Essex Sit-in Set Back

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DEMAND A SLIDING OF LIVING!

RISING IN PACE WITH COSTS COMMITTEES! AS end to the occupation.

The continuous threats of an The campaign against the proposed student fee increases has suffered a temporary setback at Essex University.

On Thursday 17th February over 1500 students voted by about 4 to 1 to call off an occupation which had been scheduled to begin on 21st February.

This extraordinary decision can only be explained in the light of a number of incidents in the preceding fortnight.

At a Union meeting on 7th February a motion was overwhelmingly passed instructing the Executive to prepare for an occupation from 21st February.

At that meeting a further decision was taken to protest at the presence of Sir Keith Joseph who was to address a Conservative Association meeting on 11th February.

Needless to say, when Joseph did arrive to speak, he was vigorously heckled by Essex students, who made it plain they did not want him on campus at all.

CLOSE DOWN

Incensed at this protest against right wing policies, the Sunday Times on 13th February carried an editorial calling for the closingdown of Essex University, arguing that such militancy among students should be smashed once and for all.

The University administration, in alliance with the Conservative Association, seized on this editorial, circulated thousands of duplicated copies, and generally whipped up anti-socialist feeling on campus.

For four days, right wing hysteria reigned at Essex: almost 200 lecturers and tutors including many so-called "Marxists" signed a petition calling on the Students Union to call off the occupation; classes and lectures were cancelled as individual teachers instructed students to vote against the occupation; and on 17th February entire departments were shut down (including the Engineering Department), to allow students to attend the Union General Meeting.

STAMPEDED At the meeting itself a motion against the occupation was stampeded through by about 1200 to 300.

The most disgusting aspect of this entire episode was the attitude of the Stalinists of the Communist Party and their sattelites organised the Broad Left.

The night before the meeting the National Student Organiser of the CP - Ken Spours - came dowr to Essex to ensure that the campus Stalinists would cravenly capitulate to this right wing terror.

He needn't have bothered. The CP there had already decided to ally themselves with the administration and to vote against the occupation.

Yet despite this combination of administrative hysteria right wine witch hunting and Stalinist betrayal, the fees issue is still alive at Essex.

WEAKNESS

The frenzied over reaction to a proposed occupation only revealed the weakness of the administration not its strength.

At least 300 voted for occupation, a very considerable figure in view of the pressure on students to vote down direct action.

Moreover, the University have now got themselves in quite a dilemma. For at a Senate meeting on 16th February, a motion was passed supporting th NUS National Demonstration on March 9th.

This was obviously intended as a sop to students, a bribe to ensure that the occupation was called off.

But the Students Union, in alliance with campus trade unions, are taking the motion seriously, and have demanded a complete shutdown of the University on March 9th, and for the University to finance coaches to take all those who want to go - students and workers alike - to the March 9th The University now say that only 20 trade unionists can have a day off to attend the march; but campus trade unions are insisting that all their members be allowed to attend. The administration's efforts to bludgeon the students into accepting the fees increases may have succeeded in stopping one occupation; but they have not yet stopped student determination to fight.

What has been lacking hitherto at Essex and nationally - is any effective leadership to fight these increases on clear political lines.

The struggle against the fees increases is of necessity a fight for revolutionary leadership of the NUS which must now be taken up in time for the NUS conference at the end of March.