Standing up for ourselves, our schools & our
communities
The campaign continues!
Fighting for pay
is the most basic responsibility of a trade union, and no trade union worth its
salt could fail to organise its members to fight year
on year pay cuts.
But I still remember
how taken aback I was when
The plan for a pay
campaign across the public sector came from the TUC's
Public Sector Liaison Group - who recognised that, in
the past, pay campaigns came about when pay reached the bottom of the downward
spiral - when our members had already lost substantial amounts of money as pay
fell below inflation year on year, when they were suffering real deprivation,
and when the damage had already been done in terms of recruitment and retention
- and consequent overwork for those working in public services.
The aim, Steve
proposed, was to break this cycle - for all the public sector unions to stand
together to stop below inflation pay cuts before
pay declined to these rock bottom levels.
It would be more
difficult to mobilise members, but a much more
powerful campaign if we could do it. You'll remember at that time Gordon Brown
was claiming to have "put an end to
boom and bust in the economy" (Oh dear!). Steve's suggestion for a pay
campaign slogan was "Fair Pay For Teachers - no more boom and bust - no pay cuts"
So where is the
pay campaign now? Why are we not planning more strikes at present? Was the most
recent ballot result a clear message from members? Well, no it wasn't. We know
that our members are overwhelmingly – almost unanimously - opposed to the pay
cuts, yet 70% of them didn't vote. Of those that did 52% voted YES and 48%
voted NO to strike action. So there was not one clear message - but what was clear was that given the general
political, social and trade union context, the Executive should not move to
strike action at this time.
Our strike action
was just one tactic within the pay campaign - albeit a very important one! And
like all tactics, it was developed within a strategy. Our strategy from the
very beginning was built on the belief that the NUT could not overturn
government pay policy on our own - that we needed to work at achieving four
things.
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Firstly,
absolute unity within our
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Secondly
public sector union coordination and solidarity.
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Thirdly,
the involvement of the other teacher unions as far as possible.
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Fourthly,
building support and solidarity at local community level for a generalised long-term public sector pay campaign including
industrial action.
We knew that each
component would be difficult to achieve - and that success would not absolutely
depend on all four being achieved - but certainly we would be weaker without
any one of them.
So,
firstly internal NUT unity. This has been built carefully and deliberately over the last three
years or so - particularly under Steve's leadership. He lost no opportunity to
oppose the sterile bickering of union factions, and to encourage an openness of
debate, a recognition of differences of view as being valuable rather than a
threat, and the involvement of all - the full spectrum of views - in leadership
positions in the Union - while resisting any factional attempts to use this
openness as a route to a "take over". No small task! Yet it was that
unity that allowed the union to mobilise as
positively as we did around our campaigning, and allowed us to involve a whole
new generation of teachers. If there is to be a real lasting memorial to Steve,
it will be that unity in the NUT. It must be protected and defended.
Seondly, public sector unity. All public sector workers are subject to
the same pay cuts, and, as such, solidarity should not have been too difficult
to achieve. The origin of the campaign was the General Secretaries on the TUC
Public Sector Liaison Group. Unanimous TUC motions,
and commitments to joint campaigning set the scene.
Our joint
campaigning before our April strike was strong - particularly with PCS and UCU
- and developing with others including UNISON. The April 24th strike, together
with PCS and UCU (and with some UNISON
branches) was a great success, reinvigorated many Associations and Divisions,
brought new teachers into Union activity, strengthened school groups... and strengthened
a sense of comradeship and confidence in the union and in the profession as a
whole. It demonstrated clearly teachers' anger, frustration and determination
to fight against cuts to their pay.
However, our
ambitions that this joint campaigning would consolidate and grow were not
fulfilled - and not for the want of trying. Prior to the April action, GMB
members had voted against strike action. They told their executive that they
simply could not afford to lose pay in strike action. UNISON - a key ally in
our strategy - had settled its claim for health workers at below the rate of
inflation. A short while later, their local government strike action was a
success, and made major media impact - but very soon UNISON decided to take its
case to ACAS. This meant that our natural school based UNISON allies were out
of the coordinated industrial action aspect of the pay campaign.
Then UCU
considered the situation, and an offer which broke the 2% pay limit, and
improved on the 2.45% that we had been "offered". Their special
recall conference decided to settle.
When thinking
about these decisions we need to remember that, unlike teachers, these workers
would receive no increase at all for as long as their unions remained in
dispute. We on the other hand receive the 2.45% in our pay packets even though
we reject it and maintain our dispute. Thus there is extra pressure on other
unions to reach "agreement" at an early stage.
