The National Union of Teachers (NUT) annual conference in Harrogate voted unanimously on Saturday for a one-day strike against a pay-cutting two per cent limit on public sector pay, and against regional pay.
This followed an appeal last Friday from guest speaker civil service union, PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka, for all public sector unions to make May Day a day of action for public sector unions and to back the PCS one-day strike against pay and job cuts and privatisation, on May 1.
The NUT Executive moved suspension of Standing Orders on Saturday morning to allow its Priority Motion Public Sector Pay to be debated that afternoon.
In her address to conference, new NUT President Baljeet Ghale attacked the Blair government’s attacks on education, including PFI, academies, trust schools privatisation, SATs tests and school league tables, and university tuition fees.
She said: ‘The only long term funding on offer seems to be going to private companies through the PFI and academies.’
She added that as he reaches the end of his time ‘there is something increasingly desperate about Tony Blair’s attempts to create his legacy. . . He might have claimed that his priority was education, but unfortunately for us, and more importantly the people of Iraq, his legacy will be the illegal war he has waged there.
‘His misjudgment and arrogance cannot be disguised.’
She drew applause when she affirmed her belief ‘that what we need is a secular comprehensive education system, free to all and funded on the basis of need’.
In the Membership and Communications debate on Saturday morning, delegates voted for Motion 20 Professional Unity to open discussions with the University and College Union and other TUC teacher unions with a view to working towards a single education union and in the meanwhile organising joint collective action on issues.
Conference voted for Motion 21 Young Teachers and Pay, for a reduced membership rate for newly qualified teachers with amendment 21.2 to ‘continue to campaign for competitive salaries for all newly qualified teachers which would progressively eliminate the need for recruitment incentives’.
In the debate, Central Nottingham delegate Louise Regan warned tuition fees, low pay and dear housing meant ‘many young teachers serve just long enough to pay off their debts’.
The debate on Education: General, opened on Saturday afternoon, with angry teachers speaking out against what they described as the ‘tyranny’ of Ofsted inspections.
Delegates voted unanimously for amended Motion 23 Lessons Observations and Teacher Monitoring, which includes the clause demanding no more than two classroom observations a year, adding ‘where there is a breach of this protocol the full force of the Union, up to and including strike action, should be put in place to defend members against any harassment.’
Motion 23 mover Liam Conway summed up the feeling when he spoke of the latest ‘drop-in’ observations.
He said: ‘We need a new strategy on non-co-operation – drop in walk out, I’d call it.
‘Let’s get these observations off our back and end the fear’.
The debate Motion 24 on Building Schools for the Future (BSF) ran out of time.
The debate will continue today, with the NUT Executive Amendment 24.2 debated but yet to be voted on, which includes the clause ‘Conference congratulates local authorities which have resisted that pressure and divisions which have campaigned against Academies as an unwelcome aspect of the Government’s privatisation agenda, which also includes the sponsorship of trust schools.’
Conference is also due to debate Amendment 24.5 from Brent, where teachers and parents are occupying an academy site, which states: ‘Conference condemns utterly the blackmail attempts of the Government in withholding BSF and other central Government funding to endeavour to cajole Local Authorities into taking academies on a “There is no Alternative” basis.
‘Conference wholeheartedly supports the campaigners in Brent, and other areas, in their actions to defeat these attempts to privatise the management of state sector schools.’
The mover of Motion 24, Jon Duveen, Cambridgeshire, warned: ‘The government’s Building Schools for the Future programme is a Trojan horse for privatisation and vocationalisation.’
He added that ‘if fully implemented, it will be an attack on comprehensive education’.
He warned: ‘At a stroke, the government will have re-introduced the separation between grammar and secondary schools.’
Speaking to Amendment 24.3 which instructs the Executive to ‘organise a campaigning conference involving anti-academy campaigns, other unions, organisations campaigning for comprehensive education. . .’ a leading organiser in the Wembley occupation, Hank Roberts of Brent said: ‘Occupying the site is not extreme.
‘What is extreme is the giving away of a school to a privateer.’
He added: ‘The Liberal Democrats were elected on the basis of opposition to an academy.
‘Democracy is turning toward dictatorship if elections are ignored.
‘State education is ours and if we as citizens have to use occupation and direct action, so be it.’
He concluded: ‘Support the occupation, more importantly, take up the struggle in your own area – if they haven’t already started in your area, they will.
‘Where reason fails and force prevails, force must answer force.’
Conference chair, NUT President Ghale announced that the debate would have to end and be continued on Tuesday and it was time to move on to the next section.
However, the NUT leadership declared its support with President Ghale reading out the following statement: ‘Union officer and members in Brent are currently involved in a campaign on a site for an academy in Wembley.
‘Their campaign involves the establishment, on the site, of a camp as a focus of opposition to the proposal.
‘The present owners of the site have not contested the occupation of the site.
‘The Executive decided yesterday to send the good wishes of the National Union to the protesters on the Wembley site for success in their campaign to defeat this further attempt at privatisation of a school.
‘The Executive also asked me to draw this decision to the attention of Conference.
‘We wish the Brent campaign success, as we wish success to all association and division campaigners in the efforts to defeat academy and privatisation proposals.’
Then she moved to take the Executive’s Priority Motion – Public Sector Pay.
This instructs the Executive to ‘(iv) prepare to ballot members for a national one day strike in cooperation with other teachers’ organisations and public sector unions as the first stage of any industrial action which is required to protect the pay of teachers and other public sector workers.’
Mover Martin Reed for the Executive said: ‘This is the first building block in what we hope will be a coordinated campaign.
‘He added: ‘We wish the PCS well for May 1st.’
He said a letter from education secretary Alan Johnson to the Teachers Pay Review Body (TRB) was ‘mood music for pay cuts, we have to build towards strike action with the TUC.
‘We must stand firm and join with other unions.’
Seconder Kevin Courtney, for the Executive said: ‘The government is ending the truce on teachers’ pay.’
Courtney added: ‘Alan Johnson’s letter to the TRB threatened a cap of two per cent.
‘It’s not just teachers. We are told this is to keep inflation under control – as if we are the cause of inflation. We are not.’
Courtney said: ‘The problem is lack of houses, lack of house building and huge bonuses for those at the top.’
He concluded saying ‘we do need to start preparation to ballot for action along with other willing unions’.
Teachers on Sunday voted to withdraw from the government’s work-related diplomas for 14-19 year olds, slamming the scheme as ‘education for employers, not pupils’ and opening the door to cheap labour, and yesterday were continuing a debate on strike action against teachers’ workload.
Following a heated debate on Saturday, in which the Executive put up at least four speakers against, a card vote on Motion 15 Performance Pay, calling for national strike action, saw an amendment instructing the Executive to ballot for a one-day national strike lost by 81,237 votes For, and 138,587 votes Against.