Parents, students and education workers have to prepare now for an autumn of conflict if the government's plans to demolish the education service are to be defeated.

Following strike action in June, the government was forced into a partial retreat on cuts as the summer holidays began but they still have in place plans to tear apart the education system.

They plan direct budget cuts of £40 million a year for the next three years (£120 million in total), the closure of over one hundred schools across Northern Ireland, abolition of Education Boards, complete privatisation of the education estate (giving control of school buildings to multinational companies) and privatisation of up to 15,000 education workers jobs.

This assault is almost too big to comprehend and many people have not yet got to grips with the fact that the government has decided to fundamentally attack the education system. Having failed miserably to win the argument that bad management was solely to blame rather than education under-funding, the government has shifted its propaganda and is now hiding its plans behind the excuse of the fall in pupil numbers. This spin must be challenged so that every education worker and parent has a clear picture about what is happening and how it will impact on them.

The trade unions were able to force a partial U-turn on the part of the government by the one-day strike that took place in June and the threat of further action. That action won an additional £12.5 million funding.

Up to now the campaign has been strongest where it has been led by education workers. In September, a reinvigorated campaign must be based on a democratic structure that puts education workers firmly in charge.

There is a danger that it will be side-tracked by a publicity show by the establishment political parties. That type of campaign holds obvious dangers - some of the political parties have previously injected the poison of sectarianism into the debate on cuts, the main parties were all part responsible for creating the financial crisis. When they were in power in the Assembly, and more recently on Education Boards and on school Board of Governors, they voted through cuts. They only publicly opposed cuts when they came under massive pressure from education workers. Their record speaks for itself, education is not safe in their hands.

What is needed to win this battle is a campaign based on militant action. Both non-teaching and teaching workers must be involved, parent and youth groups must be established to fight the cuts and a programme of hard hitting strikes in the autumn must be prepared. Every school should establish a campaign group involving all workers and linking with the communities that they serve.

Education workers will be the key to victory but these cuts hit everyone and they are not taking place in isolation.

All parts of the public services are facing similar cuts. The trade union movement should now begin a serious discussion about organising a one day public service strike against all government cuts in the autumn.

NIPSA has submitted a pay claim for civil service members that is designed to make up for the effective pay cuts that were imposed by the government in 2003 and 2004.

Civil service members took part in prolonged industrial action from the end of 2003 until the autumn of 2004, but failed to shift the government.

The new pay claim which would be effective from 1 August 2005 is for an 8.2% pay rise for all grades with an underpinning increase for the low paid to ensure that no one enters the service on less than £14,000 per year.

Newly elected NIPSA President, Billy Lynn, welcomed the claim: "This claim is fully justified. Our members have suffered an effective 3.6% cut in pay over the past two years. The first thing we have to do is build support among the members for the claim so that they are confident about taking industrial action should that become necessary. We also have to make sure that the lessons learned from the recent pay dispute, when due to the failure of the Civil Service Executive of our union to escalate the action we lost the momentum, are learned and applied".

At the end of April the three sacked airport shop stewards made headlines when they occupied Transport House in Belfast demanding an inquiry into the way their union handled their dispute.

They called off the hunger strike after a meeting with T&GWU Regional Secretary, Mick O'Reilly, at which they were given assurances that he would support their inquiry call and would argue that they should be invited to present their case to the union's General Executive Committee in London.

Since then the shop stewards have heard nothing from the union. Gordon McNeill, one of the shop stewards, told the Socialist: "The silence from the T&GWU is deafening. We understand that General Secretary, Tony Woodley, doesn't support an inquiry so we are to be left dangling. But we are not going to leave it at that. We are going to make sure that the truth about what happened to us comes out so that every T&GWU member knows exactly what is going on in this union."

Following Left candidate, Matt Wrack's election as General Secretary of the Fire Brigades Union (FBU), an election for the vacant Deputy General Secretary post is now taking place.

Branches are now nominating candidates and the ballot itself will be held in August. The left in the union have agreed to put up a single runner. Possible candidates include local Socialist Party member, Jim Barbour.

Jim told The Socialist: "It is important that the left unites behind a single candidate. I have been nominated but may withdraw to ensure that this happens. We need to make sure that we have a left General Secretary and a left Deputy General Secretary so that the process of changing our union that has been underway since our pay dispute continues."