Left Unity teachers get organised
by Simon Hardy
Just two days after the national strike that saw a million workers – including teachers – taking action, members of Left Unity in the teaching profession gathered in Birmingham to discuss what our party could do to fight back against the government’s attacks.
The meeting was very productive, with a series of discussions ranging from how we could make the case for an escalation of industrial action against the government’s education “reforms”, to a criticism of Labour’s education policy and a report of the recent community mobilisations against the Islamophobic ‘Trojan Horse’ issue.
The general feeling was that the NUT’s leadership was being too timid in the fight and the policy of one day strikes was not going to be able to beat the government.
The meeting endorsed a document by Roy Wilkes from Bury NUT which called for a social movement trade union campaign which drew in parents and the wider community around a political struggle against neoliberalism and austerity in education. It is not just an industrial struggle over wages, pensions and workload – schools are a community resource and teachers should be drawing on the community to build a strong coalition to broaden the resistance.
We voted to support policy calling for smaller class sizes, free school meals for all students, a restoration of Sure Start and other policies for early years students.
To relieve pressure from teachers we agreed to support calls for decent pay and conditions for all who work in education and for local democratic control of education, including the abolishing of Ofsted.
There are already several groupings in the NUT, so we agreed that LU members will work through the Socialist Teachers Alliance or LANAC to fight for these demands and seek to build a social movement trade unionism. Many of us referred to the inspiration of the the 2012 Chicago Teachers strike and the way they organised as a trade union around that.
The meeting also heard about the 400 strong meeting in Birmingham against the handling of the so-called Trojan Horse affair, standing up against scandalous Islamophobia and manipulation by both the government and the media to blow some local issues out of all proportion. (To read more on this please see here and here.)
We agreed to organise a small editorial board that is responsible for producing leaflets and a Left Unity bulletin for education workers.
The next meeting will be in London on 4 October.
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6 responses to “Left Unity teachers get organised”
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Sounds like a great meeting. Could Roy put up his document on the site, or a version of it? Cheers.
The fact that this article appeared on the day that Michael Gove was subjected to the most thorough humiliation goes some way to undermining its central point and gives the piece a carping tone.
Cameron got rid of Gove because he was loathed by an overwhelming majority of workers in education. That was recurring theme in the Tory commentaries. They also pointed out that the NUT had been instrumental in harnessing this fury against him. It was a defeat for the Tories and it came less than a week after the public sector strike.
The NUT leadership made that strike happen. The action is open to two interpretations – which aren’t mutually exclusive. The first is that a section of the union leaderships realised that if they hadn’t been seen to have delivered some form of militant action against wage cuts, they’d be open to charges of being empty blusterers. The second is that some union leaderships are keen to have a serious struggle over wages, pensions and working conditions and want to build a coalition to take on the government. The Fire Brigades Union (FBU) and National Union of Teachers (NUT) fall into this category
The success of the strikes indicated that there is an appetite for more action. Working people are feeling a little poorer every month and can see no truth in Tory claims of an improvement in the economy. They can also see that the people responsible for the crash have remained untouched by its consequences and are still enjoying the same huge bonuses and millionaire lifestyle. For activists in the PCS, RMT and NUT their next job is fairly straightforward. The union leaderships are keen for more militant action and support for it needs to be consolidated at a local level. For members of the GMB and Unison they have to win the argument for action at a national level and force the leaderships to commit to it. In the months before a general election that will be hard
How many turned up? We’ve got the what where and when but not the who [we can assume the how, although if anybody came to the meeting on horseback that would be cool to report].
As a teacher who was on strike last Thursday (and has also recently joined Left Unity) I was concerned to see that there was no visible Left Unity presence in London throughout the march or afterwards. I work in a school with a strong union presence. And yet, even the most active members have not even heard of LU. Surely, it is time to begin promoting the party amongst left wing teachers?
I agree sp, and not just left wing teachers but across the labour movement. Can someone say if it is for teachers or education workers in general. Fairly safe to assume that left teachers would be in nut rather than other unions, which presume why initial report mentions only nut. If its all unions then w
Then would include unison, gmb and be a multi union caucus / working group.
I think individual members are often isolated at work, in very inactyive branches and need to get networked to see how they can work within the unions. Oliver new stressed the importance of working together in trades councils. We should also see if geographical meetings of members in a particular union could become usefull to building membership and alliances.
In unite and unison this might be regional meetings. theres a lot to work out.