A previous article in the Week noted the struggle which took place at the WEA conference over the TUC's proposals for reorganising trade union education. We have received a statement which "seeks to draw the attention of trade unionists to a pending major change in the structure and control of trade union organisation." Its author(s) say that "its object is to enable an informed debate to take place at this year's union conference and at the TUC, and in particular to ask what can be done to prevent what seems a grossly over-centralised and over-professionalised control over the trade unionists' own education and education fund." We have pleasure in reproducing extracts from the statement:
",.eIt is common knowledge that since 1957, general agreement has been reached that the former division between the NCLC and the WETUC should end and be superseded by a unified scheme under the auspices of the TUC. The negotiations...eehave been protracted and the detailed course of these negotiations is not knownNeeeeeethe proposals for the governing body at national level have varied over the years since 1957. At an early stage (1960-1), the TUC proposed that there should be a representative National Committee, composed of the TUC itself, representatives of the WEA and Ruskin College, of the unions, and of co-opted persons, who would represent former NCLC interests. These proposals have since been dropped in favour of complete authority in the hands of the TUC Education Committee."
Details released "confirm that the scheme will be highly centralised and will exclude any kind of local or lay participation in the administration or policy making. The main points are:
i. All financial control in the hands of the TUC Education Committee;
b) the planning of facilities, the balance of subjects, and courses, to be in the hands of the education department at Congress House;
c) a central register of students will be built up;
d) recruitment to courses and schools will be via the channels of communication which exist between the TUC and the Head Offices of unions;
(e) Regional machinery will exist as follows:
(1) the TUC Regional Advisory Committees will set up education subcommitteese (note that the TUC Committees in the regions are elected by and from full-time officials only)s
(2) they will co-opt 2 representatives of the WEA and possibly also representatives of the Trades Council federations in the regions;
(3) they will be officered by a full-time TUC education secretary in each region, who will be responsible to the General Council and the Gereral Secretary;
(4) they will have advisory powers only, plus the opportunity for = . suggesting local short term provision;
(5) they will liaise with WEA districts and recruit tutors locally.
All local committee structures which formerly existed in the NCLC and WETUC will disappear and will not be replaced. This scheme amounts to a total centralisation of authority....eeRegrettably, the TUC has afforded no opportunity for unions to discuss the draft scheme. It is suggested here that confereneces ‘ee-ought to consider the revision of the scheme to provide for local, lay-committees....to have a proper voice in the control ..of the scheme, This accords with the best traditions of trade union constitutions, as well as of the NCLC and the WETUC, " The paper ends by arguing that if there is firm insistence the proposals must be reconsidered to meet the fundamental point of critisism.