DARLINGTON: The newly elected Tory Council has issued a mandatory 60-day mantimg to the-burding workers un ion UCATT of up to 100 redundancies in the direct labour department A result of the cuts? Yes, but it also sems that a few nests are going to be feathered in the process.
Last month the direct labour department had an unusual visitor - the Secretary of the Master Builders Federation, who spent a whole day inspecting the accounts (including costing, tenders, etc.). Two proposed council estates were then in the pipeline, and during me next tew weeks ine counci recieved several tenders from private builders wich easiv undercut the quotation given by the direct labour department - one being termed "a ridiculous price' by the borough surveyor. Not surprisingly, the Council awarded the jobs to private firms, hence the redundancies ane tenders trom orvate nirms would undoubtedly cause them to lose money on the job. But the likelihood is that these projects will never begin, falling foul of the spending cuts. There is thus a strona suspicion that a co.ordinated campaign has begun to close down the direct labour department in order to ensure that all future council ouraina coes to orivate concertis were. incoenav. onv iu oer cena of the workforce is unionised).
But direct labour workers nave already responded by calling a 'down tools' mass meeting where strike action will be on the agenda. Darlington Trades Concil Action Committee nas aiso ceciceo to bicker me counci meeting on 14 August which will be discussino ine redundancies. ine Committee will be stressing that the direct labour department will not mean the same work done by a different concern, but less building and improvements as a whole for the town. (the teacher who first made public attacks on the Ellis team) that this curriculum had other effects: *Children defied their teachers swore openly at them and at the ancillary staff.... some children absented themselves and wandered about the building .....' So he concludes - on the basis of such 'rare' happenings in a London school -that Ellis and company are to blame: Too much freedom was given to children too young and too ill-equipped to take the proper advantage of it."
ILL-EQUIPPED of freedom.
Doesn't that just about sum up the condition of every state school in the country, Mr Auld?
If the Tyndale teachers can be criticised for broadening educational freedom without, as Auld puts it, 'sufficient planning and preparation' or 'without recording individual progress', is this really so surprising when the schools are starved *Ill-equipped to take advantage An interesting phrase.
class pupils.
Highbury Mănor - Reactionaries like Rhodes BoyReactionaries in the Governcan be a big step forward for school pupils and for the working class. Learning by rote, teacher domination of the class, a high level of individual competition: these thins either stop kids from learning or force them to learn at the expense of their classmates. They help to break up class solidarity and impoverish the working class.
This is not to endorse every new teaching technique uncritically. They must be seen in context. Some teachers tise them only to help the more privileged kids get on, others to 'entertain and contain' the most oppressed in the school. But new techniques are also the result of a struggle by pupils and teachers → a struggle for an end to repression, competition, and wasted opportunities for working For the same reasons, these changes are potentially a threat to the ruling class. As Terry Ellis said on a Panorama programme about Institute ENT all these are under threat. The labour movement will have to reply to this. The schools should be put under the management and control, not of capitalist institutions, national or local, nor of totally unaccountable managers, but of the community of pupils, parents, teachers and trade unionists.
VICTIMISATION The NUT bureaucracy looks set to scab on the Tyndale teachers It may refuse, for example, to pay their legal expenses on the pretext that they took unofficial action during the dispute. Every NUT branch should demand that the union support the Tyndale teachers in their fight for full reinstatement The support committee will also need to be revitalised.
Every trade unionist should discuss the issues raised by Tyndale, every trade unionist should give the teachers active support.
.EP CLEAR
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TYNDALE SCHOOL NO RIGHT HOF WA!