The scale of the Tory Government attacks on the living standards of millions of people is becoming increasingly clear to the 600,000 students who returned to their colleges last week.
The Government have made three slashing attacks on education spending in one year, culminating in Barber's December crisis budget", and have cancelled one entire year's building programme for the colleges. Quite apart from the redundancies this will cause in the building trade, students will find themselves faced more and more with accommodation shortages, soaring rents, and massively overcrowded teaching facilities.
LOCAL CHALLENGE Since the fight at Kent University by students and college workers against redundancies and ance rises in the summer of 1972, each new move to implement the ruling class policy of higher education on the cheap has met with a strong challenge at the local level. The fierce struggies around such issues as lack of accommodation, high prices and rents at the end of last year, in Brighton, Leeds, Essex and Birmingham, point to an equally militant response to the Tories attack in the coming months.
However the cutbacks will mean more Than worsening conditions in the colleges. The National Union of Students Executive is be caracau chaleng willine Governeat Bl the current review of the grant level, while doing little to prepare for a real fight against the erosion of the grant levels.
The reductions in state expenditure on higher education make il probable that the Tories will cut even the pitifully small increase They proposed last year, While agreeing to pay married women students the full rate of the grant, the Tonies will likely offer an increase in the grant of about 190 spread over three years. The NUS claim is for an immediate increase or L170 on the existine main rate of 1485 for all students, including those who at present get a token amount from their local authorities or nothing at all. The £90 would amount to an increase olara year. which, at the current rate of inflation, would mean that the real value of the grant would go down E15 each year, Moreover, the Tory imposed three-day wetk will mean that parents who are forced to PET TOMATOO CON OF LICIE COLLECT S COUP POUR COUP (Blow for Blow), a film directed by Marin Karmitz (France 1972)
Blow for Blow is a brilliant agitational film about two kinds of violence. Right from the first that the aud caccis pranged nig that tencastic degree ot daily violeno which the capitalist organisation of work inflicts on the working cast lin the film, women 9 ye on une conveyor belt, ane interrar noise, Ine dirt and heat. The permanent supervision of one's moverents is crowned by further 'attacks" such as madequate housine, the curburdening of domercia life etc...
These attacks arn challenged in the film after the sacking or Two of the so-called aotatom, Pitifess retaliation by the workeis reaches its climax in their we a poss, a put reward even ir for tron the system he represeats, By giving blow for blow leo proto), the workers begin so brok down tair stomised existences reinforced by wage differentials and LoCk oF means or commun tater. Torough cheer Rod Whale 10 hour 1072 Da Last team's occupation at Essex University, where the ings against 30 of those involved... As the students at Essex have already said, the best way to defend them is to take up their example.
education will have to reduce their contribution or cut it altogether, In many cases this will force students to leave college What has heen the response of the NUS Executive to this attack? Innumcrable state- сотя ва не срая prcas, out pot moct else, Still clinging to their pressure politics, the Executive has called off, in all but name. the "Week of Action" which was to follow the national grants demonstration on 8 February in London, Instead, they have proposed a "week of public activity' on 4 March, so late in to prepare tor a real struggie in the coleges. Why has this happened!
COMMUNIST PARTY The Communist Party is politically dominant in the Executive, In line with their strategy of building an alliance between the working class, 'small bosses, trade union and Labour Party bureaucrats, iberal academics and other "progressive" forces against the interests of big monopoly capital, the CP sees the way forward Tor the Grants Campaign in terms of an alliance with these forces against the policies тичує ста в автон с their postion and common interests. On the screen we see diassconsciousness grow before our eyes, Of course there are many weaknesses in the film especially as i does not project the struggle beyone. the immediate victory shown, However, whet the film does do brilliantly is whet the British left too often tails to do: expose the need to overthrow the cipitalist system in a way that the broadest mas of workers can diasp. More than thAt sun thi audience to action by putting all the expertise of the bourgeois cinema to a revolutionary purpos: Two hundred defenders of the programme" are worth less in the class struggie than one vivid #battalion pr lis sort This is a film that should be seen by all these workers who colmly argot their copressive conditroris. Hut unfortunately, because of the monopoly of Rank and ABC trash on the circuits, it won't be.
The film is showing at me Electric Cinema, Partobello Road, London Wt1 uptil Toesday 22 January and possibly forger (ring 01-727 4992 to check). of the Tory Government in higher education, In this case it is to be the college authorities and the Vice Chancellors who play a key role in pressurising the Tories. Of course the coLlege authorities don like the cuts since it makes life difficult for them, However this does not mean, as the CP concludes, that the Vice Chancellors will link aris with students and the working class against the Tory attacks. In fact, in order to conserve what little money is available to them, they will step up the crosion of student living standards inside the colleges by raising rents and prices and laying off college workers. They will back up these attacks by the usc of victimisations, court actions, and attacks by private squads of thug securily guards if students try to resist these cuts. This is borne out by the experience of student militants in Oxford, Essex, and Bristol last term.
