privatisation measure as an outright move into the private sector
Both the level of service to the public and the terms and conditions of workers are already under threat and a full opening to the market will take place from January 1 2006 - three years in advance of what European Union legislation necessitates.
In the same way that new Labour has tried to put a gloss on its neo-liberal projhealth and educations, they are trying something similar with the post.
Here the "carrot" is that the latest plans, due to be announced by Sir George Bain on October 21 will probably offer employee share ownership.
But the fact that Bain headed the review of the fire service - which was used to decimate the conditions of fire fighters and the safety of the public - makes clear what we can expect from him.
As CWU General Secretary Billy Hayes pointed out at a fringe meeting at Labour Party conference, it is an insult to postal workers to suggest that this will give them a "stake" in the success of the industry in which they spend their working lives.
"The truth is that behind these fancy notions of 'empowerment', 'stakeholding, etc. lies simple attempt to privatise the industry.
The flannel is an attempt to buy off our opposition. won't work because our opposition is well-founded," he continued.
Unfortunately there is a lack of effective leadership coming from the Communicanon Workers' Union (CWU). time rally were postal workers - even fellow union members in the Telecoms section are not really aware of what is going down.
Certainly there has been no sustained attempt so far to raise the issue more widely in the labour movement.
The union has produced a "campaign guide" entitled "Delivering Quality - The Post Office in the public sector, which contains useful information and arguments for activists.
But the focus proposed relies almost entirely on lobbying Labour MPs. And while this is clearly a completely inadequate strategy, even that is not being followed through properly.
At Labour Party Conference the CWU seconded a motion moved by Amicus entitled "Assisting British Industry".
The last five paragraphs take up the question of privatisation of postal services, but completely duck the issue the current liberalisation and what is in store come January.
That's why you haven't heard about the debate - the motion was passed overwhelmingly and caused no concern to the platform.
While the
unlon-spon sored Early Day HODOIN along with the motion they put forward and had agreed at the TUC are both much sharper the reality is that the only way that jobs and services can be defended is by a concerted campaign of industrial action, understood by both other trade unions and the wider public.
Postal workers have showed their willingness to organise to defend conditions at workplace level - but what they lack is leadership for this essential fight. Academies can be stopped - but only if the growing tide of national opposition and popular local campaigns are brought together in a national campaign of action. Will the NUT leadership and the TUC seize the opportunity, asks RICHARD HATCHER. If someone offers your school a brand new building with top of the range facilities it's difficult to say no. That is what the government hopes, and in many areas Academies have gone through without opposition. A further 10 opened this September, making 27 up and running and 50 or more in the pipeline. The government's target is 200 by 2010. But the policy is facing mounting
Many oppose in principle private sponsors being given control of a school for £2million -or less under the government's new "buy 3 and get one free' scheme.
Who are these sponsors? Some are business entrepreneurs with a variety of motives from philanthropy to self-promotion. Some are companies demonstrating their corporate social responsibility' to boost their image. And almost half of the Academies open or in train have religious sponsors.
Some are directly sponsored by the Church of England or the Catholic Church, and some by mission. The notorious creationist Sir Peter Vardy, sponsor of two Academies so far, is not a unique case.
This is not privatisation for profit, but non-profit privatisation is just as dangerous. Sponsors control the school governing body, and therefore the employment of staff, and also the curriculum, often favouring a 'business and enterprise specialism.
Academies don't just affect the schools they replace, they affect neighbouring schools, in two ways. First, they tend to attract more middle-calls pupils than the schools they
Recent research shows that much of the improvement in exam results that some of them claim - not all, some are doing worse than the schools they replaced - is due to taking fewer students from poor families.
In addition, some exclude large number of 'problem' pupils. The result is more challenges for neighbouring schools without the lavish capital funding that Academies get, and an increasingly divided system, in effect two tiers of schools in small local authorities like Sandwell and Hackney with several Academies on the way.
Second, Academies are often not a straight replacement of like for like, of one school by another: they bring with them other changes, which create further opposition. For example, in Islington the two proposed Academies were both all-through schools, combining primary and secondary. This provoked vigorous campaigns by the teachers and parents of the primary schools threatened with being swallowed up, leading to one sponsor pulling out.
In Hackney two schools are threatened with being 'academised', Haggerston and Homerton.
One is a girls school, one is a boys school. Academies can't be single sex, and, whatever the arguments for and against co-education, parents and teachers in the local campaigns are agreed that they won't have it forced on them as a means to create Academies.
The Sheppey Parents' Action Group has mass support for its opposition to replace their three local middle schools with a two-tier system of an Academy and feeder primaries (see www.spag/into)
So the promoters of Academies - the sponsors, local authorities, school heads and governing bodies - have a big problem: how to sell this product, increasingly seen as damaged goods?
Their solution is attempts to stage-manage blatantly undemocratic local 'consultation' processes - lengthy Powerpoint presentations with excluded from putting their case at governors' meetings, petitions ignored.
This has spectacularly backfired, infuriating parents and teachers (and provoking student demonstrations at Haggerston) and strengthening their opposition.
Academies have become the defining issue of Labour's education policy, exemplifying the class issues at stake - private