Support Central Foundation Girls’ School workers!

Facebook event here

Workers at Central Foundation Girls’ School in East London are engaged in a battle against job losses, pay cuts and workload increases.

After a solid strike by both NUT and Unison on 24 April, management are shifting, and have backtracked from cutting support staff pay this year.

The CFGS workers are fighting to win, using tactics different from many strikes – cross-union solidarity, joint union meetings, a strike fund, a regular strike bulletin and decisions made by regular votes of members.

They are insisting that workers should not pay for the bosses’ crisis at any level, local or national.

The CFGS workers are going to strike again on 11 May, this Friday, if management do not back down before then.

What you can do:
1. Most importantly: send urgent messages of solidarity to Jean Lane jlane@central.towerhamlets.sch.uk (Unison) and copy to Sheila McGregor smcgregor@central.towerhamlets.sch.uk (NUT)
2. If you’re in London, invite a CFGS speaker to your union branch, student union or anti-cuts group – email jlane@central.towerhamlets.sch.uk
3. Come to the picket line on Friday (11 May) from 7.30am on Harley Grove, off Bow Road, very near Mile End and Bow Road stations – map here. For more info or if you’re lost call 07961 040 618.
4. If you’re involved in a dispute, learn from the CFGS example!

Some voices from CFGS strikers

“We forced management to listen to us when they just wanted to drive this thing through. You can see why academies want to get rid of the unions?.

“We are the best organised school in the Borough. They need to smash us up to do what they want elsewhere. We are the NUM.”

“I don?t know what we would have done without the reps. We would have been stuffed by now. They have been absolutely brilliant and so brave.”

Support the students’ movement in Quebec! Stop the violent police repression! Demonstrate outside the Canadian High Commission in Trafalgar Square to denounce police attacks on Quebecois students! 17:30-19:00, 16 May, 5 Trafalgar Square, City of Westminster, London, SW1Y 5BJ. Details of the demonstration here

Sign the online petition against police violence here

We send our solidarity to the students and education workers who of Quebec who are fighting against an unjust increase in tuition fees which the right-wing, anti-student, anti-worker Charest government is proposing.

Students in Quebec have been organising a strike movement since February 13. Currently 172,000 students are still on strike. Like the UK student movement, the movement in Quebec has suffered severe police repression. Students have been subjected to mass arrests and physical attacks. In particular we extend our solidarity to Maxence Valade, who lost an eye following police attacks on a demonstration at Victoriaville – and to all those who have been injured by the police.

The student movement in Quebec is currently debating an offer made by the government. Students are voting on the offer in general assemblies and we will know their decision by next week. We support the decision of these general assemblies.

We endorse the alternative proposal made by the Quebec student movement – for free education, funded by taxing the rich and big business, and capping management pay. We reject attempts to make students pay for education, because we consider that it is a social good and a right, not a privilege or a commodity.

Solidarity with the student movement in Quebec! No to police violence! Bloquons la hausse!

For more background on the strike see the campaign’s website, the website of ASSE, the largest left-wing Quebecois students’ union, or this article in English by a Quebecois activist

Edward Bauer was elected to the NUS Board of Trustees at NUS Conference 2012

We don’t need the board of trustees.

I was elected to the Trustee Board on a clear platform of opposing the slippery slope this Board represents, and defending the grassroots democracy of the NUS. I will be an anti-trustee. I will do what any good democrat and activist should do – make sure that as soon as there is any discussion at all of moves to limit or subvert the democratic decisions of students, our whole movement hears about it fast, and is able to take action to stop it.

We need change in the NUS: a return to longer conferences, so debate isn’t cut short. We need to bring back bigger delegations so minority views can make it to conference, and the NUS can engage wider groups of students in activism. Ultimately we need a democratic NUS which I believe means the scrapping the Trustee Board.

For what is the point of the Trustee Board? Unlike our student unions the NUS is not required by law to have a Trustee Board, so why have it? “For the external expertise”, is often the answer. If, however, we want the benefits of the “expert advice” that some board members apparently have, then why don’t they sit on NUS National Executive Committee (NEC) in an advisory capacity? If their knowledge is so vital, why on earth doesn’t an organisation the size of the NUS not have this knowledge in-house full time? Even if you accept the need for trustees in your local Student Union (itself very doubtful); which may be small, underfunded and in need of free advice from externals; the NUS isn’t exactly in the same position.

We already have conference and then the National Executive council to make decisions while conference doesn’t meet. We have the legislative and executive bodies required for a democratic organisation so why create a second executive body to sit above the original one? Is this not overly bureaucratic? Doesn’t it just make the NUS less responsive and dynamic?

The board is further problematic as it has the powers to make decisions that fundamentally alter the union’s policy, strategy and actions with no democratic input. From the incredibly limited minutes, which are so brief they are essentially private, nobody outside the board has any idea what it does.

