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the past few weeks, has published a number of letters tron shop stewards and trade unionists expressing their views on the TUC 'guidelines' for disciplining the working class.

From these, there has been a tendency to suggest that militant action on its own will be sufficient in preventing the trade unions accepting the 'guidelines'.

Letters have said 'finally From the General and Municipal Workers' Union rule DooK. Rule 27.-Disputes 1. Should any dispute arise the members concerned shall make the same known to their Branch Secretary, who shall immediately report the same to the District Secretary for submission to the District Committee, but in no case shall a cessation of work be threatened or take place without the sanction of the District Committee or National Executive Committee as required by rule. ... 2. Should any Branch or body of members of the Union desire steps to be taken for an advance of wages or improved conditions of employment, the Branch Secretary shall report the claim to the District Secretary or other recognised official in the District, who shall forward the same to the National Executive Committee. ... 3. No cessation of work shall take place unless two-thirds of the members belonging to the Branch or body immediately concerned shall have voted in favour of the adoption of such course, and then only with the express sanction of the National Executive Committee, and after legal notice to terminate contracts of service has been given. Every member affected shall have an opportunity of recording his vote at a special meeting, for and against handing in notice to cease work. In no case shall members be entitled to strike benefit if they enter upon a strike without the sanction of the National Executive Committee. The National Executive Committee shall have power to refer a dispute to arbitration. . • Which way for education in the 1970s? "TO PLAN a future in whic is at a low level of educati permanent unemployment?

This is how the National Union of Teachers' pamphlet Into the Seventies' introduces the new decade.

And it is in this light that should judge the cuts in every branch of education being carried out by the Labour government.

These cuts are not just 'economies' made on the instructions of the international bankers. They are a preparation for the future and the only kind of 'planning' reformism is capable of in this period.

As we warned on December 12 in the article Labour's Education Policy and Enoch Powell', that Party's leaders are in agreement with Powell on the need to 're-examine priorities' in education and relating education 'investment' to national production.

The logic of this reasoning is simply if capitalism is heading for a slump why invest in education at all?'.

And even without an economic slump, the education cuts are a necessary response to the trends within capitalism.

The experience of America, says the NUT pamphlet, 'indicates that with the progress of technology the uneducated and semi-educated become increasingly less employable. There is no future for unskilled labour in a modern society. (Our emphasis.)

'In the past we have been prepared to budget for a society based on periodic unemployment; to permit young people to grow up with a low level of general education is to budget for a society in which the community will contain a permanent element of persons who are both unemployed and unemployable.' No relation But while the pamphlet makes these quite correct observations, it is unable to relate education's crisis to that of capitalism.

It addresses itself to the government and the authorities in the demand for a new Education Act.

It pathetically tries to warn the butchers of the education system about the consequences of butchery.

As if the Labour leaders are not aware of where their policies are leading the working class!

The passage on the US experiences reads like a watered-down version of the Young Socialists' policy stateRegistered as a newspaper at the Post Office. Published by Workers Press, 186a Clapham High Street, Printed by Plough Press Ltd. (TU), 180b Clapham High Street, London, • the revo say Northants the shop floor will decide' or 'the right-wing unions will probably accept'-both extremely misleading statements.

Firstly, the TUC 'guidelines' are a direct attack on the basic democratic rights of the trade union movement, designed in the interests of the employers Laal. appreciable proportion of th ; to plan a future in which 1 ment published as far back as 1967! * Only without revolutionary analysis and conclusions.

This document, "Socialism and Youth', said in section 5:

'Automation, even at its present restricted rate of introduction, disposes of an average of 35,000 jobs (in USA) every week. Those made redundant either go on the dole or are forced to take jobs at much lower pay.

The growing shortage of semi-skilled and unskilled jobs takes place at a time when the teenage population is increasing rapidly... It is practically impossible for young people to hold down a permanent job without a high-school diploma, the next few years seven and a half million young people will enter the labour market without one!

In the South three out of every five young Negroes have * 'Socialism and Youth', the Young Socialists' programme, is available from the National Secretary, 186a Clapham High Street, London, SW4. Price 6d. WAGES WILL LESS IN utiona and stewards shing dor stewards making decisions or taking independent action.

