of Students known as the "Broad Left' convened a national conference in Leeds on 23 June. The Broad Left is composed of the Communist Party and its supporters within the student movement.
The letters of invitation to this conference were sent out, according to the conference organisers, to S broad cross section of student activists, in an attempt to provide a wide base Unprecedented unity between printers and journalists has marked the current dispute at the Nottingham firm of T. Bailey Foreman, which publishes the Guardian Journal and the Nottingham Evening Post.
The dispute started after management tried to force SLADE members to work a new optical plate printing method a week before national negottations were due to start on the issue, When the workersrefused, 11 of them were sacked, whereupon the other print unions staged a token walk-out demanding their reinstatement. Subsequenty they were told that they would not be allowed back into the works, while the journalists were told that unless they agreed to produce copy for the new process they could aso consider themselves dismissed" Since then the Guardarn Journal has not appeared, and the Evening Post Has only continued with scab labour To organise the strike, the unions have set upa Joint Liaison Committee con#sting of the FOCs (shop stewards) and clerks to the five unions involved This body meets regularly to discuss general questions of tacticx, publicity ete, reporting back to mass meetings held every day, morning and afterBoon, A smaller, administrative subcommittee has also been elected which 15 in constant session and deals with the detailed co-ordination between the chapels. A further innovation has been the creation of a common strike fund. This means that inconsistencies and differences between the unions can be ironed out and democratically decided upon thus lessening the likelihood of divisions and splits.
The solidarity thus created has enabled the workers to stand firm in face of management threats to close down the Guardian Journal for good. Donations, messages of support to: Jeff Hyton (chairman, Liaison Committee), cfo YMCA, Shakespeare St., Nottingham.
I enclose PO./Cheque (made out to Red Weekly) 182, Pentonville Road, London N.1. NAME *establishing an overall political perspective for students on the Left and for the creation of a sound basis for left unity!
Despite this professed concern with "left unity, no members of the other two main left groups operating in the student field the International Socialists - International Marxist Group - were sent invitations, and when small delegations from each of these organisations arrived at the conference they were refused adamsson. situatson reached the ludicrous height of Comr struggle over student grants. munist Party members refusing admission even activits they hud grounds that these individals were guilty of the crime of being too close to the JMG.:
As i was, the conference attracted far fewer than had been anticipated making the exclusion of sections of the left an even more destructive policy. It did. however, give the Communist Party the advantage of a clear majority in the conference They were thus able to sidestep the problems created by the exclusionary nature of the gathering and avoid any serious discussion of the policy to be followed in future meetings The Communist Party's continued influence in the student field is largely a result of their holding key positions in the NUS apparatis. However it is not possible to defend these positions against the right with out a base among the new lyer of student militants thrown up by the Thus the Communist Party is now cager to organise support among this layer, through the Broad Left." At the same time it must ensure that its new supporters are kept away from the evil seductions of the revolutionary lett, so the revolutionaries must be excluded from this grouping at all It is ironic that the Communist Party who so ardently oppose bans und proscriptions throughout the labour movement, should themselves resort to such techniques in the student field. Within the trade unions the Communist Party has traditionally dismissed the 'ultra-lefts" as tiny, and relevant to the problems of left unity, although that is becoming an increasingly difficult policy to maintain, But within the student field such a policy is already suicidal The revo lutionary left is a major political force, rogularly gaining about one-third of the votes at conferences of the National Union of Students. "Left unity" withour the revolution aries is indeed Humiet without the Prince. If the Communist Party's student members persist in bureaucratic and sectarian attitude all they can do is to wreck the possibility of forging any effective fighting unity between the forces of the left within the student movement. Piers Corbyn Several hundred black parents and chi dren demonstrated outside a Leeds schoo on Monday in protest against the educatior provided there, More than 90% of th children boycotted clisses for the day and picketed outside the gete.
Earl Cowper Middle School is housed in a large, old building in Chapeltown, Leeds 90% of its pupils ere black, Children fram 9-13 years are being taught in a building where facilities are unchanged since it was a primary school last year, There are no metal work or woodwork rooms, no proper domestic science or nendlework Schoal children complained of being called tacilities, and no science laboratories black monkeys' and other racist terms by some of the leachers, and of the high Mother turnover in general.
The campsign is a further step in the sallorganisation of the black community in Chapeltown, failowing on the taking over of a local community centre a few months officials of the Lads Education Authority wattsp is meeting with But not too much hope should be placed with the Labour-run council - one Labour councilor commented that, the under privileged tend to think that they are being dise iminated against, but it
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