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.

Nasty One Cyril

Sir Cyril Taylor GBE, chair of the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust has advised the government that there are 17,000 bad teachers who ought to be sacked. It is surprising that Chris Woodhead isn’t suing him for identity theft as he made the self-same spurious claim ten years ago.

The figure is based on OFSTED assessments of teachers. This scientific evaluation is based on a ten minute glance at the work of a teacher who may have been teaching for ten or twenty years. Moreover OFSTED inspectors define lessons as “satisfactory” and by sleight of hand unelected individuals like Cyril translate that as “bad”. A few elementary lessons in the English language would not do him any harm.

I run a helpline for stressed teachers in West Sussex and half of the time the source of their difficulties is senior management who are themselves being bullied by “advisers” and politicians like Cyril demanding impossible targets.

His solution, to sack bad teachers and “go out and recruit fantastic teachers” shows what a fantasy world he lives in. Spend a couple of hundred thousand pounds on training a teacher and as soon as he or she has difficulties, instead of help and support you throw them on the scrap heap. Then you replace them with “fantastic” – ie fantasy, mythical – teachers…. from Hogwarts presumably.

I am supporting Martin Powell-Davies for vice president of the NUT because he will give fakes like Cyril a run for their money.

Derek McMillan

NUT EXECUTIVE DELAYS PAY BALLOT

NUT EXECUTIVE DELAYS PAY BALLOT
ANOTHER MISSED OPPORTUNITY FOR UNITED ACTION

The NUT National Executive meeting on Thursday October 4th again decided to put off the national ballot on pay that we have been waiting for. A majority voted to wait until after the Review Body has reported, rejecting a timetable for an earlier ballot that had also been suggested.

Their lack of urgency exposes a lack of belief that teachers are prepared to take action. Yet the hundreds of postings on pay listed on the National Union’s own website confirm the widespread anger against continued below-inflation increases and the difficulties colleagues already face in paying their bills. A determined leadership should certainly be able to translate this discontent into a positive ballot result.

What this delay also means is that they have thrown away the chance for NUT members to take united action on pay alongside UNISON support staff. UNISON are presently balloting for action on pay for action this November. In rejecting this golden opportunity for unity, the NUT leadership is letting down both teachers and our support staff colleagues. Instead of joint action, we face the prospect of NUT members being told to cross UNISON picket lines.

What a confidence boost it would have been to UNISON members in schools if they knew that teachers were also looking to take national action on the same day as them! There would then have been no doubt that schools would have closed across the country, making sure the pay cuts hitting all school staff were firmly in the headlines. It would have helped make sure that UNISON got a positive result in their ballot, in spite of the poor materials being circulated by the national UNISON leadership.

The Union will be preparing more materials for schools to explain our case for national action on pay. But why hasn’t more been done already? Of course, every NUT member must carry on explaining to colleagues why we can’t afford to sit back and allow five years of below-inflation pay increases to be imposed on us - and why we need to vote for national action on pay. But members will want to know when the ballot is happening!

The ballot timetable discussed at the Executive apparently proposes a ballot starting on December 10th to allow action in January 2008. I am sure I am not the only teacher that will think straight away that balloting in the crazy last weeks before Christmas might not be ideal.

Of course, we will have to make the most of what opportunity we are given by the Executive majority to take action to defend our pay. But their mistaken decisions again point out why we need a change in our national leadership. That’s why I am standing to be Vice-President in the National Officers elections.

Martin Powell-Davies

SIXTH FORM COLLEGES PAY BALLOT

SIXTH FORM COLLEGES PAY BALLOT
- REJECT THE 2.5% DEAL

National Union of Teachers posters rightly proclaimed the refusal by Government to reconsider the schoolteachers pay award of 2.5% for this September as a “matter of honour”. Fortunately, you might think, as we still have negotiating rights when it comes to the pay of teachers in sixth-form colleges, we could insist on a better deal for them?

But when the same below-inflation 2.5% award was proposed by sixth form employers for their teaching staff, the NUT’s negotiators, including Martin Reed, agreed to it!

At a time when the National Union is meant to be gearing up for national strike action to reject pay cuts, how can we agree that sixth-form college staff put up with 2.5%? Like other teachers, their debts and bills, mortgages and rents are also rising at well above 2.5% a year. So this would mean, in effect, agreeing to a pay cut. It must be rejected.