This would place all the authority and decision-making into the hands of a few full-time bureaucratic The ground-work has been prepared. Unions such T.U.C. prepares imposed agreements danger THE TUC 'guidelines' policy would tie up even even — boilermaker sible at all. more firmly the alliance between the trade union leaders and the employers. With the return of a Tory government this year, Wilson's anti-union legislation would be implemented immediately. I see this as an enormous threat to the trade union movement.

In the strike at the BP site, Grangemouth, in which I took part, the conflict policy. was between the 500 boiler- A. Courtney, makers as against a site agreement signed up by the Glasgow.

popul Were w no high school education at all. In the last major depression, in 1958, half of those unemployed were from semi-skilled and unskilled jobs. In one year of slump two and a half million of these jobs were permanently destroyed-and at a time when automation had hardly started!

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Quite naturally the NUT pamphlet cannot and does not pose the problem in this way.

While it attacks the understaffing, under-financing, the poor buildings and equipment and the slow pace of comprehensive re-organization, it piously believes that it is possible to draft a new Education Act embracing many reforms and to persuade the government and authorities to adopt it.

No doubt this reflects the feelings of thousands of NUT they need to raise prices', he said, 'the rise in prices as I see it is not due to decimalization as such.' As the Transitional Programme of the Fourth International puts it:

'Neither monetary inflation nor stabilization can serve as slogans for the proletariat because these are but ends of the same stick, two There are no reformist guarantees for the threatened living standards of the working class.

If average weekly earnings in Britain over the last year, as distinct from wage-rates, have kept to a marginal extent above the rise in prices, then this is solely due to the as yet undefeated working-class strength on the factory floor.

It is above all this strength which the capitalist class wants to undermine with the assistance of the Labour and trade union leaders.

We have been warned.

action would not be posAs with . the welders at the shipyard at which I am trade union leaders. This now working, it is the rankagreement was supposed to and-file who start the fight be national union policy. to defend their conditions.

Under the TUC plan such Such fights are won against agreements could be im- their union leadership. posed with the threat that A new socialist leaderany section of workers who ship must be built and as attempted to fight against part of this struggle an productivity deals and all-out fight must be made wage-cuts, as advocated by against the TUC 'guidelines' TUC, would face the withdrawal of their union membership.

With such a plan, strike members reared in the sixth forms and training colleges on the traditions of English liberalism, utilitarianism and reformism. hook.

But these same teachers are having the foundations of their adequate as thorose faith thoroughly shaken up by their own experiences in the for teachers in the 1970s. current salary claim struggle.

Tens of thousands have been on strike and are embarking on a path that will lead them use to cover its tracks. to the very opposite conclusions to those contained Surely we do not have to remind the author that Disraeli was speaking at a time when capitalism was expanding on a world scale and Britain's position was one of APPEARS to oppose world dominance.

not trade union bureaucracy is treading the same path.

They are handing over the organized working class to the state at precisely the time when the return of a right-wing Tory government is on the cards.

No amount of militant action on its own will prevent the betrayal taking place.

The only way to defend the unions today is by revolutionary' means - through the building of a revolutionary leadership within the unions and the preparation for the taking of power.

Sam McLean, Danny Quill, NUG&MW shop stewards, Boilermakers' Society, Rigid Containers, Desborough. the reformist aims of the NUT document.

mentiof the Labour governOPPOSES independent schools, but proposes regulations to see they are During last term a Ministry 'efficient'. circular abolished this 'discrepancy. Now there is no DEMANDS teacher representNation the Education limit at all on class sizes at Committee. 'Just as the primary or secondary levels!

complexity modern Indeed, these days attacks business undertakings has come disguised as reforms. caused industry to devise Every concession has a barbed expertise by departmental That is why the union's managers can be brought amphlet is in- to bear in decision making' in industry, so with the teachers in education!

Each demand it makes is hinged to a proviso which the Bankruptcy 'reforming' government would This last analogy. reveals the bankruptcy of the NUT document. department:

reachers of on state aghe The four-Christian Democrats; Republican Party; United Socialist Party (PSU); and Italian Socialist Party (PSI) came together in an attempt to negotiate terms for a narliamentary coalition excluding the Com. munist Party (PCI).

The immediate obstacle greement is the PSI's vacil lating attitude.

The PCI leadership has been