EVEN BEFORE the new academic year starts next week, a crisis is gripping the education system.

England and Wales is facing its worst teacher shortage for 40 years according to the government's own chief inspector of schools.

New Labour is under increasing pressure to scrap tuition fees. Reports in the Sunday Mirror say Tony Blair is considering abolishing them.

Higher education colleges are facing huge funding shortfalls because they can't find enough students willing to face £15,000-plus worth of debt to take places on courses.

The reason for this crisis is simple enough: Labour believes that education is a commodity that can be bought and sold. Everything in education now has to fit in with a profit-and-loss balance sheet according to New Labour.

But this is producing huge strains. London teacher and union secretary Bob Sulatycki explains: "The crisis arises because there are less entering teaching and more teachers are leaving due to low pay and low morale.

"Also, many now can't afford to live in inner-city areas because of high accommodation costs. There was an example last week of a teacher who will be commuting daily next term from Huddersfield to work in Islington, London.

"The teacher shortage figures are probably an underestimate. It's difficult to work out exact figures because the government covers up shortages in different ways. For instance, the employers use supply staff, who are supposed to be covering for absences, to cover up the shortfalls and this can mask the vacancies.

"They get teachers to teach outside their specialisms, or they can alter the timetable. Either way the curriculum is distorted. Teachers' non-contact time is also eroded and we are expected to cover more when teachers are ill or simply not available.

"There needs to be a fight on this issue from the teaching unions, rather than helping the government to cover up the full extent of the crisis."

Whether it's in schools or colleges, the Socialist Party is campaigning for education provision that isn't ruled by the profit motive. Join us to bring back a decent and free education system for all throughout people's lives.

The Socialist says:

Pay a living wage to all teachers and education workers.
Scrap tuition fees -- for a living grant.
End the funding crisis. Free good quality education for all, from nursery to university.

Workers Priced Out By Housing Crisis

A HOUSING crisis is developing across England and Wales, warns a report by the National Housing Federation.

The average price of a home is £117,398 but a worker on the average wage of £21,842 can only get a mortgage equal to three times their salary - about £60,000.

In London things get even worse. In conditions similar to the housing boom of the late 1980s, prices have risen by as much as 37% in the last year, fuelled by speculators, big City bonuses and a general housing shortage.

This is the result of the Tories' disastrous housing policies of the 1980s and the failure of councils to build any new houses. The only council to do so was Liverpool city council between 1983 and 1987, under the control of supporters of Militant, predecessor of The Socialist, which built 5,500 new houses.

Now we have a New Labour government hell-bent on privatising council housing. Workers are being priced out of the capital and large areas of the south-east.

According to the Centre for Economics and Business Research workers earning £23,000 in London have £360 less to spend than those in Yorkshire, despite earning £3,800 more.

This is having dire consequences for services in London, vacancy rates in some social services departments are running at 50% or more in some specialities and there are shortages across all key services.

The government has set up a Starter Home Initiative, putting a derisory £250 million into the scheme over three years. Its average grant of £25,000 would make no difference to someone living in London.

In an area of relatively cheap housing like Walthamstow, a two-bedroom house is over £120,000. Even with a grant of £25,000 this would still be out of reach to a person earning less than £30,000.

If this is true for relatively well-paid workers, then things are even worse for the low-paid, cleaners, ancillary workers, shop workers etc.

House prices are so inflated that some analysts warn of a crash like that of the late 1980s where thousands were left with negative equity.

This is the consequence of allowing housebuilding to be dictated by the market. The private sector is failing to meet people's needs.

Over a million privately owned houses are standing empty in England and Wales. There should be a national audit of housing need and a survey of housing stock.

Most of all, a house building and repair programme should be implemented aiming to supply everyone with decent, affordable accommodation.

Hackney Workers Prepare For Battle

AMID THE chaos that is working life in Hackney council, workers are preparing to ballot for further strike action.

This new ballot is the result of the latest management provocation in sacking UNISON chief negotiator Noah Tucker on trumped-up charges of being absent from work without permission. The union will launch an appeal against this while the ballot proceeds.

Management, egged on behind the scenes by the government, are trying to intimidate UNISON as they prepare to introduce the new contracts that we've successfully opposed for ten months. D-Day is 2 October and management are attempting to punish UNISON for opposing their cut-back plans.