What can students do to force back the attacks in the colleges and ram home the fight against the Tories! Firstly, the latest betrayals by the trade union bureaucrats make it even more urgent that every possible ally of the working class is drawn into the fight to get rid of the common enemy-the Tory Government, A victory for the working class at this stage, in particular a victory for the miners, would weaken the Tory Government and thus be a victory for all those presently suffering from its policies. The Tories and the capitalist press roalise this fact and are straining every muscle to block any moves towards such a united offensive. Students can expect threats by the college authorities to close down the college it they threaten to launch militant struggles. The same ploy may well be used to try and prevent mass sewdent acton t support of the miners. Even more likely is the partial closing of institutions, and the cutting off of heating and lighting, to arouse sections of the population like stadents and white collar workers against the miners.
FIGHT ON BOTH FRONTS Every available platform must be used to put the case of the working class against the Tory Governitent to the mass of stodents, Colleges sould invite miners representatives to speak at union meetings, and student unions should pledge support for all workers" struggles, includ ing that around the freeing of the Shrewsbury building workers and actions against the I-day week. Colleges who pur up miners during the Jast strike and aided dying pickers at power stations and ports should get in contact with the Jodge and area committees of the NUM whose memhers came down to offer support and information in the event of a strike, In the event of a national miners strike being called, the NUS should centralise the activities of student sup port committees, calling conferences and demonstrations in solidarity with the struggle aprinst the Tory government.
However, this is only part of the story. Students must make sure their own fight Involves the greatest number of students at the highest level of militancy possible. Real unity between students and workers can be forged in action, bot through pious resolutions at VUS Conferences As we have seen, the Tories attack on the living standards of students takes place on taro broad fronts-worsening of conditions in the colieges and allowing rising prices to eat away the real value of the grant. They are attacking us on both fronts; we must fight back on botk Tronis. It is insutficient merely to raise the national demands of the grants campaign, we must also have demands which make sure the Tories do not give with one hand and take away with the other.
Students have already begun to take up the fight. The number of colleges going on rent slrike in response to the call of Margate Confer ence increases every day. The figure is now 35. These strikes must not be left to become isolated. It is vitally important that these rent strikes are part of a programmie of direct action which includes a set of demands which can unite the rent strikers with other students in the colleges and beal back the attacks on student living standards Area meetings or conferences must be organised to include all colleges in the locality in this programme of direct action. Grants Action Committees should find out exactly how much prices have gone up in the colleges, whether or not student expansion will be matched by increased facilities, and if the college administration is thinking of laying off staff to cut down on costs. Demands hased on this sort of infurmation will bring home to students the need to defond our living standards through ongoing action, There will be no conTosion between the local and national demands of the campaign, they will he seen as integrilly linked. This will be the most effective way we can show the Tories we mean business. NO BUCK PASSING Grants Action Committees should make sure that the college autorities in the public sector do not pass the buck on to the Local Education Authorities by putting joint demands on the college authorities and the LEAs, backed up by occupations of LEA offices, They should demand that local councils refuse to implement the cuts in state expenditure, following the example of Monmouth County Council The disciplinary hearings arising out of the Essex occupation last term now look as though they will involve over 30 students, and even some lecturing staff. Because Essex was the first college to take up the fight last term, the defence of these students will be seen as an important test for the student movement-not just by militants in other colleges, but also by the college authorities. The key to the defence of the Essex militants is to throw the college authonties on the defensive. They must be shown that the victimisation of scudents will not demoralise those taking action, bur actually draw new forces into the struggle. As the stud ents at Essex have already said, the best way to defend them is to take up their example.
The national demoostration must be a priority for all students. The demonstration in and of itself will not force the Tories to concede, but it will boost the morale of those colleges taking action in the absence of any real leadership from the executive and provide a political focus for all the activists in the campaign, I can be an important oxpression of multant opposition to the Tory Government in alliance with the working class. A "weck of action' must follow this demonstration whether the Executive supports it or not, otherwue the opportunity to take up the light tora higher grant this term will have been lost.
A campaign of direct action around the national demands of the campaigo and demands such as expansion of facilities to match increas es in student numbers, a freeze on prices and rents, no redundancies for college workers and a hardship fund to subsidise students hit by the three day week, will give milicants a real tocus for the long hard struggle against the Tories RAY BURNS•