.

After the Coventry betrayal all those Stalinists, 'lefts', and revisionists in the union who continue to call for unity beNot surprisingly, information about the deal is scant and shrouded in secrecy. But enough is known to raise the alarm.

Sacked

There were 193 teachers sacked.

According to 'The Times' Educational Supplement (October 3):

'... about 60 part-timers are needed, an NUT spokesman estimated this week, to relieve staffing shortages the 40 schools worst hit ..! (Our emphasis.).

In other words 133 teachers remain sacked with NUT agreement.

And the anonymous spokesman does not even guarantee the other 60 'needed' will necessarily be employed.

In a joint NUT-Coventry Education Committee press statement the union leaders 'expressed their understanding of the problems confronting the Education Committee' and said that together they would seek a solution.

A 'thorough and exhaustive survey of each and every item of expenditure' affecting education had been made the statement added.

Facilities

Primary and secondary 'facilities' had not been touched. But with savings made from 'the most stringent economies in other fields', the union would co-operate to improve "pupil-teacher ratios'.

Where were the cuts made? The nursery service? Further and higher education? The supply teaching service? By reduction of special responsibility allowances?

We do not know. It appears to be a secret.

So instead of 193 sacked teachers, we now have 133 sacked teachers, new 'pupilteacher ratios' and I 'the most stringent economies'.

All this is achieved by the NUT leaders working jointly with the very local authorities the teachers will be fighting against in the coming pay struggles.

Resolved

Coventry teachers were resolved to strike, but they were betrayed.

The teachers nationally are now ready and eager for a strike.

But we warn - the NUT executive is preparing a productivity settlement along the lines of Coventry.

How else can we explain the executive going ahead with a claim which they asked conference to reject ?

There must be no sackings.

All Coventry teachers must be reinstated. No cuts in any branch of education: let the teachers have access to local authorities' accounts to see where cuts are being made behind their backs.

There can be no confidence in the present NUT executive.

Teachers must prepare a national, indefinite strike for the claim in full without strings. man of Mr Here National Farmers Union's labour committee, said after Tuesday's meeting:

'If we gave the whole claim to every worker in the industry and there was no adjustment it would work out at about £100 million. 'Obviously if there was an award like that a good many farmers would discover they did not have the money to pay it.' No offer had been made by the farmers in reply to their claim, commented NUAW president Mr Bert Hazell.

Hard fight

A hard fight clearly lies ahead if farmworkers are to win their claim.

Besides the farmers' refusal to settle their demands, there is growing anxiety about the effects of British capitalism's moves towards the Common Market on jobs and wages in the industry. turn Wine endical was the, cathole and social democrat them from fighting as a single, united force.

DEFENSIVE

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