PiLe ON The PRessURe UNTiL GOVe CRACKs

E
ducation secretary Michael Gove is in trouble. His plans for a new round of assaults on our pay and conditions have been sunk. He wanted to deregulate working hours, leading to longer school days and shorter holidays, and to get rid of restrictions on cover. For three decades the tame STRB has agreed with what any education secretary has asked for. This time it rejected Goves demands. The reason is simple. It was writing its report last autumn as we were staging the round of impressive regional strikes and the STRB was worried that if it sanctioned more attacks on teachers it could guarantee even more, and bigger strikes. absolutely right to go ahead with calling the national strike on 26 March despite the NASUWT leadership refusing to honour their promise to join such a strike. The NUT has also been absolutely right to throw resources and energy into building our campaign and building momentum towards the strike.

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Stalls

Humiliation

Goves humiliation should be a signal to step up the ght to sink all of his attacks on us and on education. The reasons for ghting were underlined when Gove was nally forced to publish the governments own teachers workload survey. It showed teachers average working hours have sharply increased by around 10 percent up to 60 hours for primary and 56 for secondary on average since Gove became education secretary. We need to ght to roll back Gove on workload, on his wider attacks on education and the curriculum, and on his plan to scrap national pay and conditions from September. We also need to demand a pay rise that begins to restore our living standards from the near 16 percent cut this governments policies have led to over the last four years. The idea we can wait for a Labour government to resolve these issues has been exposed by shadow education secretary Tristam Hunt, when he said he had no plans to undo most of Goves policies. If we want to defend ourselves and the education of the children we teach we will have to organise and ght for that ourselves. Thats why the NUT executive was

The fantastic response by members to the call to organise Stand up For Education stalls with around 100 such stalls on the streets across England and Wales last weekend alone shows we can mobilise members. And the positive response to those stalls from the public shows we can win support from parents and other workers for our ght. Now we need to drive forward and ensure the most powerful and active strike possible on 26 March. We should nd ways to help NASUWT members who wanted to strike just as much as NUT members according to every survey overcome their leaders retreat and to join us on strike that day. The union says the strike could be avoided if Gove made concessions. Lets be clear that the only concession that could achieve would be the abandonment of his plans to scrap our national pay structures. And lets also be clear that 26 March must be only the start of an escalating campaign and that we will pile on the

pressure until Gove cracks. NUT conference meets in Brighton just a few weeks after the strike. Delegates will want to debate the way forward and agree a plan of how to do that. The most eective way to win, and win quickly, would be a Chicago teachers style indenite strike. Many members know that, though may not yet have the condence to believe this is possible. But at the very least we need to build towards the kind of action that can win by calling more national strikes in the summer term. Two consecutive days would be a good start coupled with more campaigning and demonstrations, and then more action in the autumn.

Indenite

And why not start saying to members now that we need to prepare for a ballot on an indenite strike? It will take hard work and persuasion, but it is the most eective strategy and one that could win with fewer days on strike in the end than simply more and more one day strikes. What is for sure is that Gove is a weak link in this government now, and if we strike hard, then step up the action, and go at out to win parental support and solidarity from other workers, we can roll him over. That would be a victory for us, for the children we teach and for everyone in the country who has had enough of this Coalition of Austerity.

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Teachers 12/03/14

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