Strike ballot

Management estimates claim that contractual changes will save the council £1.8 million per year. Hackney UNISON oppose these changes because we feel that this £1.8 million is coming straight out of low-paid council workers' pockets. Why should we be punished for senior management's incompetence and corruption?

We also know that a £1.8 million saving means nothing against a budget deficit that is now spiralling beyond £100 million. Hackney won't be saved by a cuts massacre; our services need a serious cash injection from central government. Services also need union, community and user group participation in their running to ensure past corruption and mismanagement is not repeated.

There are also rumours that Jean Webster, a town hall UNISON shop steward, is facing the sack for allegedly not signing her new (reduced terms) contract. Our union's future depends upon us being able to protect any activist facing victimisation - that is why we must get a YES vote in the upcoming ballot.

The attempt to sack Noah Tucker is about scaring UNISON members and activists into complying with the policies proposed by egotistic chief executive Max Caller. Even the Hackney Gazette commented: "The race to save money is wrecking services in Hackney as the council flounders beneath the strain of debt."

The strike ballot will run from 29 August-18 September. As always the local Socialist Party branch is preparing to leaflet council workplaces. Hopefully we can persuade local workers about the need to support the strike action to stop management intimidation and interference with the independence of our union.

There is no doubt that Hackney's crisis will not be resolved without settling the question of funding. At present, the ground is being prepared for a long, drawn-out battle with regular outbreaks of official and unofficial action attempting to curtail senior management's vindictive excesses.

For now we must continue to rebuild our once decimated union into a force capable, with the local community behind us, of creating a council that eliminates the incredible poverty and degradation that exists in Hackney.

Nato Intervention:

Macedonia's Impending Civil War

NATO HAS launched 'Operation Essential Harvest' in Macedonia, marking the fourth intervention by Western forces in the Balkans in ten years.

Why has NATO gone into this small, poor country? It is nothing to do with the "high minded rhetoric about staunching the flow of blood", as the Economist put it. The intervention is an attempt to prevent a widening of the conflict between ethnic Albanian rebels and Macedonian government forces.

Left unchecked, the war could risk involving neighbouring countries such as Bulgaria and Romania, and even NATO members Greece and Turkey with catastrophic consequences throughout the Balkans and beyond. Of course this would be no good at all for the business of exploiting the rich natural resources and cheap human labour of the region - the real over-riding motivation for the intervention of the capitalist powers and the multinational companies behind them.

The 3,500-strong NATO force has as its stated aim the task of collecting weapons from the Albanian separatist rebels. On 13 August, representatives of the country's main ethnic Albanian parties and those based upon the Macedonian Slav majority signed a 'Framework Agreement', overseen by NATO.

The accord makes Albanian a second official language and guarantees the ethnic Albanian community a bigger role in the police. This is an attempt to assuage the long-discriminated against minority community.

In turn, the rebel Albanian National Liberation Army (NLA) is expected to maintain its side of a ceasefire, although the guerrilla force was not present at the talks.

Underlying the fragility of the situation, 30 people were killed in fighting around the signing of the agreement. In total, 200 have died and 100,000 people have been displaced since clashes erupted earlier this year.

Around 67,000 of the refugees are Macedonians, mainly from the flashpoints of Tetovo and Kumanovo. An estimated 52,000 ethnic Albanians have fled to Kosovo.

Ethnic outrages and 'cleansing' have taken place on both sides - at the hands of right wing NLA forces, and armed government thugs. Working class people and small farmers have again been made to pay the price for ethnic conflict in the Balkans.

Balkan quagmire

NATO IS supposedly conducting a short operation in Macedonia of around 30 days and then departing. However, in all likelihood the troops will find their stay open-ended.

There are already 80,000 NATO and UN troops in the Balkans, including in Bosnia and Kosova/Kosovo. Having committed itself to go in, to 'keep the two sides apart', NATO will face the nightmare scenario of igniting a civil war by pulling out again.

The West is entering another Balkans quagmire fraught with huge difficulties and imponderables. Will the 'ceasefire' hold? Will NATO troops find themselves in the firing line? - a serious worry that helps explain why the US administration is asking other NATO states to put their troops in first!

