STUC sympathy for Palestinian

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resolution from Dundee Trades Council was remitted to the -hE Congress. * see mustice and ::: 15= ..+ = ie under and refugees ire Middle East, 0:0r 1) the :0 vell independent sovereign state; 2) the British government to recognise the PLO as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people."

There was obvious support for the Palestinian cause from Congress delegates. A fringe meeting chaired by Dundee Labour MP Ernie Ross was well attended.

Hewever the General Council asked that the resolution be remitted to be given discussion by individual organisations over the year as most did not have a declared position Palestine.

It was stated that the General Councii had a great deal of sympathy for the motion.

Success in implementing all these decisions depends on grass roots activity in ensuring that pressure is brought to bear that they lead to action and not just stay as paper resolutions. Name .

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to Socialist The National Union of Teachers Conference ended on Thursday after an unprecedented event had occured -a speech in opposition to motion 73, "That the best thanks for the Conference be given to the President Mr. J. Chambers for his able conduct of the chair"

A delegate, Tony Clark, from the Rhondda Valley criticised the President's biased role, especially in the handling of the debate on an amendment to the Annual Repor: c*the Executive.

The burden of that amendment was that AGM's of Divisions should be open only to Divisional delegates and not to all NUT members as is the case in many Divisions at the moment.

As such it represents a limitation on the rights of local associations and is especially significant for the Inner London Teachers Association which since its inception in 1967, has had an AGM open to all members.

In 1978 the members were excluded from attending the AGM not by rule change but by a decision of the then President who informed the ILTA secretaries that the members would not be allowed to vote at the AGM.

The dispute has continued since then. While addressing conference from the rostrum on Wednesday Mr. Roy Porter, a delegate from Greenwich and a CP member, spoke to this amendment, displaying a the London teachers, using contemptuous attitude highly inflamatory and slanderous language.

He spoke of mob rule and even went so far as to accuse the ILTA teachers of bringing non-teachers along to the ILTA AGM.

Far from calling Mr Porter to order, the President allowed him to continue speaking and called conference to order!

When the attacks continued a young teacher, a first time delegate to conference could take no more.

She called out, ignoring the President's warning and was consequently ordered from the conference hall.

In a disgraceful episode the conterence became so carried away by hysteria it did not even show a willingness to allow a speech to be taken against the amendment.

Instead the President moved to the vote. As result the amendment was agreed by conference.

The Executive informed conference on the following day that Divisional Secretaries would be receiving letters to "explain" what the rule change that they had just agreed to, actually meant.

How many delegates realised at the time of voting that they were voting away the democratic rights of their members?

Most alarmingly the President, by various bureaucratic manoeuvres, prevented conference voting on an excellent resolution on racialism which among other things called for the repea of the Sus' law and the disbandment of the SPG, in line with TUC policy.

This episode was the culmination of the succession of attacks made on the left throughout the conference.

In all, the conference failed to carry many of the policies that the left feel are essential if the NUT is to take up the fight against the cuts in the education service and if the union is to resist redundancies among teachers.

Those policies accepted by conference on preserving educational standards in school are • devoid of any concrete action proposals.

Conference, on an executive recommendation rejected a call for a national Chambers one-day strike in the event of an announcement of any compulsory redundancies by any authority.

And it even threw out, again on executive advice, a recommendation to encourage all divisions and associations to affiliate to the TUC Campaign for Social and Economic Advance because the same resolution included reference to teachers participating in the campaign against all cuts in public services and not just cuts in education!

Conference also failed to pass a strengthening move on "no cover" action for unfilled vacancies.

It was however a major victory that the conference was unwilling to permit a two-thirds majority for the executive motion which would have effectively declared war on the left in the NUT (referred to in last week's Socialist Press).

By denying the executive the right to put their motion, conference prevented the witch-hunt which the The refusal of council house tenants to pay the recent iniquitous increases in rents and rates is gaining momentum throughout Strathclyde, especially in the Renfrew District where 3,000 people are now involved.

A growth in understanding of the political issues posed by the struggle is expressed in the resolution adopted by 230 tenants at a recent meeting in the Glenburn estate in Paisley.

The meeting called upon the local Constituency Labour Party and the Paisley MP, Allan Adams, to back their campaign. They also sought support from trade union branches and shop stewards committees and requested that the Renfrewshire Federation of Tenants Associations organise a mass public demonstration of executive wanted.

Had the executive resolution been passsed it would have been impossible for criticism of the suspensions to be raised at local associaton or divisional level.

The Haringey Teachers Association have taken an important initiative in calling for a conference on Union Democracy and the Fight against the Cuts.

