Strathclyde education

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Labour Party and Labour coun ciliors meeting together defeated the council leadership to demand "serious negotiations" with the workers. Yet it took six weeks for a meeting to take place, and no money was set aside in the budgets to be able to meet any part of the claim.

The council's personnel committee did make an 'offer' that would have meant some very minor changes, and added up to around one-twentieth of what was being asked for - the unions rejected it. The council seems to have no plans to meet the workers While the nursery staff have been driven to take strike action and mothers of children who attend the day centres face serious problems as a result (though they solidly support the action), the Labour Group in Islington is sitting on its hands.

After the lobby the Labour Group did nothing about the issue. A few councillors, Pat Longman (an SO supporter), Jan Whelan and Terry Herbert, supported the workers and wanted to see some immediate action; but the rest of the group just let the issue stay with the personnel committee to meet the strikers "as soon as appropriate."

These councillors aren't just burying their own heads in the sand, they are burying any idea that Islington is a "socialist council" that wants to fight the Tories CUTS planned by Strathclyde Regional Council will mean that:

*Subjects offered in schools are to be reduced and timetables standardised.

*The plans for pupils to travel between schools (perhaps up to 30 miles a day) to take subjects of their choice will be chaotic, damaging and unworkable. Pupils' choices an lesson times will be severely reduced.

Lanarkshire Parents Action Group and the teachers' union EIS are campaigning against the plans, derived from the government's " Action Plan for 16-18s in Scotland."

Over 700 parents and teachers (with a few pupils too) crammed into a campaign meeting at Motherwell Civic Centre on Tuesday April 3.

All the Regional Councillors in Lanarkshire were invited to the meeting. None attended, and only two sent apologies.

LPAG has tried to have discussions with the Regional Council, but its letters have not even been answered.

Strathclyde Regional Council is Labour-controlled, but there is never a whisper of a campaign against the Tories from them. Increasingly they're coming into conflict with their workers.

The campaign on 16-18 reorganisation is running alongside at least two campaigns against closures of primary schools across the Region, particularly in the ravaged East End of Glasgow.