NATO will prove itself unable to make more than a token disarmament of the NLA, which anyway can always replenish stocks from Kosova or Albania. This will further enrage the Macedonians who already mistrust NATO.

Indeed, the presence of Western troops suits the NLA. They could not defeat the Macedonian army, although they seemingly could not be defeated by the poorly armed and trained state forces either. However, the guerrillas have gained control of majority Albanian-speaking Western Macedonia and hope to make permanent this arrangement under the cover of NATO.

The West could very well end up overseeing the de-facto partition of Macedonia along ethnic lines, just as they have in Kosova. This would solve nothing, and in fact would only lay the basis for more conflicts. Hardline nationalists would use the 'liberated areas' as a launch pad to carve out a 'Greater Albania'.

The West will not stand for this because it would threaten to detonate a new regional war. Very quickly the NATO 'friends of the Albanians' can become the opposite, and even armed clashes with ethnic Albanians can rapidly ensue.

The Macedonian population regard NATO, and especially the US, as pro-Albanian. They point to events in the town of Arachinovo, where last spring US K-For troops came from Kosova to give besieged NLA guerrillas safe passage away from the Macedonian army and allowed them to hold onto their guns. This provoked angry demonstrations by Macedonians outside the national parliament.

The leader of the main right-wing nationalist party (VMRO-DPMNE), Georgevski, only agreed to the Framework Agreement under great duress. He has previously argued for a full military crackdown against the NLA.

As Macedonians become increasingly angry over what they perceive as a sell-out to Albanians, he may come out openly against the agreement and try to champion a rise in virulent nationalism. NATO clearly will not be a long-term stabilising influence; on the contrary, the military presence will be one of the main factors leading to ethnic and social convulsions and economic disaster.

Capitalist interests

BEHIND THE Western "alliance effort" each capitalist power has its own agenda and attempts to cultivate local clients. There are rich spoils to be won in the region. All eyes are on plans to establish a major oil pipeline from the Caucasus to the Adriatic Sea.

But none of the potential huge profits from this project or any other big business exploitation of the Balkans will be used to transform the living standards of the region's peoples.

Since the collapse of the ex-Yugoslavia and the reintroduction of the market economy, the local economies have collapsed. In Macedonia an incredible 45% of the population are unemployed or underemployed.

Poverty is the breeding ground for reactionary ethnic politics. The main Albanian and Macedonian parties base themselves on the continuing divisions of the working class. Their 'coalition government' is a free-for-all over the proceeds from selling off state assets. The NLA demand to be incorporated into administrative structures shows they also want a piece of the cake.

As Macedonia looks set to become another Western 'protectorate' the policies of privatisations, welfare cuts, and attacks on working conditions will all be speeded up.

Clearly, the working class needs its own independent organisations to fight for its class interests. To achieve this means, for example, building on the series of strikes that have taken place this year involving both Albanian and Macedonian workers.

Only workers' unity and a socialist programme can cut across ethnic and national divisions and fight for full rights for all minorities. A mass movement of the working class alone can expel the big powers from the region, overthrow the local capitalist elites, and build a democratic socialist society.

Asylum Seekers Kept In Squalor

EUROTUNNEL OFFICIALS are taking action in a French court to try to close a refugee camp near the cross-channel firm's French terminal at Sangatte outside Calais.

The British government plans to extend its penalties of £2,000 per person paid by lorry drivers for every "illegal immigrant" found on lorries to include Eurotunnel. This big company is trying to avoid this by closing down Sangatte camp.

The refugees live in squalid, overcrowded conditions - 1,275 refugees now huddle in accommodation meant to house 200 at most.

In the past few weeks, a number of asylum seekers have died taking desperate action to get into Britain. Merely closing the camp could kill even more asylum seekers.

Socialist Party member RACHAEL WEBB is an international freight driver. She shows below what happens to asylum seekers, many of them trying to escape barbaric treatment and poverty in their home countries, at Sangatte camp and throughout Europe.

Desperate Acts At The Channel Tunnel

IT'S TWO in the morning. Along with 40 other freight drivers I board the shuttle train at La Manche, France. One driver points out the window of the club car and says: "here we go again".

Then a group of young men run down the ramp onto the platform. Suddenly, sirens start wailing, police and security guards are everywhere.

