millionaire Cadbury family re-open the College, and the tutors have been made redundant.
ham University on 12 June. This has three demands: * Re-open the College in September. * Reinstate the four tutors.
prising representatives of the trade unions.
croft struggle The DES report was published in April, In March last year the fifty students at Fircroft College in Birmingham went on strike. They were mature students - mostly trade unionists - doing a oneThey were in revolt against a paternalistic and undemocratic set-up in which, Room funds or to set up a branch of the National Union of Students. Following a dispute with the Principal over free speech in the College, they instituted their own education programme, with the support of the four tutors. An occupation to stop the closure of the College ended when the owners - a trust financed by the took out an injunction.
After a campaign in the labour movement, the Department of Education and Science set up an enquiry which placed most of the responsibility on the Principal. and criticised the way the College was run. It recommended that the College be re-opened, and that the Principal should be sacked, but - amazingly - that the tutors should also be shown the door. The College Governors, however, have effectively rejected the report; they have refused to sack the Principal, or to A national 'save Fircroft' campaign is to be launched at a meeting in Birming* The DES to take over the College, and set up a new Board of Governors comRed Weekly asked Trevor Blackwell, one of the four tutors, about the Firis a threat to all dents.
teachers' HYPOCRISY Half term in London has seen a strenuous renewal of activity by students in occ in occupation, this Action Committee has put forward some excellent initiatives designed to centralise and unify the action of many thousands of London stuThe first action put forward by the Action Committee was an allLondon lobby of the Inner London Education Authority. Supported by up to a hundred representatives from a broad spectrum of London colleges. the lobby challenged the ILEA cutback of 500 teachers from its payroll - to be sneaked through under the cover of natural wastage.
all day!
Pointing the finger of blame at the Government and ILEA, the students exposed the hypocrisy of the ILEA Labour leader, Sir Ashley Bramall, who only days before had urged employers to take on more jobless teen- iation; agers. Throughout the lobby, which was attended by sympathetic teachers the demands were raised for the reversal of the cuts and jobs for all.
In a number of colleges, the trade unions of college workers have begun to organise for solidarity action. PICKET NALGO has already organised a one-day strike at the Institute of Education last Friday. At North-East Londor Poly, the NATHE lecturers' branch declared its fullest support for the student union occupation, and to pro it have maintained NATFHE representatives on the student picket lines With a view to generalising this action across the working class, the London Action Committee has taken the following steps:
* called for a programme of action from the National Union of Teachers and the Inner London Teachers Assoc * initiated a picket of the DES on * organised a meeting of trade unionists on 10 June to discuss how best to launch action and give support to the students;
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FIRCROFT COLLEGE
pation. Among the most important steps has been the creation of the London Action Co-ordinating Committee. Composed of representatives from colleges