CPSA BA HQ By Roy Leach, Branch, personal NUT Executive, capacity personal capacity TORY attacks on jobs and NUT General Secretary conditions in the civil seryice have driven the tradi- Doug McAvoy has detionally non-political clared war on the union's CPSA to vote at this year's annual conference and its conference for affiliation activist base. to the Labour Party. McAvoy (annual salary The conference also voted £60,000 plus £18,000 exfor merger with the new civil penses) accuses conference service union to be created delegates and local activists of by the merger of NUCPS and being out of touch and unthe Inland Revenue Statts representative! Federation. Every member has now reThe conference again took ceivea two outrageous leuers place against a backdrop of from him - one accompanycontinued attacks on the pub- ing the ballot paper for the lic sector. Despite the gov- proposed one-day strike this ernment's apparent retreat term on class sizes, and anlast year from privatisation other mailed separately to and market testing all that re- home addresses. ally changed was the tactics Both are financed from employed.
members' subscriptions. Both The tactics of the so-called 'moderate' leadership seek to portray the majority of of the CPSA have not conference delegates as memchanged at all. They remain bers of "extreme political facopposed to even the most in- tions" who allegedly "put nocuous resolutions for a their own political agenda befight back - such as a motion fore the views of those memopposing co-operation with bers they represent". management consultants im- Acctisations (fed to and avplementing market testing. idly retailed by the witch-hunting Sunday Times) that Smears these 'extremists' are "taking The NEC 'moderates' have over associations" run alongconsistently attacked "the Trots", and any rational debate has increasingly given way to smear and innuendo.
But they have not been getting things all their own way.
Their attempt - allegedly on cost grounds - to reduce NEC elections to once every two vears was roundly defeated, as was every attempt by the NEC to further emasculate the union.
Unfortunately the success of the left at conference has not been matched in national elections.
While the left can control side the lying claim that they have committed the union to "support for violent demonstrations". In fact all the conference did was reject an Executive amendment which referred to non-violent activi-ties of anti-racist organisations.
Hysteria
But McAvoy's main intention is to whip up enough hysteria to sabotage the strike ballot and prevent any fightback against education cuts.
He has made quite plain his Bloated bureaucracy: McAvoy's £18, 000 expenses is more than most teachers earn determination to by-pass conference and local officers by appealing directly to members through glossy leaflets and 'surveys of members' views' along the lines of the notquite-a-ballot that led to the end of the SATs boycott.
He believes that this approach "now provides the only way of accurately [!] determining members' opinions." Clearly McAvoy's model for the NUT is a mixture of the First Direct Bank and the RAC.
Yet his strategy could UT backfire, and has already elicited a vigorous response from many 'ordinary members' who he patronisingly accuses of being 'duped' by militants.
Bloated
With thousands of teachers facing the sack this year, members recognise that the only thing standing between them and the dole queue is their local NUT officers - not some remote and bloated over-paid bureaucracy in London.
School groups and individmocracy of the union.
The SWP activists who heckled David Blunkett at the Blackpool conference gave extra ammunition to the McAvoy faction and the right wing media. But the 'Blunkett incident' was not the underlying cause of the current NUT witch hunt.
McAvoy's campaign of glossy posters, leaflets and letters urging them to vote 'no' to strike action arises from his decision to seek a ual members from many areas of the country have responded to McAvoy's offensive (in both senses of the word!) by defending their local officers and calling for McAvoy's res1202000.
Meanwhile FACE, the most dynamic and effective campaign against education cuts, which McAvoy still refuses to acknowledge, continues to grow.
More and more local groups are being established as parents, governors, teachers and increasingly school students gear up for the fight around the cuts expected in the Autumn statement.
The FACE conference in Coventry on June 10 is an absolute must for anyone who wants to build the fightback and force the Tories to turn vague promises of "jam tomorrow' into more cash today.
The opportunity to put politicians from all parties on the spot will be combined with practical discussion of strategies for the future, and support needs to be built for the next FACE demonstration on September 30.
What better time to start than now? deal with Tony Blair and fly in the face of the conference majority, which was demanding action to protect jobs and services from cuts.
Against the barrage of expensively-produced NUT propaganda and cleverlyworded distortions of events at conference, it seems unlikely that the ballot for one-day strike action will be won.
If any significant numbers defy this pressure and vote for action it will reflect a strong groundswell of opposition to McAvoy.
Whatever the outcome of the ballot, there are three main tasks for NUT members:
• Firstly, we must campaign for union democracy, and defend the policy-making powers of conference.
• Secondly we must strengthen our links with parents, students and governors in the battle to defend education.
This is more than a fight for more cash: it also entails a struggle against increasing use of selection - through tests, league tables and opted-out schools - and deepening divisions in the system.
• Thirdly we must work more closely with other public sector workers to defend the welfare state and all of our rights as workers.