inst apartheid
GUILTY -ME
OF SHOUT MAKING PATIENT: EADY SUFFER PHOTO
By TOM SILVERLOCK
(LSE Labour Club,
personal capacity) SINCE 1978 the Students Union at the London School Economics has supported the call for the institution to sever all links with the South African state.
At the moment the LSE has 51.7m shares in firms who have significant business interest in South Africa. These include companies like Shell, British Petroleum, Glaxo, and British Tyre and Rubber (the company who sacked the 300 Hangers limbmakers).
In July 1986, the Students Union raised the issue of divestment with the Court of Governors (the ruling body of the LSE) through their student representatives (the govenors). They sugested a criterion - that the LSE divests from companies who employ more than 500 workers in South Africa. criterion has been adopted by US
HIGH COURT BACKS JUDGE RULES IN IMEN BBC FAVOUR CHAIK MAN LSE Occupation Universities and Authorities. proposals. The Anti-Apartheid group at the college took up the issue, and a campaign college - but to no avail. of 2pm about 50 Connaught House, the main ministrative building. The building had been locked since Monday in an- ticipation college Anti Apartheid Group said: "After years signatures on petitions, countless successful motions student and disgust, and to place tressing the capitalism in South Africa." This building by locking them or bar-
ARTIFICIAL NLY LMB PATIENTS WEN SUFFER WHO CARE, THOr British The LSE governors ignored these security was launched within the On Tuesday February 24 at about students occupied ad- was of an occupation, and guarded by porters. The chair of the of collecting at Union Many Meetings, winning the support of the academic board, and candlelit vigils, the court of governors has left us with no option but to take floor. direct action to express our anger mean- ingful pressure on them to stop but- of racial system an We secured all the entrances of the the committee. Socialist Viewpoint No. 16 April 1987 p17
NEVEA VIOLEA MANAGER LIMES THE WALKS Too WORLD CARA BETTER OwN BIR Local | ricading them, leaving one entrance free to go in and out but with strong
(you had to show your library card to get in and out). By the evening the occupation had increas. ed to about 250 students.
The next day an EGM (Emergency General Meeting) was held of the Students Union inside the occupation itself. All students could come, and it
decided to turn all union meetings into occupation meetings. From then until the occupation finished the following Tuesday there was at least one of these meetings a day, which provided a forum for discussion which had never existed before in the Students Union meetings.
students were speaking publicly for the first time. The discussions were heated, but many good ideas and initiatives came from the
There was an occupation committee which was dominated by Students Union officers. There was, however,
opportunity anyone who wanted to get involved in organising
occupation to stand on this
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 com-
sacked 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 LWAC throws in 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 Em-
bassy 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 finish-
ed 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 accom-
panied 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
BLA