Even more worryingly, the board can override liberation campaign autonomy. The board not only has the power to reverse and overrule the decisions of conference and the NEC but also the autonomous liberation campaigns. For a board founded on the idea of knowing best and having expertise, this sounds contradictory, does the board have the expertise of knowing what it is like to be a black student or studying with a disability? Certainly not. Why give it the power to override bodies where it clearly lacks relevant expertise?

In the long term having the board is a slippery slope. All across the student movement there is a clear attrition on student control of our unions. If we don’t reverse this the unaccountable Trustee Board could be the founding blocks on which a far worse governing structure could be built.

For the student body the risks of the Trustee Board are many. It can make the NUS bureaucratic and unresponsive and it has huge potential to be undemocratic and override liberation campaigns. In the long term with slow governance changes the board could become something even worse. Yet the only real tangible gain, the expertise, could surely be gained without these risks.

From my involvement in student politics I think it is clear the NUS is not short on expertise, its grassroots activists are living the reality and full of energy and ideas to make it better. What the NUS are short on however the ability to be responsive and the mechanisms to engage with the raw talent of its grassroots members. We don’t need a trustee board, we need bigger conferences to engage a wider layer of student activists and longer conference so we actually have time to debate the issues, rather than skim the surface often sidling groups like international students, postgraduate or part time & mature students.

NCAFC @ NUS conference 2012

The NCAFC will be taking an active part in this year’s NUS conference, which takes place in Sheffield 24-26 April – as part of a campaign for a national union that leads students’ fightback.

We will be promoting policy, standing candidates, distributing literature, organising meetings and caucusing regularly to organise our intervention.

If you are a delegate or observer and want to work with us at conference, or not but would like to come and help get in touch: ring Ed Maltby on 07775 763 750 or email againstfeesandcuts@gmail.com with the subject “NUS conference”.

CAUCUSES

Unlike many factions in NUS, NCAFC organises its interventions democratically. We will be hold regular caucuses to discuss and plan our activity at and intervention into the conference. These will take place by the NCAFC stall.

ELECTIONS

A majority of the NCAFC national committee has signed up to supporting the following candidates in the fulltime elections.

Full-time positions

President: Claire Locke (Facebook
VP Union Development: Vicki Baars (Facebook)
VP Higher Education: Michael Chessum (Facebook, video and website )
VP Welfare: Edd Bauer video
VP Society and Citizenship: Jamie Woodcock
VP Further Education: Jamil Keating

MOTIONS

NCAFC-supporting student unions have submitted a large number of motions and amendments to the conference, the most of any left faction. These are on issues ranging from a national demonstration, to demands for FE, to postgraduate funding, to the right to protest, to organising student workers, to anti-fascism.

For the full motions document for the conference, see here.

For our guide to the motions and the broad positions we will be taking (subject to discussion at our caucuses), see here.

MEETINGS

The NCAFC will be organising two formal meetings at the conference:

NCAFC social
(AWESOME) DETAILS TO BE CONFIRMED
A chance to meet other NCAFC activists, meet our candidates, discuss politics and socialise.

1.15pm, Wednesday 25 April
By the NCAFC stall @ City Hall, Sheffield
“FE students fight back!” – meeting organised by FE activists in NCAFC
(Facebook event)

8.45pm, Wednesday 25 April
The Circle, Conference Rooms 1 and 2 (next to the conference centre)
“Students as workers, students and workers – organising solidarity” – joint GMB Southern Region members/NCAFC fringe meeting on student workers
(Facebook event)

DAILY BULLETIN

The NCAFC will be producing a Minority Report magazine/publication for the conference. Watch this space.

This is a blogpost by an NCAFC supporter. If you want to participate in the debate, get in touch at againstfeesandcuts@gmail.com, or take part in NCAFC caucuses at conference.

The following is not a definitive statement of the views of the NCAFC, but it is a broad guide to the decisions that leftwing delegates will be taking in the motions debates at conference. For up-to-date info on all the political debates at NUS Conference, check out the NCAFC’s daily bulletin!

 

 

Guide to recommendations, motions and amendments at NUS conference 2012

 

This is not a list of all the motions, but of some of the most important (which is not to suggest everything not mentioned is unimportant). Much of what’s submitted to the conference by supporters of the leadership is not even actively right-wing/crap, but vague, largely meaningless, blah. In so far as it’s conscious and not just the vacuous management-speaking in which these people think, they do this in order to limit the amount of substantive debate – and thus chance for serious opposition – as much as possible. In contrast, well-written left-wing motions are concise, clear and to the point.

 

Text is divided into “Recommendations” (from the NUS Committee that oversees the Zone), “Motions” (separate bits of text”) and “Amendments” (to both Recommendations and Motions).

