Tameside near Manchester has a nasty shock in store for it. Trade unionists in the region are preparing to counter the Council's proposals to reintroduce the 11 plus and selective education with direct action.
Immediately the Tories were elected on 6 May they instructed local government workers to end all work connected with me scicou cu luo duction of comprehensive education in September this year. Although 3,700 children had been sent letters on 3 May informing them which school they would be attending, the Tories have now decided to scrap these plans. Yet 96 percent of the The new Council says that it will introduce the 11 plus next Friday, 21 May. This drastic move is being masterminded by Councillor Thorpe, the Tory education committee chairman-elect. Strangely enough, his son is at the only junior school in the whole of Tameside that has been preparing for the 11 plus all year.
Banking The new Council is banking on the return of a Tory Government that will scrap the Government's present powers to force councils to go comprehensive. The Tamesscheme. secondary education'. our society. Tory leader Colin Grantham says: "The standards in our schools are already dropping, and that drop would accelerate calamitously under a comprehensive But the Tories do not care a fig about standards, or they would not be cynically playing around with the lives of the children caught in the middle of this row. And their plans have not gone unanswered. At a special general meeting on 19 May, the Tameside Association of the National Union of Teachers was expected to pass a resolution recommending 'that members take no part in selection procedures for Opposition The Association has already put on record its opposition to the Tory proposals at a 200-strong meeting on 12 May. The same night saw Tameside Trades Council calling for a mass picket of the Council's inaugural meeting, and pledging full support for any teachers who refused to take part in 11 plus exams. as well as for any other action teachers are prepared to take Local members of the National Union of Public Employees and the National and Local Government Officers Association will be putting proposals to their local branches for strike action in the event of any teachers being disciplined for their stand against the 11 plus. Confronted by this outstanding show of working class organisation, the Tory leaders are already beginning to whine. "This began as an argument about where children go to school. Now it is a matter of democratic principle, a question of whether we have any freedom left. Are the unions or the elected members in control of Tameside?", Grantham blusters.
Generalise With a 28 percent turn out in the local elections, Grantham can hardly claim to represent the working class of the area. So angered was one trades council delegate at his statement that he proposed that the Trades Council should occupy the Town Hall and disrupt the Tory Council's first meeting to show just who should be in control. It is this kind of fighting response that has to be generalised.
Red Weekly urges all its readers to send messages of support to Bert Ellicott (Secretary), Tameside Trades Council, c/o AUEW Offices, Ashtonunder-Lyne; and Gordon Powell, General Secretary, Tameside Assoc iation (NUT), 110 Thornfield Grove, Ashton-under-Lyne. Copies should be sent to the Department of Education and Science, Tameside Council Town Hall, Dukinfield, Cheshire; and to the NUT, Hamilton House, Mabledon Place, London WC1