SHOCK FOR TUC AT PRIGHTON from an Education correspondent
The normally placid waters of the WEA biennial conference turned to a storm last Saturday, when a demand by the Executive Committee - supported by several trade union »fficials, - for the remittance of a strongly worded amendment criticising the draft TUG proposals for rationalised cducaticn scheme - was passed by the narrowest of majorities - cn a card vote, after a debate whose significance was apparent in the attitude of the TUC spokesmen, They protested too much}
The amendment demanded that local, lay-control, by rank and file trade unionists, over subjects and tutor choice, should replace the preposed all-out centralisatim in the hands of the TUC education committee. Details of the draft appeared in The Week, no. 3) The mover, Tony Topham, and seconder, Mike Noble (WEA T:tor, NW Lancs.), and a stream of delegates to the rostrum made their case tell by reference to (1) the fundamental right sf trade unionists to administer their own scheme, financed by their own contributions 3 (2) the dangers sf central ccntrol of subjects, syllabuses, etc., which could turn education inte inac*trination on behalf of TUC policies; (4) the failure to communicate the contents of the draft proposals to the renk and file of the movement generally, for open discussion.
D.D. Davies, (BISATKA) for the WEA Executive, Plant, (General Secretary of the IRSF and a member of the General Council of the TUC), Viner, (NUJ) and Corfield, (Bducation Officer of the TGWU) were loud and unyielding in denying the right of the Conference to criticise the "TUC’ Congress, in fact, has not yet approved the draft! And the WEA spent a good deal of the week-end knocking hell eut of the Ministry of Education for freezing grants to adult education! How sensitive can you get? Plant said quite simply that the amendment should be rejected because it implicd a criticism of the TUC. Viner argued that democracy was a fine"sentiment", but the need was to mobilise the trade union "machine" in the country into an efficient agency of planning, and somehow centralised education was going to help this process. One listened in vain for a human reference in these speechese
Jack Crawford, (Colliery Overmen) member of the General Council, giving fraternal greeting to Conference from the TUC the following morning, felt it necessary to devote the whole of his speech to a defence of the TUC draft scheme. He told delegates that he had been educated by the NCLC, but added that since "we" had ceased to believe in the class struggle, different kinds of education were now needed!
The issue is now epen for trade unionists themselves to weigh the merits of the case, and if they concur with the amendment's democratic spirit, to press for the scheme's revision at union and TUC conferences this year. The matter is of crucial importance for the free and healthy functioning of trade union education in this country.