Students face students tace grant cutback

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The Tories have said that this year's 'offer'

inr students is 4%. Jane Ashworth reports. employers to take on young conference on the weekend workers. If they pay them of November 20-21 to dis. less than 940 a week, they get a £15 bonus from the cuss what we can do agGainst these and many other government.

So the average wage of attacks on young people. young workers has dropped schemes, the unemployed, dramatically in the last few young women, black youth, months. Big industries are aleo taking advantage. If solidarity and many otber the agricultural Wages Council agrees to employ. issues. ers' demands, 13,500 Another big topic at the young farm workers under conference will be the witch 20 will have their pay cut hunt inside the Labour Party. It looks like the LPYS from 342.40 a week to is going to be a prime $28.16. target of the right wing.

This will only be the beginning, unless the trade They may go to dissffiliate us froin the party or restrict unions are prepared to us. We need to be prepared block the scheme - il necessary through strike for this situation, and the conference will decide what action.

The conference of YS branches Scheme is only one examp-. passing resolutions and el-. ecting a new steering committee. Most of the dis-! cussions will be held in workshops, so that every. We'll be discusaing YOP one will feel confident to. speak, and we can cover a wide range of issues. youth, international The cost of the weekend will be 42.50 if you're work. ing, and Il if you're on the dole. If you have no income at all, the conference will cost 50p. There will be a social with bands on Sat-. urday night.

Transport will be organ-. ised from most areas, and we want a real push in the last few days. If you want more information on the conference, ring on [01-] 609 3071.

5.4r0498890 1471% IU1 OUUUUAND EN 'SORRY! Your grant hasn't been wrongly calculated' That's the reply welfare officers are having to give to students who don't understand why their cheques are on average £137 lower this year.

The figure of £137 comes from a National Union of Students survey at Stirling University, and the reduction arises from the extremely low increase this year in the threshold for parental contributions. Students are supposed to rely more on money from their parents, but the Stirling survey found that only 50% of students get the full amount allowed for from their parents.

This year's NUS grants claim demands the raising of the threshold for parental contribution from £6600 to £9000, and a f5 per week increase (11 or 12%, not 6% as previously reported in SO), to restore the grant to its 1980-81 value.

What makes this claim more comprehensive than previous ones is the call for a minimum grant of $25 a week for all full-time students. This will primarily affect tech and FE students 300,000 of whom don't get a penny at the moment. £25 brings them in line with people in colleges on Youth Training Schemes.

The government will not concede without a big fight, and is likely to 'offer' loans instead of grants. NUS is planning a lobby of Parliament for the £25 minimum on November 17, and demonstrations in London and Glasgow on the 19th. Motions are needed for the Christmas NUS conference to instruct the Exec to organise more activities.

By spring, when the universities will announce packages of redundancies and increased hall fees, we need to have built up joint union committees in the colleges ready for united action.

Joint activities by students and campus workers to support other public sector workers against the government can help develop this unity. Student union meetings should invite trade union activists to speak about their struggles.

Socialists should put motions to CLPs and Trades Councils supporting the NUS claim and opposing the Tories' attempts to cut courses, numbers and jobs - and to abolish the grants system.

LPYS branches too should back the campaign for a minimum grant. Invite a speaker to discuss how to involve school students and the unemployed - the people who stand to benefit if we win.

cations of such an objective - and trust to the logic of the class struggle to provide the basis for our intervention to secure the further development of those implications.

There is no need to seek doctrinal guarantees, elaborate calculations about future possibilities, slogans designed to sew up all questions in advance, or fearful formulas which place protection against hypothetical future opportunist dangers above the job of developing the logic of the class struggle now.

Whatever the guesses, the slogan of government has in any case a tremendous educational value in organising and rallying the left.

Labour democracy

and the dest fight toro Pamphiet Organises Available irom. SO, 28 Middle Lane, London N8 for 60p incl.

postage. THE National Union of Students recently published a 'Report on Student Housing' which provides an in-depth look at student living conditions, and makes a number of recommendations.

The main problems for students are the high rents in private accommodation and the low level of council property available to students and young single people.

The majority of students not living in college halls live in private sector ac commodation. Rents are usually high, yet students are prevented from receiving more than a few pounds in rent allowances because the 'board and lodgings' element of the grant is deducted automatically when assessment is made. It is assumed that all students receive a full grant, although many in fact do not.

The 4% 'increase' in the student grant this year has made students one of the poorest sections of the community, yet they are excluded from many forms of welfare benefit.

One of the recommendations of the Report is that students and young single people should have far easier access to council housing than they do currently. It also calls upon local authorities to make short-life housing available to students, and to take over private houses which have been empty for more than one year, and let them to young single people as well as families.

Many students who are desperate for accommodation end up signing licenses • la form of contract which exploits a loophole in the Rent Act and affords tenants none of the usual protection offered by legislation) and paying extortionate deposits. Students and young people who are under 18 rarely gain independent access to rented accommodation because of problems with contracts for 'minors' NUS advocates a limited amount of new hall of residence provision, in places where it does not already exist such as North East London Polytechnic, although survey returns have indicated that after their first year few students want to live in hall.

The emphasis in the report is very much on young single people, not just students, as many of the difficulties faced by students are faced by all young single people on low incomes. NUS believes that the Government should amend the Rent Act and the Housing (Homeless Persons) Act to afford more protection to tenants, and that local authorities should make specific provision for young single people.

Not much hope, perhaps, under a Government which represents the property-owning class.

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WORKERS GOVERNMENT