Campaign TUC to withdraw from the

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Young people on YOP: entrants by scheme type.

an amalgamation of the 'Community Serv Trotsky on Stalinism Labour Party Young Socialists summe camp 1983: July 30 to August 6. All Young Socialists should come: a week of YS workshops, Class Fighter meetings, and very much more debate than transport. Bring sleeping bags and tents. WEEP CP TW TOTAL WEEP: Work CP: Commut and Project 1 TW: Training 3. An increase in the holiday allowance from the 17½-day minimum provided by the YTS 4. The right for trainees to join a union; trade union recognition; the right for trade unions to recruit trainees 5. A minimum of 13 weeks off the job training in public sector education establishments. The training to provide recognised skills and qualifications.

6. Equal opportunities 7. Provision for the disabled entrants by 1979/80 138,900 35,900 7,300 182,100 Experience lity Project Based Work Workshops on Employers s (formed in Experience'). there is at YS conference.

1980/81 (76%) 242,200 (79.5 (20%) 50,300 (16.5 12,000 304,500 Contact Class Fighter, 13 Buxton Road, London N19 for details and 1981/82 371,000 (80.5% 74,100 (16%) 16,200 461,500 up' to £60 per week 2. Proper contracts of employment 3. Proper training for permanent jobs 4. Full health and safety, equal opportunities, and trade union participation and control In Islington, the Labour council has adopted a policy of:

1. Wages topped up to union rates 2. Union agreement before implementation of any scheme 3. Employee status under health and safety legislation 4. No job substitution.

Pat Longman, a Labour councillor and Socialist Organiser supporter, told us. "The crucial issue of a job at the end is still not resolved'. She thought that pressing for these conditions was a better approach than the straight non cooperation policy favoured by her own union, the NGA - which results only in YTS trainees being concentrated in unorganised workplaces.

As with YTS, the year contains three months off the job and nine months on-site training. The company reduces the apprenticeship allowance, previously agreed with, the union, from £54 to £40 a week.

At the end of the year there will only be 50 apprenticeship places available for the second year, thus placing the 192 young NALGO, the Town Hall union, will be heavily involved in YTS schemes run by local authorities. Its policy is to demand the following conditions.

1. Topping-up of • wages. (NALGO is, however, likely to set targets below the present minimum entry rate of £52 a week in local government.)

2. No job substitution 3. Trainees to be fully covered by local and national conditions of service on hours, sick leave, etc., and to have full rights to join a union 4. Allowances for clothing, footwear, safety equipment, and travel 5. Trainees to be given an equal opportunity for any permanent vacancies within six months of the end of their year NATHE, the tech college lecturers' union, is particularly concerned about YTS from two angles.

First: privatisation of education. A lot of the off-the-job training for YTS is to be done by private firms like Pitmans, Sight & Sound, and Link. Training of YTS trainers in North London is to be done by STC.

Second. to fit in with the schedules of YTS, where colleges do the off-the-job training they are being required to work a 48 week year.

The union nationally supports YTS and has accepted the 48 week year - but some colleges have not. Activists in NATFHE are also concerned about lack of any action by the union on privatisation.

The call for trade unions to withdraw from the Manpower Services Commission is part of the struggle for the labour movement to break links with the Torics. nothing to cut unemployment. It will merely add 142 well-trained 17 year olds to the Cleveland dole queue in September."

The straight bat cry of 'defend our apprenticeships' is a hopelessly inadequate response.

As the above figures show, traditional apprenticeships have been in irreversible decline for over a decade. Indeed, to persevere with time serving apprenBut where this demand has not yet been won, members should insist that union representatives on Manpower Boards report back to their union on a regular basis. -We should call for all schemes to be vetted by Area Manpower Boards (and the necessary staff to be hired to make inspection of all schemes possible); for Trades Councils and union branches to be informed of all schemes within their areas; for employers' applications for approval of schemes to be fully detailed, and for the right to join a union to be a condition of any scheme being approved.

In the discussion on the Left about how to fight the YTS, the three basic points of agreement are therefore:

1. To campaign for the TUC to withdraw from the Manpower Services Commission and to withThe classic Marxist analy of Stalinism is Leon Trotsky's 'Revolution Betrayed: What is the Soviet Union and Where It Going?' Available via Socialist Organiser, 28 Middle Lane, London N8: £2.50 plus 50p postage. on the ground of a mythical golden age that was far from free of abuses, many trade unions are already recognising that they must fight on the terrain of reality and the future. Here the issues are:

1) Control of syllabus content.

2) Control of trainee intake.

3) Trainee rights including trade union rights.

4) Wages and conditions.

draw its endorsement for the scheme 2. To formulate a list of demands to be fought for by the labour movement as conditions for the introduction of YTS in workplaces • 3. To campaign to organise the trainees themselves into unions, so that they can fight for those and for other demands.

Among activists we spoke to, the contentious issue seemed to be whether we should focus on stopping the scheme wherever possible (with demands on conditions as a fallback when that fails); or whether such an attitude is ultimately a useless moral gesture, which cannot stop YTS but only hinders the fight to organise the trainees and improve their conditions.

What do readers think?

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Agem-da Next Socialist Organiser delegate meeting: Saturday Sepno.139