They are seeking support for this from associations up and down the country who deplore the union leadership's role in suspending teachers whose major 'mistake' was to take seriously the union executive's rhetoric about building an alliance similar to that which brought into being the 1944 Education Act'.

Another important development arising from the mounting criticism of the present executive's inadequate policies is a tenants alongside the Labour and trade union movement in the area.

Another strong point in the resolution is the call for the establishment of tenants defence committees to protect those taking action from any possible harassment.

There is a growing gap between this forward move ment of tenants in Glenburn and those in the Federation leadership who wish to restrict the development taking place.

Fearful of the implications of the growth in the scope of the struggle and lacking confidence in the capacity of the working class to fight, they now seek to confine the movement within "safe" channels.

When the Glenburn proposal for a mass demonstration on May 1 was laid before the Federation, Ron Rigby, AUEW convenor at the doomed Talbot plant, moved against this initiative campaign which is being built to encourage an alternative group of candidates to stand in opposition to the present executive members in next year's union elections.

It was the union executive which also throughout conference spoke against strengthening resolutions.

They opposed a strong resolution on sex discrimination which called for free contraception facilities and abortion on demand; gay rights and the setting up of a women's national advisory committee elected by women and consisting of women.

The Executive also weakened the resolution on comprehensive education; putting forward an amendment which preserved the right of head teachers to organise the curriculum and to arrange the groups on which teaching takes place rather than endorsing the main resolution which argued for mixed ability teaching. and proposed instead a lobby of the Regional Coun cillors in the evening of the preceding day, a motion which was then accepted by the committee.

There was an agreement in principle to have a mass public demonstration at a future date but that was not fixed.

Feeding upon the hesitations of some in the Federation committee, George Kerr, the Chairman, and hIs supporters have tried to steer the development in Renfrewshire into the clutches of the Scotish Tenants Organisation.

The spineless nature of that body was revealed at its Annual Conference held in Renfrew on Saturday April 11 when the main invited speaker was to be Malcolm housing, Tory spokesman on Rifkind rejected the invi tation with contempt.

To have even extended an invitation to such an The eighth week of the civil service workers' strike will be marked by extensive action by air traffic controllers, though the total number of those out on selective strike action will remain about the same (roughly 3,000) as other sections will be instructed to return to work.

Two important meetings took place this week which further emphasised the stalemate that has been allowed to develop.

First of all the union bureaucrats agreed to meet up with Lord Soames, Tory Cabinet minister for the civil service.

The only concession Soames offered was discussions on the cash limits for 1982, an offer which even the right wing leadership of the Council of Civil Service Unions was not able to grasp at.

The second meeting was a full assembly of the nine union strike committees. This body rejected increasing demands from the rank and file to escalate the action. arrogant representative of the ruling class, engaged in an all out attack on council housing, and in the midst of a rent strike reveals an abject, crawling attitude towards the enemies of the working class that is truly appalling.

Instead of hearing Rifkind, those who turned up tor the AGM were addressed by Donald Dewar, Shadow Spokesman on Housing and a noted right-winger.

The flabby nature of the STO is further revealed by the programme placed before the conference, "A charter for Scotiand's housing" , which even omits any mention of resisting council house sales.

The way forward for those engaged in the struggle in Renfrewshire does not lie in being drawn into these 'age This has struck a serious blow at the pay campaign as increasing numbers of members are becoming more and more frustrated at the low level of action being sanctioned by the bureauThe union leaders have continually boasted in the media of the high level of coordination and efficient organisation which has gone into the running of the action so far.

This is undoubtedly true, but it has produced a correspondingly stifling effect on spontaneous action.

It has made the average member rely on defensive walk-outs and weekly payment of the strike levy as their only points of contact with the campaign.

Now is the time to step lip the action and go all out for the 15%.

Thatcher knows that the civil servants are capable of dealing her a crippling blow. She has already used troops to break the strikes.

Nothing less than an all-out response will bring her to her knees, and at the same time give a lead to other sections of workers fighting on pay and job cutting. dead end politics, shaped by the Stalinist ideas of peaceful coexistence with the ruling : class, but through extending the scope of the rents struggle and broadening the basis of support within the trade unions and the local Labour Party.

Within the latter there are those who are prepared to openly align themselves with the struggle. Regional Councillor John McDowall has gone on record as saying, "I am ashamed of the majority on Renfrew District Council who are victimising the very people who elected them"

It is only by pursuing a struggle along the lines indicated by the Glenburn resolution that the campaign will have any possibility of success and that the best elements in the working class movement in the area will be won to principled socialist positions.

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General Council after dis- suasion had taken place. = auton reads: