Militants in the National Union of Teachers suffered a severe set-back at the union's Easter conference in Scarborough after a series of manoeuvres by the Executive and presidentelect Max Morris, a member of the Communist Party.
ASSOCIATIONS The major defeat was the passing of a resolution removing the right of the local Associations (District Committees) to take independent strike action. This right has existed since the beginning of the century, but was seldom used until the recent London strikes when several Associations took independent action after the Executive's failure to extend the campaign for the London allowance and to combine it with See SUT president Mar Morris a fight for the union's national claim. It was the failure of the Executive to lead any serious Eight and to link up with other workers in struggle which subsequently led to the scenes at a union rally in Central Hall,Westminster, at the end of February, when hundreds of angry trachers took over the platform from the Executive. The Executive has reacted by loading a witch-hunt of members of Rank and File in the Wandsworth Association.
More recently, several Associations in the London area have taken other independent initiatives to develop the struggle. A number sponsored the recent London Conference Against the Freeze and the Government, although the executive tried to stop this by claiming that it was against the 'aims and objectives' of the union. And five Associations voted to strike on May Day in defiance of official NUT policy.
The Executive, however, held two trump cards: the fact that the conference is dominated by the less militant rural branches, and the failure by the militants to prepare the mass of teachers for the struggle after the introduction of Phase 2, so that even London teachers were Iprepared for the sell-out when it came. The Executive was therefore able to rally the bull: of conference behind its attacks on the militants In this it was aided and abetted by leading members of the Communist Party. Max Morris led the way in his prosidential addreas with attacks on those whose activities were foreign to genuine trade unionism. And even the one CP speaker who opposed the Executive's proposals, Joe Finch from Lewisham, used most of his time to attack the maverick ultra-leftists" who had 'wrecked' the Central Hall meeting.
This open alliance with the right is however producing certain strains within the ranks of the Communist Party teachers, who are torn between defending their electoralist gains on the Executive and their credibility as rank and file militants. The pressing need now is for a united front on the question of local association autonomy and union democracy, particularly in defence of the Wandsworth teachers and any others who may be victimised for actions such as taking part in the May Day strikes. Failure to take up these questions will pave the way for a complete bureaucratic take over as in the EEPTU - and CP members must be well aware of the likely consequences of COMING STRUGGLES The left has not been decisively defeated, although it has met with a serious set-back. The union will soon be commencing negotiations over the 1974 pay claim, and the mistakes made this time by the militants must not be repeated.
In preparation for the coming struggles two campaigns are essential, a campaign against the repressive measures being taken within the union and in solidarity with other groups of workers facing repression from other areas such as the State (Shrewsbury building workers) and a campaign on the question of the size of classes, including mobilising teachers to take action on this question and taking it into the working class.
By taking up these two campaigns it should be possible to show teachers that their interests he with the rest of the working class movement and not in some panacea of participatory scitemes.
Rank and File Teacher is well placed to provide this lead but it needs to prove to many militants that it is not simply a front organisation of the International Socialism Group. To this end it would do well to reverse its decision not to co-opt members of the IMG, whose document received the support of one third of the R&l annual conference, onto the leading bodies of the organisation.