The real suicidal plunge had begun. Yet the worst was to come. Pay and working conditions had always been negotiated separately. In August, during the school holidays, a major step towards a trade-off of these two aspects of negotiation was realized at a meeting between the union negotiators and representatives of mainly Labour-Party led local authorities. Education becomes a major political issue
Even then, this sell-out was so widely ridiculed that the executive had to renegotiate a new formula, this time definitely linking pay and conditions — known as the ACAS settlement.3
Throughout this period, the Tories had been on the defensive. A crisis had developed with school students frequently being sent home through strike or no-cover action. Education had become a major political issue, with widespread support for the teachers coming from other trade unions and the community at large.
The ACAS deal, however, opened up an opportunity for the Tories to regain ground lost during the dispute. Baker introduced an Education Bill incorporating all the clauses from the ACAS deal with only one significant addition, namely that teachers would have their negotiating facilities abolished. It was quite clear that this course was opened up by the NUT leadership.
At a special conference of the NUT which followed, the only surprising thing was the scale of the opposition to this deal. A card vote produced 45 per cent of delegates voting against ACAS. This was followed in a ballot with 42 per cent opposed, despite the executive charging their opponents of being "traitors" '. This opposition was primarily from the Inner London Teachers' Association (Inner London NUT) and the STA.
In the confusion Baker was able to force through his legislation while teachers waited for an effective response from their leaders. It wasn't to come. The centrepiece of this union's "assault" on Baker was a petition aimed at that most democratic of bodies, the House of Lords!
The membership saw things differently. They wanted immediate action. So ILTA called for a one day strike. The bureaucracy went berserk, and suspended the entire ILTA council from union membership — allegedly for breaking the rules of the union. Despite this, on January 13, on one of the coldest days this century, about 3,000 NUT members marched through London with the majority of ILTA members on strike.
At a subsequent union hearing all ILTA members were re-instated. The political victory, vindicating ILTA's action, was achieved when the national strike action against Baker.
This was the background to the 1987 conference. It had the most unbelievable prelude. The national officers of the union appealed against the lenient sentences meted out on ILTA members. As a result three were expelled and five suspended — all STA members.
The bureaucracy needed the ILTA leadership out of the way for the coming conference. Their bankrupt low-level strategy was exposed. They had banked on pursuading the electorate to accept that all would be well in education if Neil Kinnock was prime minister. As Labour are unable to overturn the Tories, the bureaucracy have entered into a crisis in which only the left is giving any answers in the form of proposals for action. The bureaucracy have only been able to answer this by witch-hunting the left.
The bureaucracy will not feel comforted by the fact that the left emerged intact and with wider support than before. Teachers are still taking action, often unofficially. The demand for the reinstatment of ILTA officers is well supported, as is the demand for effective action against Baker.
At the NUT conference, Giles Radice — Labour's spokesperson on education — called at a fringe meeting for a moratorium on action in the run up to the general election. The Labour Party leaders as a whole have failed to take up the fight for education in a positive way, leaving this cause to be championed solely by left wingers such as Member of Parliament Dennis Skinner. Had they done so, the Tories would have been unable to return to centrestage on education, and Labour's own popularity would have increased rather than declined. * 1. The STA is the leading class-struggle left force inside the NUT, including both independents and supporters of Socialist Action and Socialist Outlook. STA supporters are also now active in the second largest teaching union, the NAS/UWT. 2. Education in Scotland is organized and legislated for independently under the authority of the Secretary of State for Scotland. 3. ACAS — Arbitration and Conciliation Service, set up to arbitrate industrial disputes by the 1974-79 Labour Govemment.
Unions compromise over shorter workweek
THE FIGHT for a shorter workweek launched by the major West German union IG Metall in 1984 attracted wide international attention. In particular, it was the main example of an offensive struggle by a decisive union against the effects of the world economic crisis.
There was a head-on confrontation between the bosses, backed by the government, and the union for a prolonged period of rolling strikes. The bosses responded with the massive lockouts, in particular "cold" lockouts — locking out workers in plants and regions not on strike in order to increase the union's expenses. This tactic was backed up by the rightist Christian Democratic government through denial of unemployment benefits to locked-out workers.
When the IG Metall contract came up for renewal in April of this year, a major new test was expected. The first mobilizations carried out by the union seemed promising. And then suddenly a settlement was reached. This article takes a look at the results of the second round in IG Metall's fight for a shorter workweek. MANUEL KELLNER
M ILITANT trade-unionists and revolutionary socialists were preparing for a sharp and decisive confrontation with the bosses. The IG Metall leaders had talked about the possibility of a "radicalized struggle" and an alliance with the social movements to force the bosses to retreat and to counter their weapon of the "cold" lockout.
That weapon had become more dangerous because of the new legislation (Article 116) passed by the Conservative Liberal majority in parliament, which meant that the Labour Office would no longer reimburse lost wages, even for those locked out outside the strike-affected regions.
From the beginning of February until the sco the second half of April, hundreds of thousands of workers were mobilized by IG Metall in warning strikes. This was not exactly what it seemed. In part, these actions were not really militant measures because the participants could often "make up" their "lost time." But even so, IG Metall demonstrated its capacity for mobilization.
### Bosses shift their strategy
The demand for a shorter workweek after 1984 became so popular that the bosses changed their strategy. In isrategy 1984, reduction of working time was taboo — not a minute less than 40 hours! And the Kohl government attacked that section of the trade-union movement demanding a 35-hour week head on as irresponsible, ridiculous and dangerous.
In 1987, it was a different story. The line was "a shorter workweek is OK, but don't go overboard." Above all, the bosses claimed, the rigid rules of the past had to be thrown out. Worktime had to be organized in a flexible way, in accordance with the needs of the plants. tion was ambivalent. Che uniss can- On this question, IG Metall's reacgress had adopted a fairly clear position against "flexibility," but the leadership did not wage an intransigent public campaign on this question.
On the contrary, Steinkühler, the