Leaflet distributed by Socialist Alternative members at the National Education Union’s annual conference
Nearly a quarter of all teachers work over 60 hours a week. We work eight more hours per week than teachers in the OECD. Two in five of us regularly do unpaid overtime. Meanwhile, we are being told by the Labour government that a 2.8% pay rise is the most they can afford. This is mostly unfunded, and cuts to welfare mean that many of our disabled and sick members, as well as our students and families will be hit by devastating cuts to our living standards. During the Spring Statement, no new funding was proposed for education.
At the same time, Labour have ‘found’ £2.2bn for warfare. This is not a Labour government that cares about workers. Consequently, Reform is mopping up support due to a lack of a credible opposition to Labour. There is an urgent need for a new left party of struggle that can oppose the rhetoric of war and austerity. Such a party would have to act as a space for bringing together anti-cuts activists, trade unionists and all those seeking to build a pro-working class alternative to both Starmer and Farage.
Reaching the thresholds
While we have not reached the 50% threshold in the union’s indicative ballot, Socialist Alternative members in the NEU believe that this is due to several key reasons: Firstly, no concrete pay demand was forthcoming. If a pay demand of 10% was put forward, to begin to clawback our lost wages over the last 15 years, then our members would have been more inspired to vote and to take action.
Secondly, workload was not even taken up in this dispute. We need a new national contract that sets out a fixed limit on the number of hours we should be made to work rather than the vague ‘reasonable hours’ clause in the statutory guidance on teachers’ pay and conditions.
Thirdly, we believe that the union could have won more in the last pay battle if we had not rushed to settle on the first offer, which was actually unfunded and below inflation. Instead we should have fought on, intensifying our action, like the junior doctors who ended up with a pay rise of over 20%!
However, the turnout, and the overwhelming support for strike action, shows that there is a determined mood. Conference can request the NEU to proceed with the formal ballot, and implement concrete demands that will gain an echo by those who didn’t vote in the indicative, as well as plan a strategy on how to win such demands.
Defend support staff!
60,000 members of our union are support staff, doing an incredibly difficult job for insufficient wages. Socialist Alternative members in the NEU believe that they should have the right to be in a union that will fight for and properly represent them. During the 2022-23 strikes, support staff members ran picket lines alongside striking education workers to show solidarity.
At this conference, we will be told that the TUC is trying to restrict the NEU’s ability to recruit and organise support staff. We must oppose this. Our union is answerable to us, the members – not the TUC. We need to oppose this undemocratic move. Our support staff members have a right to be consulted on how their union is run.
An urgency motion has been circulated, which calls on conference to reject the seven principles from the TUC on support staff. Although we broadly support the motion, we feel we need to go further than this. While Q&A sessions with the Support Staff Negotiating Committee can be useful, we should not allow the TUC to have the ability to restrict our union from building and organising in workplaces.
We need to fight for statutory recognition for support staff in their workplaces, and to work alongside the NJC unions and members, not against each other. A united fight across the unions can push back against this Labour government which is imposing austerity 2.0. Otherwise, we will see further attacks on school support staff in particular, and all staff in general.
