Leaflets were also produced telling other students at the college what the occupation was about and encouraging them to join it.
Approaches were made to the staff of the LSE through their branch of.
ficers of their respective Unions. The unions represented at the LSE are the
TGWU (porters and manual staff), the AUT (Association of University
Teachers) and NALGO (who represent the administrative staif). None of solidarity to the occupation, and the general response was that they supported the aim but not the action.
occupation has shown the weak links between the staff unions and the students union. There were however individual acts of solidarity when a porter turned on the heating for us during the weekened and when a couple of lecturers joined the occupation for a short time.
The response to the occupation by the Court of governors was to claim that the LSE was in fact not investing money in companies who make more than 5% of their profits in South Africa (Shell, for example, supplies more than 18% of South African energy supplies and has more than 1,000 employees in South Africa but it has less than 3% of its global assets in South Africal).
By Thursday evening a possession order was granted against us, two named people and one unnamed were summoned to appear in court on the Monday at 2pm, It was agreed to pay a solicitor to prepare a case and a lot of work was done phoning up
Unions throughout the asking for delegations to come down and help picket the court. Many pledges were made from colleges all over the coun morale was boosted broke a feeling of isolation.
Later it was discovered that leading members of the NUS had also been ringing round colleges them not to come down to the picket on Monday, because the occupation had not been made official by them!
This sabotage took place despite the tact that members of the NUS Executive had been coming to the ocucpation and speaking in support of it. Members of the occupation committee immediately went to the NUS offices and asked them to account for
The NUS backed down and decided to support the occupation officially and promised to undo the damage they had already done.
On the Friday evening a UGM (Union General Meeting) was held to discuss the case, and also to welcome a speaker from Hangers - the limbmakers, where 300 workers had been sacked when they came out on strike in support of 4 workers who were unfairly dismissed
The link between their dispute and ours was very strong since the comsacked the Hangers workers, BTR, also was one of those in which the ISE had shares (21,500 in fact). The Hangers speaker got a long ovation, and suprisingly £71 was
The Hangers workers also pledged to send their banner down to picket on Monday. There was then a discussion as to whether to fight the
The SWP through their student organisation SWSO spoke against fighting the case. Their reasons were that the basis for fighting the case undermined the occupation itself.
(This was actually true, because the solicitor had told us that we should fight the case on the basis that we rooms, and were in fact waiting for our lecturers to turn up!!).
people were saying that we should fight the case because we had a good chance of winning it.
The vote went against fighting the case but this was overturned at the
Sunday General Meeting, with the
SWP this time putting up no opposi ion. The Monday was the big day. A leaflet was printed to ask all students to strike by boycotting lectures and classes and to support the picket at were organised buildings of the college. At 12 noon we had a general meeting to discuss what to do if we lost the case, It was decided that we would leave in an orderly fashion when the bailiffs and the police arrived and
Then about 600 students marched
its lot with the NEC
By JANE PRUST IF you feel an irresistable urge yawn when you hear the words Labour Party constitution
Constitutions are boring things.
dangerous then handsome
The Labour Party leadership currently using the constitution of the Party to attack and undermine left, particularly the constitutional reviews being carried out of the LPYS and the Women's Organisation.
In the case of the LPYS the position is clear: it's a blatant attempt to undermine the influence of Militant in the Young Socialists. For the women's organisation the issues are not so clear cut. Socialist Viewpoint No. 16 April 1987 p18 spontaneously just down the road to where we heard David
Kitson speak and also messages of solidarity from other Student Unions.
A few people from the 24 hour non- stop picket at the South African Embassy taught us some ANC songs and we all sang them outside the court.
We made our way back to the oc.
cupation; at about 4.15 we found we had lost the case. It was too late for the sheriff to come because he finished work at four! We were then told that the bailiffs would arrive at 10am moved that we should lock the door, and that the police should have to haul us out. This was defeated, and it was decided that when the bailiffs turned up with the police we should
That night there were a lot of drunken students!
The bailiffs eventually came at about 11.30 the next morning accompanied by 4 policemen. There were about 400 of us and we marched out occupation and spontaneously buildings, shouting and chanting.
Many more students and sup porters joined the march. The college authorities and police were obviously surprised by the numbers. Students' Union into a lively debating forum and has created many student
This action is amongst many actions taken by students recently not only in Britain but also France and Spain, and we have many lessons to learn from each other.
The 1986 Party Conference voted Organisation to be carried out by the NEC in consultation with the National
Women's Committee. women had no doubt what form this of the Black Sections Consultation, when the NEC totally rejected the views of the Party, which were in favour of setting up Black Sections.
It came as surprise to many women that one of the most vocal groups arguing Action Committee. LWAC has, in the past, supported the campaign for Increased power for women in the Labour Party (in fact they Initiated it); how then did they come to support a proposal which conceded power over the women s organisation to the NEC7 Previously IWAC have always