After a while the car attendant and train driver say they're ready to move off - then the same thing happens again. This is a regular occurrence on summer nights.

Five hours after I entered the terminal, the train pulled out towards Cheriton in Kent. Before gathering speed it comes to a halt again; the driver heard that a person had made the dangerous attempt to jump onto the train from an overhead bridge, apparently he'd fallen onto the track.

At Cheriton we're asked to wait before leaving the club car, immigration officials check our vehicles for people hiding in or under them.

About 12 young men were sitting under guard on the platform. They'd been removed from various hiding places on or under the train. They were probably clinging to the train's under-sides as it exceeded 100 mph through the tunnel.

As I drove to London I started thinking about the implications of what was happening regularly.

The young men I saw were from the Red Cross refugee camp at Sangatte. Each night groups of young men breach the shuttle's high security fence, including razor wire and hi-tech devices, roam over the terminal's extensive area and risk their lives hiding on or under the train or by jumping off bridges onto the moving train.

To prevent delayed departures Eurotunnel managers now employ 60 more security guards in an operation ominously named "zero tolerance". The notorious CRS riot police are also permanently stationed close to the nearby Sangatte refugee centre.

These people, fleeing injustice, torture and poverty, are fed and clothed as an act of 'charity'. But they have nothing to do all day, they're denied their place in a community, denied the right to work and robbed of their cultural identity.

The young men amongst them resort to desperate acts in order to escape to grotty, ill-paid jobs in the UK, where at best they live in sub-standard housing, at worst incarcerated in prisons.

Due to racist government laws, if "illegal" immigrants are found on our trucks we drivers are made to pay a penalty of £2,000 per person - ie £2,000 multiplied by each person found in or on your truck. Also, this is a penalty imposed by a Home Office official, not a fine. Any appeal is to another Home Office official. Appeals to a court are very difficult to procure.

Although I cannot risk paying £2,000 per person, I can express solidarity with them in their fight against racist immigration laws.

They are human beings, like us workers in the UK, fighting for a chance of a life.

Blunkett Blames Immigrants

NEW LABOUR Home Secretary David Blunkett is threatening to force immigrants to learn English as a condition of getting a British passport.

Blunkett dressed it up as concern for victims of forced marriages. But a genuine concern with the rights of the mainly Asian women who enter into forced marriages would need not just training in English but such practical questions as refuges for women who want to escape from marriages which New Labour show no signs of implementing.

Blunkett's suggestion bolsters the notion that immigrants with poor English are responsible for the racial tensions in Britain's inner cities. Most immigrants and asylum seekers pick up English without compulsion so such ideas give encouragement to far-right parties and politicians.

This was yet another capitalist politician justifying the criminalisation of asylum seekers.

The Labour government try to divert attention from their pro-big business policies - privatising services, abolishing free education, cutting disability benefits, etc. But such attacks won't resolve the problems working-class people in Britain face.

Capitalist exploitation causes social and economic problems both for refugees and the rest of the population. Only the bosses themselves benefit if workers blame "economic migrants".

New Labour enthusiastically backs globalisation and neo-liberalism whose repressive, exploitative policies force many asylum-seekers into exile.

Blair and Co. will do anything to boost profits of British-based multinationals whatever the cost to the underdeveloped world's peoples. New Labour still sells arms to the most repressive regimes for example.

Fight the cutbacks

In Britain, government cutbacks have hit many sectors - housing for example.

Many councils lie to families who've been waiting for years in overcrowded accommodation, claiming that they can't be rehoused because all empty properties "are being let to asylum seekers".

Yet a combination of council cuts and legislation such as the right-to-buy scheme mean that since 1981 two million council homes have been lost. This would have made the housing crisis appalling regardless of asylum seekers. New Labour carries on selling off council housing - socialists campaign for a massive programme of housebuilding.

The government's response to immigration is irrational. They worry about shortages of skilled labour (European Union countries need 1.6 million immigrants a year over the next 50 years just to fill jobs left vacant by an ageing workforce), yet New Labour talks merely of introducing a "green card" system for skilled economic migrants and giving asylum seekers limited rights to work legally in Britain.

