Prepare for an all-public sector strike

TEACHERS ACROSS England and Wales are out on the streets on 24 April, many on strike for the first time in their lives.
Linda Taaffe, Waltham Forest NUT

We joined mass demonstrations, being held in all major cities, in the first national NUT strike for two decades.

Thousands of schools were shut. It is a day for teachers to make their voices heard and to teach the government a lesson - that they can't keep teachers' pay down to a miserly 2.45%.

If the three-year settlement is allowed to go through unchanged it will mean that by 2011 teachers will have suffered almost six years of below-inflation pay increases. Some on the very top of the pay scale could effectively lose up to £8,000 over that period.

With the terrible long hours teachers have to put in just to keep up with the demands of the job, no wonder 50% of new young teachers look at their pay slip, work out that they are being asked to work for something like £10 an hour, can't pay their rent, are still paying off student debt, now can't get a mortgage, don't even have time for a life outside school, and decide to jack it all in after only three years.

What a waste of talent, not to mention the cost of training! What a loss to our children!

After so long without any national strike action, and against a seemingly intransigent government, many teachers will be wondering, will they listen to us? We say Yes - but only IF the strike is the start and not the end of the matter.

Government ministers will be hoping to sit out this successful teachers' strike on 24 April. They will hope that, having let off some steam, we will settle back to 'normality'. We can't let that happen. We have to step up the action.

That means threatening to make the action bigger. On 24 April we are joined by 30,000 UCU college lecturers and 100,000 PCS civil servants in DWP, Land Registry, coastguards and others. But the pay restraint applies also to teacher assistants and support staff. It applies to hospital workers, firefighters, the police and also local government workers.

We need all the unions of these workers to threaten a massive public-sector strike. This could push the other teaching unions, namely the NASUWT and ATL, who so far have kept their distance, to come on board.

It needs to happen soon. It could happen in June when the TUC has called a lobby of parliament. If the union leaders called a strike so that thousands could go on a national demonstration and lobby in London, this would put the government under massive pressure.
Name the day

Unfortunately the TUC leaders want a low-key affair with a few representatives from each area. We need to agitate for the TUC to make 9 June a major event, and demand that the leaders of the 24 April action name the day for the next day of joint strike action and invite all other public-sector workers to join in.

However, achieving coordinated action across the public sector is notoriously difficult, due to both the time-scales of different pay rounds and the iniquitous anti-trade union laws. The National Union of Teachers might have to plough ahead, while other unions try to coordinate their action with us.

And it would be entirely possible for the NUT to do this, especially if the next national teachers' ballot for action is not just about pay, but also about the biggest issue of all - workload, including demands to reduce class sizes and increase non-contact time, as a step towards a 35-hour week.

This would inspire even wider layers of teachers into active campaigning. The NUT has a quarter of a million members. There is a school in every community. Teachers have enormous potential power. We need the courage to use it.

With the credit crunch heralding a period of serious economic instability we must fight NOW for a 10% pay increase, 20% non-contact time and class sizes of 20.

In 2002 the NUT called two strike days for an increased London Allowance and achieved some real gains. If you do nothing you are guaranteed to get nothing. If you fight, you get something.

After the strike, things can't be the same in schools. Teachers can't settle back to 'normality' and let the government get away with it. They should get actively involved, keep informed and start preparing now for the next teachers' strike, while campaigning for joint action across the whole public sector.

NUT strike 24 April

No more pay cuts!

National Union of Teachers (NUT) members across England and Wales will be joining the first national teachers' strike for twenty years on 24 April. This will be an important date for many public-sector workers, with some sections of civil service union PCS members likely to be on strike on that day, as well as further education lecturers.
Martin Powell-Davies, convenor Socialist Party Teachers

Following a national ballot showing a 3:1 majority, action was unanimously agreed to by the NUT national executive. The strike, to oppose the government's attempts to hold down teachers' pay below inflation for year after year, has been threatened for months. With New Labour refusing to shift, and pressure building from below, all sides of the national leadership recognised that it had to go ahead.

In an unexpected turn of events, just days after announcing the strike, news came of the sudden death of the NUT's general secretary, Steve Sinnott.

Socialist Party Teachers may have often had our differences with Steve, but, to his credit, he will now be remembered as a general secretary that called a national strike. The immediate reaction across the union has been to make sure that we mark his passing by ensuring that the action on 24 April is as solid as possible.

News of the strike had already been enthusiastically greeted by local NUT officers and school reps that have been long campaigning to persuade colleagues to vote for action. Many headteachers have informed parents that their school will be closing on the day.

Whether it's paying for a tank of petrol, the weekly shopping or the mortgage, teachers know, like everyone else, that Gordon Brown's claims that inflation is running at 2% are simply dishonest. For new teachers being asked to pay back their student loans at an inflation-linked rate of 4.8%, the double-dealing is obvious!

Even the Financial Times has conceded that the idea that public-sector wage rises cause inflation is ridiculous. Showing a greater understanding of the anger building below, the FT is warning Brown that his "collision course" with the unions could prove damaging for the government.

Teachers' increasing financial pressures have certainly helped harden the mood for action. But they also mean that some NUT members will inevitably question whether they can afford to lose a day's pay. Local Associations and schools should collect towards hardship funds to make sure colleagues can be supported.

At the same time, we have to make clear that this is a serious fight that we intend to win, not just a one-off protest. The policy agreed at the Easter NUT conference, for a further ballot for discontinuous action, linking our grievances over both pay and workload, needs to be publicised too.

With most teachers having no experience of strike action, there are inevitably some doubts to be answered, particularly about how parents may react to the strike. Of course the strike will disrupt many families' childcare arrangements for the day - but that's why teachers' action can have such a big impact!

We have to leaflet parents to explain that this strike is about defending education as well as teachers' pay. Official figures show that 50% of new teachers have left within the first three years of teaching. Letters to schools from local parents and trade unionists can be a real help in boosting confidence to join the action.

A minority of bullying managers are trying to find ways to undermine the strike. Members of other school unions must make absolutely clear that they will not take on any work that would usually be carried out by NUT staff. They must also demand of their leaders that, next time, we are all taking united action against the pay freeze together!

Managers and ministers should not fool themselves that the 32% turnout in a postal ballot means that most NUT members will come into work. A similar turnout for city-wide strike ballot in 2002 over London Allowances saw most of the capital's schools closed and thousands of young teachers on the march.

24 April will see this repeated on a national scale. Rallies and demonstrations are being planned in many towns and cities. From this experience, a new generation of teachers will recognise that by taking action together, we can start to stand up for ourselves at last.

* UCU members in further education in colleges are balloting for action on pay. The ballot closes on 14 April and any strike is likely to take place on 24 April.
* PCS members in the Department for Work and Pensions, the Department of Transport, the Maritime and Coastguard Agency and possibly other departments are also considering striking on that day.
* It is also possible that Birmingham City council workers will be on strike on 24 April, in a dispute over the implementation of the single status agreement.

TES survey

The TES online survey shows massive support from non NUT teachers for strike action. Their union leaders should wake up and pay attention!

Source: TES online survey of 7,336 teachers, of whom 3,521
were NUT members

Is the one-day strike on April 24 a good idea?

All teachers Yes 62% No 38%
Non-NUT members Yes 52% No 48%
NUT members Yes 73% No 27%
(The same proportion of NUT members said they intended to
walk out on April 24)

Will it cause your school to close?

All teachers Yes 47% No 53%
Non-NUT members Yes 39% No 61%
NUT members Yes 55% No 45%