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*I hope it would be possible that young school teachers would endeavour to find jobs in other suitable occupations."
This was Sunny Jim Callaghan's not so sunny response to the wave of occupations which were then sweeping through the country's teacher training colleges. Moray House College of Education in Edinburgh initiated and provided a political leadership for this campaign of militant direct action.
The writers of this article, along with many other SLP comrades, were actively involved in the occupation. We believe that many lessons can be learned from our experiences; above all, we have reached the conclusion that direct action is a positive way of challenging the Labour government's reactionary policy of public expenditure cuts -a policy which frontally attacks the health, education, housing. and general well-being of the working class throughout Britain.
The Moray House occupation began on May 12th, the day of the local authority's annual visit to the college to recruit a new year's intake of teachers. On this occasion, nearly half of the student teachers of Moray House and the other Scottish colleges were presented with an unexpected predicament - unemployment.
Confronted with a situation which 2430 trained teachers (45% of the total number graduating) had not got a job, it was not unnaturai that they almost unanimously suppor ted the Socialist Society inspired motion calling for occupation.
The Occupations and After This motion laid the basis for the whole campaign, It argued that public spending cuts were absolutely central to the policies of the Labour government.
Already at this stage we understood that if students attempted to fight on their own, they could not expect any significant concessions; the fight to get jobs for the unemployed student teachers necessitated an attempt to unite all sections of working people against the economic policies of the Labour government.
But why occupy? Quite simply Ic provide a 24 hour base from which Ic organise. In the first week this meant, spreading the occupation through the other 10 colleges in Scotland by sending out speakers urging support for Moray House. Then, in the second week, this was extended to England. Soon all the Scottish colleges and most of the English colleges were occupied.
Simultaneously, scores of students - most of whom really were completely unaccustomed to public speaking - went out to the schools to argue that employed teachers should take industrial action to lower class sizes. This would not only solve the problem of teacher unemployment, but would also improve the overall standard of education. We also proposed that teachers should support the national day of action called for May 26th by Labour Movement Assembly against unemployment.
In the Lothian region, this led to a meeting of some 400 teachers at Moray
House on May 25th. They accepted that education should not be treated as a special case and that cuts were unacceptable even if education were to be exempted. From this meeting a Lothian Teachers Committee against the cuts was set up consisting of delegates elected from meetings in fourteen local schools.
The May 26th day of action was the high point of the campaign. Massive railies were held in Dundee, Glasgow and Ayr; in Edinburgh over two thousand people - mainly students and delegates from schools and all the major public sector unions - heard rank and file activists explain how cuts affect the whole working class.
With great confidence we increased the scope and frequency of our visits to schools, workplaces and trade union branches in the area urging support for a one-day strike on June 15th.
While the turn out on the day was not a complete failure, it showed that the broad labour movement was far less prepared for action than the students had been. This point wasbrought home with a vengeance on the next day when the recall TUC conference in London voted overwhelmingly for the inseperable complement of the cuts: Dennis Healey's 43% wage-cutting pay deal.
The college occupations up and down the country ended with the summer term in mid-June. Moray House continued to occupy ever hopeful ofevoking a response from the local labour movement. By early July, the number of students actively supporting the occupation had declined so drastically from its peak of one thousand in May that further continuation was pointless.
What then did the occupation actually achieve? Some would argue nothing at all; after all, it is widely estimated that in June 1977 there will still be nearly one thousand teachers who qualified in June 1976 without a job. We believe that such an assessment of the campaign is unjustified.
The very fact that the occupation was largely financed through donations from all sections of the labour movement is evidence that during the eight weeks we were constantly in the news, the issues of unemployment and the cuts were successfully brought before a wide and receptive audience.
More concretely, the EIS Annual General Meeting in June demonstrated
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that, following our action, a significant minority of teachers, mainly in Glasgow and Edinburgh, were prepared to argue - against their leadership - for industrial action to win jobs for unemployed teachers. This minority also accepted the Moray House argument that it was essential to organise to prevent the gradual but escalating crosion of educational provision which we predicted for 1976-7.
