Unity is our strength – Teacher unions unite to challenge government

By Alex Kenny

Unity is our strength Alex Kenny, secretary of NUT East London Teachers Association, explains how Teacher unions have united to challenge government

The two biggest teacher unions, the NUT and NASUWT, have come together to issue an historic joint declaration seeking to defend teachers and education from government attacks. Both unions will continue to campaign together to resist the unfair changes to teachers’ pensions, which means we will have to pay more and work longer to get a smaller pension. But the joint declaration recognises that the concerns of teachers go much wider than this.

The declaration, launched on Monday 28^th May, commits the unions to working together on a range of issues that concern all teachers – pay, pensions, job cuts and increasing workload – all of which stem from the Coalition government’s programme to attack public services. There is more detail about the declaration on the NUT website including a video.

In a letter to NUT associations Christine Blower, NUT General Secretary said, “Teachers are under attack over pensions, the pay freeze, proposals for performance related pay and localised pay, the removal of statutory protections to limit classroom observations, ever increasing workload with insufficient protections, job cuts arising from funding cuts and curriculum reforms and threats to national terms and conditions arising from the privatisation of schools to name just a few. These attacks on teachers stem from the government’s austerity measures and from the ideological steps the Secretary of State is taking to break up the education system and to implement ever more accountability measures.”

In recent months there have been countless announcements from education chiefs about the failings of teachers and the education system, all of which serve to undermine the work teachers do and their professionalism. In December 21011  Sir Michael Wilshaw, Ofsted chief said, “If anyone says to you that ‘staff morale is at an all-time low’, you know you are doing something right”. Michael Gove, Secretary of State for Education, has labelled those who oppose him as “happy with failure” and the “enemies of promise”.

Such is the scale and nature of these unprecedented attacks that the NUT and NASUWT have decided to set aside their historic differences and launch an equally unprecedented response. Should the government fail to address our concerns the NUT and NASUWT will start a programme of strike and non-strike action beginning in the autumn term.

Together the NUT and NASUWT represent over 85% of teachers in England and Wales and are a significant force of over 400,000. Together the two unions can make a real difference.

The declaration and joint campaign require that the NUT conduct a new ballot of members, asking them to support strike and non-strike action. This ballot will begin on Monday June 25^th and will be a priority for all Union members. A huge vote in the ballot will send a very clear message to the government that the unity and determination of NUT and NASUWT members is not something they can ignore.

Christine Blower, General Secretary of NUT, will be speaking at the Coalition of Resistance Stop the Cuts Rally at Friends Meeting House Eustonat 6.30 on Tuesday 19 June alongside Tony Benn, Len McCluskey, Katy Clark MP, Owen Jones and Wendy Savage.

This entry was posted on May 30, 2012 at 00:24 and is filed under Education, Front page, Strike Action. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.