Yet, at the same time as meting out harsh restrictions on some immigrants, the government hypocritically launched in August a worldwide advertising campaign to entice senior foreign doctors to work in the understaffed NHS - a panic measure to try and stem the growing shortages arising from underfinancing and consequent underpaying of health staff.

Similarly, teachers from Australia, New Zealand and South Africa are welcomed as Labour desperately tries to arrest the growing crisis in the classrooms, as teachers leave because of education funding cuts.

It seems the government is prepared to take in some migrants when it suits their interests, while at the same time cracking down on those that don't suit their purpose.

What We Say

SOCIALIST PARTY members are fighting to build a united movement of working-class people to demand socialist policies, including:

The right to a job. Good working conditions and the right to join a union.
A minimum wage you can live on -- £7.50 an hour to lift people out of the poverty trap.
End the sell-offs of council housing -- for quality, affordable public housing to be available to everyone.
Full funding for the health service and local services.
Free, quality education available to all.
End arms sales to corrupt and repressive regimes.
An end to persecution of asylum-seekers -- scrap racist immigration laws.
A socialist society run democratically for need not profit.

Come to Socialism 2001

Saturday 27 October, 3 - 8 pm

Sunday 28 October, 10am - 5 pm

At the University of London Union (ULU), Malet Street, London, WC1

Socialism 2001 is a weekend of discussion and debate organised by the Socialist Party. It is an opportunity for anyone who is angry at the poverty and inequality in society, for anyone who is fighting for better pay or for free education to come together to debate socialist ideas.

We will be looking at past and present struggles of the working class and the lessons we can learn from them. You don't have to be a socialist, or agree with everything or anything that we say, to take part in, and enjoy, Socialism 2001. If you want to hear a different side of the story - come along to Socialism 2001.

Forum

A discussion on the future of the Left in Britain

Sunday 28 October, 3 pm

Invited speakers include: John Pilger - journalist, Ken Loach - film director, and Dave Nellist - Socialist Party councillor and former MP.

Most sessions are grouped into courses. Feel free to follow a course or just go to whichever sessions appeal to you.

Essential Information

Return to: Socialism 2001 Bookings, PO Box 24697, London E11 IYD. Tel: 020 8988 8777.

If you can stay with friends or relatives please do so. Otherwise we can arrange for you to stay with our members in the London area. Please let us know by 15 October whether you need accommodation for Saturday night. Please bring a sleeping bag.

The venue is accessible but please contact us if you think there is something we may have overlooked.

ULU is in Malet street, London WC1, near Goodge Street and Euston Square Underground stations.

The Socialist 31 August 2001	Labour Fails The Education Test
Labour Fails The Education Test	EVEN BEFORE the new academic year starts next week, a crisis is gripping the education system. England and Wales is facing its worst teacher shortage for 40 years according to the government's own chief inspector of schools.
Workers Priced Out By Housing Crisis	A HOUSING crisis is developing across England and Wales, warns a report by the National Housing Federation. The average price of a home is £117,398 but a worker on the average wage of £21,842 can only get a mortgage equal to three times their salary - about £60,000. By Ken Douglas
Hackney Workers Prepare For Battle	AMID THE chaos that is working life in Hackney council, workers are preparing to ballot for further strike action. This new ballot is the result of the latest management provocation in sacking UNISON chief negotiator Noah Tucker on trumped-up charges of being absent from work without permission. By a Hackney UNISON shop steward
Macedonia's Impending Civil War	Nato Intervention: NATO HAS launched 'Operation Essential Harvest' in Macedonia, marking the fourth intervention by Western forces in the Balkans in ten years. By Niall Mulholland.
Asylum Seekers Kept In Squalor	EUROTUNNEL OFFICIALS are taking action in a French court to try to close a refugee camp near the cross-channel firm's French terminal at Sangatte outside Calais. Desperate Acts At The Channel Tunnel Blunkett Blames Immigrants What We Say
Socialism 2001	Socialism 2001 is a weekend of discussion and debate organised by the Socialist Party. It is an opportunity for anyone who is angry at the poverty and inequality in society, for anyone who is fighting for better pay or for free education to come together to debate socialist ideas. Saturday 27 October, 3 - 8 pm Sunday 28 October, 10am - 5 pm At the University of London Union (ULU), Malet Street, London, WC1

Labour Fails The Education Test