At the same time more than seventy trade union branches in Coventry have asked for speakers from the occupations, with Chrysler shop stewards adding their support, In Bristol the Rolls Royce shop stewaras were seato jom studentss from Redlands on the lobby and subsequent march called by the London Action Co-ordinating Committee.
These actions represent the real gains achieved by the National Delegate Conference in Manchester on 5 June, when it rejected right-wing "special case' arguments for teaching jobs. It is these gains that the NUS Executive have deliberately put at risk by issuing their call for an end To tie occusations Despite the lies, slanders and manoeuvres of the Broad Left majority on the National Union of Students Executive, the fight by student teachers to build the 16 June lobby of the special TUC has gained widespread support. Some examples of stands taken by trade unionists have been, quite literally, striking. Members of the National and Local Government Officers Association at the Institute of Education, London, and local council building workers in Scotland took industrial action in support of the student teachers, while Lambeth National Union of Teachers made a similar call in London.
paign no leadership, the Broad Left have now moved in effect to knife it in the back. The attempt to turn the London Student Organisation/Broad Left sponsored demonstration on 15 June into a 'national demonstration was clearly intended as the glorious finale to the mass action against unemployment and the cuts waged by the student teachers. But their pantomime involves nothing less than putting the jobs of 15,000 student teachers at risk.
leadership of the campaign - the elected delegates in the occupation Not content with giving the cam- such contempt for.
activity.
It is for this reason that the real committees, the Area Co-ordinating Committees, and so on - must develop perspectives to take the campaign forward through the summer break.
The basis for that already exists. It exists in the collective experience developed by student teachers in the struggle they have waged in recent weeks. It exists in the decisions arising out of that experience at the Manchester conterence - the exper ience the NUS Executive has shown The first and most essential thing is to develop a register at each of the colleges for unemployed students and teachers. This keeps the unemployed student teachers together as a group, a fighting force. The danger if this is not done is that the dole queue will become their 'perspective, the labour exchange their centre of For the same reasons, despite the Broad Left's pronouncements, each area should look at the possibility of keeping selective occupations open through the summer - an organising focus for college and school leavers and a basis for developing general activity in the fight against unemployment.
The campaign can go forward if the links made with the trade union and labour movement in the past few weeks can be consolidated. Every college should set up a joint committee of students and trade unionists, turning the national support of the college lecturers union NATHE and the local assistance offered by rank and file NALGO and NUT members into ongoing activity LINKS These should be action committees against the cuts - they already exist in several areas - whose job it will be to look into local government plans on public spending, establish the links between the cuts and the lengthening dole queues, and draw up concrete plans for more jobs in every area based on this information. All the lessons of mass demo cracy from the campaign so farelected delegates reporting back to mass meetings and so on - should be implemented to get the maxiRed Weekly 17 June 1976 Jobless/Students 3