 

The order in which the Zones are taken will be decided by a priority ballot of delegates at the start of conference.

 

The motions described in this document and their position on the order paper are liable to change as the final motions document is not yet available. That said, the arguments and substantive text will remain the same.

 

Text we should oppose (mostly right-wing/leadership) in italics.

 

CONSTITUTIONAL RATIFICATIONS (100s)

 

In this section, after new student unions applying to affiliate are accepted or rejected, constitutional changes passed at a previous conference come back for ratification or rejection.

 

101: Incorporation. This motion, which passed last time, means NUS becoming an incorporated charity. The motion takes up pages and pages of complicated technical detail, but the gist is that it will further institutionalise NUS’s drift towards becoming a supposedly apolitical, definitely bureaucratic organisation with less internal democracy and campaigning. On the surface this doesn’t change much, incorporation will just ratifiy in law the changes that were made during the governance review three years ago, namely that the union will be subject to all the regulation of the 2006 Charities act. Passing this would not only limit the type of action the union could organise or support but would even limit the right of the union to take a stand on political issues. Because constitutional changes require 2/3 to pass, there is a chance of stopping this.

 

UNION DEVELOPMENT ZONE (500s)

 

Key issues: will NUS support the development of student unions as democratic, mass-mobilising, campaigning organisations?

 

Recommendation 503: Motion full of blah, which includes some dubious stuff about a focus on “employability” (not because we deny students need to get jobs, but because the emphasis is on producing fodder for employers).

 

Amendment 504b: SWP text on helping student unions becoming campaigning bodies which fight cuts and link up with trade unions.

 

Motion 507: SWP motion on fighting to make sure any new private universities created have to allow democratic student unions.

 

Amendment 507b and c: NCAFC amendments on student union democracy, including promoting regular general meetings, opposing the existence of Trustee Boards and fighting against non-students sitting on them.

 

Motion 510: Defending the right to protest on campus.

 

Amendment 511a: Moving towards election of the NEC by conference with election by the whole membership, proposed by lefties from UCL. The NCAFC does not have a position on this; our activists take different views.

 

EDUCATION ZONE (200s – FE mixed in with 300s – HE)

 

Key questions: will NUS demand free education and living EMA/grants for all FE students, and organise a campaign of direct action and walk outs next year?

Will NUS continue to support a graduate tax or will it start to demand free education? Will it make radical demands like nationalisation of the universities? Will it hold a national demonstration in the first term? Will it organise direct action and support strikes? The HE Zone is important because, rightly or wrongly, much of the debate about NUS’s general trajectory is included here.

 

Amendments 301d: Good left-wing text on postgraduate students from UCL and others, calling for fully funded postgraduate degrees.

 

Amendment 302a: A bland  amendment which says nothing particularly objectionable, but has the wrong approach (“fight to win public guarantees from all political parties to reinvest funding into HE”).

 

Recommendation 203: Soft leadership motion which sums up limitations of existing NUS demands and campaigns on FE. The NUS leadership is essentially trying to pretend FE is currently free, when it isn’t! It lacks even any strategy to fight off the government’s attacks.

 

Amendment 203a: NCAFC amendment calling for more radical demands for FE students. The leadership will oppose.

Amendment 203b: SWP amendment on how to mobilise FE students.

 

Amendment 303b and c: SWP / Counterfire amendments to boycott the National Student Survey, a bureaucratic tool to promote the marketisation of FE which NUS currently supports. This is also NCAFC policy.

 

Recommendation 305: bland leadership motion on the Tories’ now-abandoned HE Bill, ie its whole HE agenda.

Amendment 305a: NCAFC motion on what NUS should demand in HE. We will have at least one speech on this.

305b: United left call for a national NUS demonstration in the autumn.
305c: SWP text calling for direct action and support for strikes.
305d: NCAFC amendment calling for a “Take back your campus” campaign for rights and democracy in education.

 

Motion 306: Right-wing text in support of students paying for degrees through a graduate tax, ie against free education. NCAFC and other left-wingers have speeches against.

Amendment 306a: United left amendment to support free education.

Amendment 306b: Compromise free education motion from NUS LGBT Campaign and NCAFC. There is a serious chance that this could pass.

 

SOCIETY AND CITIZENSIHP ZONE (400s)

 

This is harder to summarise as it includes all kinds of political issues including ones the left is divided on. But key questions: will NUS defend the right to protest and support students repressed for protesting? Will it fight for a living wage and seriously seek to organise student workers? Will it support strikes and protests against the cuts? What will it say about war on Iran, and about Palestine, particularly the call for a boycott of Israel? What kind of anti-fascist campaigning will it support?

