By Jean Roberts
On February 1st, 2023, the National Education Union will begin its campaign of strike action to put pressure on the Government to fund education properly. This is after months of campaigning and failed talks with Ministers to try and reach agreement.
Teachers from England and Wales, joined by support staff in Wales, will be striking in schools across the country. Local picket lines are being organised followed by local rallies. The impact will be massive and not only will the NEU be on strike but so will the RMT, ASLEF and PCS among others.
On Monday 16th January the joint General Secretaries of the NEU announced that their ballot of teachers showed an overwhelming 90.44% majority in England had voted yes to strike on a turnout of 53.27%. In Wales a 92.28% majority voted yes on an even higher turnout of 58.07%.
In Wales, a ballot result of support staff in schools saw an 88.26% majority vote yes on a turnout of 51.30%. This excellent result passed the thresholds and support staff in Wales will be taking strike action with their teacher colleagues. Support staff members in England saw an 84.13% majority vote yes on a turnout of 46.46%. This result, despite being hugely in favour of action, just missed the Government’s restrictive thresholds.
These thresholds were not created to improve democracy, but to limit the unions’ right to take action. The same is true of the insistence on postal ballots and not allowing electronic ballots, which are good enough for a Tory Party leadership election.
It is not just the NEU that is fighting back against the war on teachers and support staff. The National Association of Head Teachers did not reach the threshold required by law, but their General Secretary Paul Whiteman made it clear the result showed how angry his members were.
Reaching the anti-union threshold to take action is always a struggle particularly when it is a national ballot. When the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers just failed to reach the 50% threshold, Kevin Courtney, NEU joint General Secretary made the point that, “This is such a strong ballot result: 9 in 10 of teachers voting, voting to strike. Our Government’s anti-union laws are the most repressive in OECD countries – in those countries strike action could be called. Solidarity with NASUWT. Down with these undemocratic laws.”
Voting to strike is a really hard decision for many to take. Teachers and support staff would rather be in the classroom teaching and supporting children and young people. But when chronic underfunding of education has led to not enough teachers being recruited and too many capable and experienced educators leaving the profession, it is vital to take a stand.
There have been heartrending first-hand reports of support staff in tears as they hand in their resignation to work in a supermarket for more money and less stress. Government has chronically underfunded schools and colleges for over a decade. It must continue no longer.
The key demand from all the education unions is to fully fund a reasonable pay award for all education staff. This means that schools should not be further stripped of funds by having to pay from their own meagre funds, but that a pay award is paid fully by the Government.
The Government uses the big lie that there is not enough money. Percentages are bandied around as to what paying a cost of living increase would mean. Just remember that when they increased the defence spending by 1% that meant an award of an extra £157 billion! How many public service workers could have received a fully funded pay award for that? The Prime Minister with his understanding of maths should know.
There is talk as to whether NASUWT and NAHT will re-ballot their members. Teachers and support staff want to take action. Since the NEU announced they would be taking strike action, thousands are leaving other unions and signing up. The figure for the week ending 21st January 2023 was 30,000 new members. However, we don’t want a recruitment war. Division only helps the Government in its campaign to drive down pay and conditions.
Looking to the future for education unions, it is clear that the amalgamation of the ATL and NUT into the NEU has immensely strengthened their power to defend education and fight for better pay and conditions for their members. During the Covid pandemic schools refused to open at the start of the Spring term in 2021 as NEU members said it was too dangerous and refused to teach. This was despite the Government saying schools should open. The Government had to ignominiously back down within the first day back at school and close schools again, returning to online learning. This saved lives by preventing mass spreading of the virus by children mixing with others and then returning to their families.
Furthermore, the uniting of ATL and NUT into NEU not only gave it greater strength, but also improved its finances and organisation. The truth is if we had one sectorial union for all in education it would be more powerful still, with over one million members rooted in the workplace. UNIFY is a campaigning group who were key to the NEU amalgamation and are continuing to work for further amalgamations. The current strike action and fight for better pay and conditions and the subsequent growth in membership show that ordinary education workers see that many unions weaken the movement and joining together makes us stronger.
Jean Roberts is UNIFY Admin Officer and an NEU member, Brent CLP.
Image: Classroom. Author: Slp1, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
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