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$2.54-a mere 4p over the minimum laid down by Phase 2 of the TUC's pay limits-is the "negotiated" figure NUT leaders will seek to ratify at the National Union of Teachers Conference over Easter.

This abysmal settlement, which would be dismissed out of hand NG A members at Alden Press in Oxford became the apple of their management's eye last year when they voted to take a cut in wages as their answer to threatened redundancies.

Management spoke warmly in the Press about how good relations were with their workers and how they would all pull together to save the company.

This week the management showed their gratitude. Iwo members were sacked for refusing to set copy from an unrecognised source, the rest are out on strike. under conditions of free collective bargaining, is largely due to the fact that established annual increments are included in the global increase for all teachers.

The main task of the bureaucracy at the Conference will therefore be to spin out to the maximum the talk on their own memoranda and in this way prevent any discussion on branch resolutions.

The two main memoranda are MIDLANDS VICTORIES WORKERS AT F.H. BIDDLES have won their regrading dispute.

After mass meetings had continually shown the determination of the strikers to stay out until management signed a regrading agreement, the stewards were able to report last Monday 21 March that they had gained complete victory.

WORKERS IN THE GEARBOX assembly section at Massey Ferguson, Coventry were out for two days last week in protest at the lack of progress of talks over new piecework rates.

Management attempts to lay off one third of the remaining assembly workers led to a walk-out of the whole assembly workforce.

The two day token action comes days after production resumed at Massey's after the victory of an 11-Feek strike against speed-up. those on wages and the cuts. TI position of the Executive is to ket in step with the TUC and i "orderly return to free collecti Against the cuts the bureal crats offer no policy except 1 claim weakly that their pun 'no-cover' sanctions have achieve some things in some places and t hint at "widening the disruption' It is becoming increasingly clea that the onslaught on education standards, working conditions, jot and wages cannot be met in such way, and that if the impact of th cuts on education is to be resiste the union must mobilise its men bership i in all-out strike actios calling on other public sectc unions and the local labour mov ment in each area for backing The demand must be not simp] for a reversal of the cuts policy bi for measures to protect educatio spending against inflation throug automatic increases to compensat for rising costs as assessed by trad union committees with access ti the books and plans of loca authorities.

And to implement such a polic the NUT bureaucracy Just removed and a principled leadershi built within the union prepared ic encourage and strengthen i struggles of its members-and so attack them in the scandalous way the present leadership has done a the case of the Linte Liond teachers.

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Pulling apart