Amendment 402a: Left-wing additions to Recommendation on defending the right to protest, including our text on fighting the anti-trade union laws and congratulations to the NCAFC’s Edd Bauer on his release and reinstatement to SU office.

402b: Right-wing (but not necessarily leadership) amendment seeking to slightly tone down opposition to police brutality.

 

Amendment 403a: NCAFC amendment on fighting for a living wage and organising on student workers, building on the work down at Royal Holloway, Goldsmiths and other institutions.

 

404a: Motion from the left seeking to commit NUS to promoting an SU boycott of companies linked to Israel. The NCAFC does not have a positionon this; various NCAFC activists take different views.

 

Motion 406: NCAFC motion on how to fight the far right – arguing for a democratic anti-fascist movement, which mobilises direct action and raises social demands to undercut the social base of fascism.

 

Amendment 406a: Another anti-fascist motion, supporting UAF.

 

Motion 414: Left motion rightly opposing war on Iran. Unfortunately it says nothing about supporting Iranian students, workers and women against the Iranian regime.

 

Motion 415: Left-wing motion on defending the welfare state.

 

AGM (700s)

 

This is the section of the conference where many internal changes in NUS are discussed.

 

Motion 706: SOAS (left-wing) motion opposing non-students sitting on NUS’s Trustee Board – the body which is legally responsible for the national union and, outrageously, can overrule the NEC – having a vote. The leadership will probably oppose. Important this passes as in both NUS and SUs non-student trustees almost always act as a block to democracy and a brake on doing anything radical.

 

 

A National Day of Action has been called today by Students for a Democratic Society – the American equivalent of NCAFC – supported by the American Occupy movement, to demand better access to education, lower tuition fees, and the cutting of top-paid administrator’s salaries.

The March 1st Day of Action to Defend Education – known as M1 – will see widespread occupations of high school and university campuses across America; including Wisconsin, Minneapolis, Chicago, Florida, North Carolina, New Jersey, Utah, Virginia and many others.

SDS publically announced M1 in January, releasing the following statement which was signed by both the occupy movement and SDS:

March 1st, 2012: National Day of Action for Education

We refuse to pay for the crisis created by the 1%. We refuse to accept the dismantling of our schools and universities, while the banks and corporations make record profits. We refuse to accept educational re-segregation, massive tuition increases, outrageous student debt, and increasing privatization and corporatization.

They got bailed out and we got sold out. But through nationally coordinated mass action we can and will turn back the tide of austerity.

We call on all students, teachers, workers, and parents from all levels of education —pre-K-12 through higher education in public and private institutions— and all Occupy assemblies, labor unions, and organizations of oppressed communities, to mobilize on March 1st, 2012 across the country to tell those in power: The resources exist for high-quality education for all. If we make the rich and the corporations pay we can reverse the budget cuts, tuition hikes, and attacks on job security, and fully fund public education and social services.

This is a call to work together, but it is up to each school and organization to determine what local and regional actions—such as strikes, walkouts, occupations, marches, etc.—they will take to say no to business as usual.

We have the momentum, the numbers, and the determination to win. Education is not for sale. Let’s take back our schools. Let’s make history.

The statement can be found here: http://www.newsds.org/2012/1/26/march-1st-2012-all-out-education-rights

Student activists and others will be taking action in London on Wednesday 29 February against NHS privatisation. NCAFC is supporting actions to save the NHS from cuts and privatisation. Watch this space for future student actions against NHS cuts!

Facebook event here

If the Coalition’s Health and Social Care Bill becomes law, private businesses will rush in to take over large parts of the NHS. On 29 February these vultures are gathering at a conference called “Winning business in the NHS” to discuss their plans to strip our health service. Join the protest against them.

Here’s the introductory blurb for the conference:

“If you are doing business with the NHS are you prepared for what comes next? The Chief Executive of the NHS, Sir David Nicholson, says the NHS changes are so big they can be seen from outer space. Can you see what they mean for your business?

“Whatever your sales forecasts; think again. Whatever your present strategic plan, it’s probably wrong. Whatever your marketing plan, you probably need to rewrite it.”

(http://www.regonline.co.uk/builder/site/Default.aspx?eventid=1031392)

There is still time to stop the Health and Social Care Bill, which is set to strike a massive and grievious blow to the NHS. We need a mobilisation of the labour movement to demand the bill is withdrawn and to put forward a positive plan to rebuild the National Health Service.

We demand also the repeal of cuts to the NHS, the liberation of the NHS from extortionate PFI charges, the reversal of the marketisation already imposed.

We call on the Labour Party to publicly reaffirm Andy Burnham’s promise that a future Labour government will reverse marketisation of the NHS by this government.

We will demonstrate against the private sector vultures, with a simple message: no to the Health and Social Care Bill! No to privatisation – hands off our NHS! Please join us!

More details: healthalarm@yahoo.co.uk