With UNISON and
UCU out of the industrial action loop, the co-ordinated
campaign was beginning to look less powerful.
Thirdly, the
leaders of our sister teacher unions, the NASUWT and ATL, while publicly
supporting a public service pay campaign in fact opposed any industrial action.
In fact, Chris Keates of the NASUWT went so far as to
say at the TUC that teachers had experienced significant pay increases in
recent years – and that her union was only supporting the campaign out of
solidarity “with those less advantaged
than teachers”. Clearly, Chris Keates was
choosing to ignore the erosion of national rates of pay through year on year
below inflation pay “settlements”, and to focus on how teachers could
“increase” their pay through Threshold and UPS progression, securing a TLR,
retention points etc. We view this as a government trap into which our NASUWT
colleagues have fallen. There are many forces who would like to see the
development of individual pay bargaining and performance pay in individual
schools – similar to the situation in FE colleges. This is a necessary
precondition for full blown privatisation – and every step towards it threatens
us more. But the “Social Partnership” teacher unions do not see this danger. We
had reason to hope that as a public sector wide campaign developed that they
might be encouraged to think again about properly defending their members – but
clearly the context did not develop like that.
Fourthly,
working in our local communities to develop support. Prior to, during and following our April
24th action, Associations and Divisions were encouraged to run
on-going campaigns locally, using trade councils, contacting parent groups,
using the media, petitioning, leafleting etc. Not all associations and
divisions were able to undertake this work – but those that did reported very
positive responses, both in terms of involving members in this work (which
meant that they didn’t perceive a “gap” in the campaign between strike ballots)
and in the response of local people.
However, as the so
called “credit crunch” – the crisis in finance capital – spawned the crisis in
the real productive economy… the current growing recession… so members
increasingly reported that they were uneasy and unconvinced about focusing on
teacher pay at a time when many workers in our communities – very often much
worse paid than ourselves – were facing the prospects of losing their jobs, and
even their homes.
So when we came to
the ballot, it was for a strike action tactic that had been a part of a
strategy that had not been successful – and in the light of a recession where
new priorities, and a new context for our pay battle, were emerging.
Maybe this explains
why teachers could be both overwhelmingly opposed to government pay policy, but
not willing to vote for industrial action against it.
So
where now?
The justice of our
case for teachers is undiminished. The importance of proper national, professional
rates of pay for the state education service is as strong as ever. We now have
to embed our continuing pay battle in the fight for “a good local state school
for every child and community”. There can be no such “good school” without
properly paid teachers, and pay that will recruit and retain more like them.
In the coming
recession we will see growing unemployment and generalised
growing problems in our communities. Teachers need to be at the heart of
defending jobs, benefits, housing… we know the effects of unemployment, poor
housing, family disruption and poverty on the achievement of our pupils. It is
in the development of a forceful trade union response to the recession, and in
campaigning to defend the victims of that recession (who will certainly not be
those that caused it) that our campaign for proper provision for public sector,
public service workers will continue.
It will be a much
longer campaign than many expected, and may take different forms – including
the demonstrative tactics now advocated by the TUC. In many ways its will be a
much deeper and more challenging campaign, with much longer lasting
repercussions as we again do our level best to build the kind of alliances and
solidarity that we will need to succeed – and to develop the alternative
policies – educational, economic and social – to those of commodification,
marketisation, privatisation, selfishness, greed and unregulated free market
competition that have led to the current crisis in the first place.
The NUT is even
more united and strong as a result of our campaign so far. We will become even
more united and strong over the coming months as we stand up for ourselves and
our communities.
We need to develop
as a priority the ideas of the
“organising agenda” and make them a reality. All union members need to feel
powerful and strong at work, by developing effective union organisation is
every school – and then reaching out to our Associations and Divisions and into
our local communities. We need to involve more and more members in union
activity – not overwhelming them with work, but finding realistic and do-able
ways of dividing the union work between us. We have to ensure that we work hard
to “collectivise casework” so that our members in schools respond to
unacceptable management practices together, rather than individual members
seeing it as their individual problem when they come “under the cosh” form bullying, punitive inspection etc. This is our
answer to those that argue that teachers are weak, and the most we can manage
is an unequal “partnership” with Government in which they dictate the terms.
Again, we have to ask… are we up to the job? And again I can tell you honestly that in visiting Associations and Divisions I meet activists who are determined to maintain our campaigns for state education, for decent working conditions and pay, for the reassertion of teacher professionalism, and for good local schools at the heart of our communities. Yes – there’s a huge amount to do – but the NUT is up to the job!