In Edinburgh, these militants have been grouped around the Delegate Committee Against the Cuts set up from the May 25th meeting at Moray Structures however important than the fact that ordinary EIS activists since the pay struggles of 1974, prepared to challenge the EIS leadership which - as George Kerevan shows in this issue of Scottish Socialist - is wedded to the Labour government and The Delegate Committee in Edinburgh works closely with the Lothian Unemployed Teachers Action Group (LUTAG) set up specifically to expose the effects of the cuts in Lothian schools. Unfortunately, because it was not set up until July when the college term had ended, LUTAG remains a rather skeletal body lacking any real mass base.
These problems have not ruled out the possibility of organising action against the cuts, for example through mounting pickets on schools where cuts are occuring. In this type of action, LUTAG hopes to be aided by this year's student body at Moray House whose present leadership is totally committed to a continuing campaign of opposition to all public expenditure cuts.
Finally, it is estimated by none other than EIS General Secretary, John Pollock, that two to three thousand student teachers will be thrown on the dole in June 1977. The experience of this year's occupation is likely to ensure that Moray House will again be part of a widespread united student opposition when this materialises.
In the face of the militancy of the student teachers, the authorities are increasingly attempting to save money in a whole variety of ways more underhand than straightforward redundancies or job cuts. Hence what might be termed "creeping cuts"
In primary schools this session there are around 2,000 classes where children of different age groups are being taught in the same classroom by one teacher. This means that roughly one in every ten primary classes in Scotland are "composite" or vertically-streamed classes. Moreover, 807 of these have 25 or over pupils; not only ате reachers expected to teach two classes at once - but do so with a very large
number of pupils virtually ruling out individual attention.
As a leading member of the EIS teachers in Glasgow last June, composite classes are being used to avoid class sizes above the maximum of 33 specified in the EIS contract of employ- "This disgraceful expedient is not only a cause of teacher unemployment but also represents a dramatic deterioration in the quality of educacation provided." (Scottish Educational Joumal, June 25th 1976).
The way the authorities are doing this is by simply not replacing teachers or leave to bring up family. We don't have exact figures on the extent of this but know that it is commonplace. "Composite" classes are only one of the most obvious ways in which standards are being reduced in the name of economy. Individual needs like jotters and books are being hit as well as maintenance and security. The size and quality of school meals have also suffered: for example if you choose braised beef instead of spam fritters at Tynecastle High School in Edinburgh you don't get potatoes! Schools are also being charged for the first time for services like libraries and sports facilities.
To combat the creeping cuts, what is needed in the first place is information about where they are being implemented and how. We believe that the best way to do this is for socialists in the education sector to reactivate a proposal adopted by the EIS AGM but remitted to the National Executive and thus effectively nullified. What are needed are Cuts Monitoring Committees actually in the schools. The membership of such committees should, where possible, be drawn from all trade unionists who work in the schools and from amongst parents. 7
Activity might tollow the lines proposed by LUTAG.
We would further argue that the most vitally important issue to take up now is that of composite classes. If EIS members who have over-sized or composite classes do not use the socalled "independent tribunals", the arbitration system set up under the EIS contract, then their leaders will use this as an excuse for the union to soft-pedal on composite classes.
But the reason why reachers are not tribunals is because the system is not a fair one. The individual teacher has to plead his or her case individually rather than as a member of a union and alone face the likely hostility of the headmaster. In only half of all tribunal hearings do teachers have a majority on the adjudicating panel and, even then the teacher members may well be heads who most teachers regard as management.
Our message to socialist teachers is, therefore, to force the EIS into action on these questions as a whole. This means setting up and organising around against without risking
As members of the Scottish Labour Party, we draw a further conclusion from our experiences at Moray House. The success of the Socialist Society's initiative demonstrateshow, even while the SLP remains low on electoral credibility, it will be able to win support for real socialist policies by giving the lead in action against the public spending cuts of a Labour government committed, as Callaghan spelled out in Blackpool, to profits rather than principles.
MIKE ANDERSON DAVE JOHNSTONE JIM ATKINSON