NUT no action o victimisation

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Box 5277, London WC1V 6XX. Printed by Anvil Printers, London. not necessarily represent the views of the Workers Socialist League Bani-Sadr With one member sacked and over 50 members having been sent home without pay for refusing to teach oversized classes, the National Union of Teachers is still steadfastly refusing to call all-out action to defeat Nottingham's Tory council.

In a ballot in February over 200 schools declared their willingness to take action to force the reinstatement of Eileen Crosbie, then under suspension for refusing to teach a nursery class of 40 children with only one nursery nurse.

But the NUT leaders had no intention of calling them all out. Instead they called for a succession of lightning strikes and token stoppages that have only served to confirm to management that the union bureaucracy is utterly spineless.

"No cover"

At Easter even these actions in defence of Eileen Crosbie were called off. Instead the policy of "no cover" action was introduced.

The authority responded promptly. Eileen Crosbie's sacking was announced, and teachers taking "no cover" action were immediately victimised!

Yet while scab labour is brought in to run schools in the absence of locked-out NUT members; while Eileen Crosbie remains sacked; and while teachers having voted for action are forced to witness the whole debacle from the sidelines, NUT national and divisional leaders continue to bleat that they are willing to negotiate!

Determination

Nottingham's Tory council reflects the determination of the Thatcher government to press home its attacks on education standards. Eileen Crosbie is quite right to point out that:

Eileen Crosbie "It is not just important for me that the union wins this, but for every teacher in the country." •NUT leaders, too, in their own way recognise the national importance of the Nottingham fight. They know that if they give a lead to teachers for all-out action to defeat the Tory attack in this one town, then members throughout the country will demand similarly resolute action to defend their jobs and conditions.

This would disrupt the NUT bureaucracy's course . of collaboration and coexistence with management: and could prompt wider struggles, embracing NUPE and other public sector unions, against the Tories.

Yet without such a fight there is no way the attacks can be halted. If the NUT leaders refuse to lead the struggle, a new leadership must be constructed that will do so.

*NUT must strike to stop the cuts! Demand supporting action from other unions!

*Force the reinstatement of Eileen Crosbie!

*Defend education standards; for a sliding scale of spending to keep. pace with inflation!

*Bring down guerrillas on a group of settlers in the West Bank town of Hebron, where the Zionists have been making a particular effort to take over the Palestinian town.

They killed two and injured 40, without loss to themselves.

This was followed by the deportation of the Mayors of Hebron and Halhoul.

These deportations have added another twist to the protest movement, with demonstrations of Palestinian youth in Halhoul, Ramallah, El Bireh,. Nablus, Jenin and Jericho.

There is no doubt that the Zionist leaders are prepared to use the utmost repressive force against such resistance: but the forward movement of the dispossessed Palestinian people in their struggle against the racist settler state has plainly gained strength from the weakening of imperialist control following the fall of the Shah.

Hence the urgency for Begin to cobble together with his Egyptian lackeys a scheme to buy off the bourgeois and petty bourgeois Palestinian leaders with a measure of "autonomy" in a West Bank ghetto area under the thumb of the Zionist state.

Egyptian stooge Sadat