SALARIES

ALL OUT ON APRIL 24th – THEN ESCALATE NATIONAL ACTION!
Linda Taaffe (Waltham Forest NUT)
Thousands of teachers across England and Wales will be excited that the NUT is at last balloting to take national action.
As teachers experience a relentless drive towards ‘more work for less pay’, many on the Left, including the Socialist Party, have been campaigning for the Union to adopt a national collective approach, rather than an isolated school-by-school approach, to stop detrimental changes to pay and conditions.
With an absolutely insulting below-inflation pay settlement in prospect for three long years - probably with real inflation zooming upwards due to the developing crisis of the bosses globalised system - there really was little choice. The Brown government had set its face squarely against our 10% claim, as well as that of others right across the public sector like nurses, prison officers and now even coastguards. It was really time for the National Executive to put-up or shut-up!
But having launched a national ballot, will teachers respond sufficiently to turn this ballot into the first national strike for over twenty years? And, crucially, has the union got a strategy to win?

On the first issue, who knows for sure? Some areas have reported a mixed response but other reports have been extremely positive. With no national action for over two decades, this scenario is not unexpected. But it would have been quite wrong to hold back and base ourselves on the least active areas. Instead, we now have the chance to turn the tide.

Many activists report a hardening of the mood. As well as feeling the pinch of rising prices, particularly housing and fuel costs, many teachers feel outraged that they are being treated so unjustly. They feel they do everything that is asked of them by this government and headteachers, and they work such long hours on a regular basis that their pay can amount to as little as £10 an hour. Many teachers will vote YES simply to give vent to their frustration.

Many teachers also instinctively know that if the government gets away with holding down salaries for another three years, they can get away with more, even to cut wages, like in local government, where the notorious ‘Single Status’ policy is being used not just to keep down pay but to slash some workers’ pay-packets by thousands of pounds.

Also waiting in the wings are others in education, like academy owners, who view even government-set salaries as an imposition. Recently one ULT board member said that he believed teachers should be paid as if they were “in business” with bonuses linked to academic improvement, and national pay and conditions scrapped. He identified the unions as a block to this. Too right!

However, strike action is not within the lifetime experience of many younger teachers and will not necessarily come naturally. Many overworked teachers don’t find time to think, question and discuss about wider industrial and political issues. The experience of a day’s strike will be a vital part of their education!
The lack of experience means some basic concerns need to be addressed – like reassuring staff that they are protected by the ballot from bullying Headteachers demanding that they turn up to work instead of striking.

We can take confidence from 2002, when some 40,000 teachers in the London and Fringe area did get involved in the London Allowance campaign and took part in two days of strike action. The turnout in the first ballot was only around 30%, yet on the day, schools in London were overwhelmingly closed and the demonstration was full of young teachers. April 24th can be the same.

In the end we did win a significant increase. Teachers on the top of the pay scale in Inner London won an effective Allowance of £6000. Other grades got varying increases. And the STRB has had to pay special attention to the London teachers ever since, even giving them a slightly higher increase in the award proposed currently – but still not enough!

This action showed several things. Firstly, that once a battle starts, more teachers than those who voted in the ballot will get involved. Secondly, that if you fight, you get something. If you don’t fight you are guaranteed nothing. This must be our rallying cry.

The prospects for success will obviously be a factor for teachers to take into account when considering how to vote. Will it be worth losing a day’s pay - and is it possible to make this government change its mind? After all, Blair and Brown never budged over the war when two million took to the streets. Given this background teachers need to be sure that their leaders are not half-hearted. Is a one-day protest strike really a strategy to win?

We say a solid one-day strike could have an effect IF the strike is solid and IF the NUT leadership make it clear that one day is the start and not the end of a campaign of action. In recent times some other unions certainly have made the employers think again. The prison officers in POA did it spectacularly last year when they walked out unexpectedly for 24hours. After 12 hours the employers were calling them back to the negotiating table; so too, the railway workers of Metronet. They planned three days of action, but again were called after one day. The civil servants also had fixed action for the end of January this year as part of ongoing action. Again they were called to the negotiating table with promises of concessions before the strike. All these actions were part of a militant stance adopted generally by PCS and RMT and POA, and the government were not willing to face them down directly. The lesson here is that if you look like you mean business the employers have to respond.

So, is the NUT threat of the same order? It is now a year since NUT Conference made the unanimous decision in the full glare of the media to reject any notion of 2% and go for action. The Executive then failed to go for any immediate action, voted not to take the chance to ballot alongside UNISON in November, and went on to delay the action until after the STRB had reported, despite everyone knowing very well in advance that the pay offer would be around 2%.

Even after the publication of the STRB Report in January, the Union was not ready to spring into action as it should have been. Some Executive Members came to the conclusion that teachers were not ready for action. They cited lack of attendance at general meetings and a general lack of pressure from teachers themselves. So, based on this pessimistic view they were only prepared to sanction a one-day protest strike.

A ballot for discontinuous action would have given the leadership greater flexibility, especially to pursue further action and joint action with other trade unions. This was the tactic successfully threatened – without having to be carried out - in the pensions campaign.

If we are to continue our campaign beyond April, as we must, another national ballot must be taken. We must argue in the Conference debates to instruct the National Executive to ensure that any further ballot is for discontinuous action, and that follow-up action has to be a step up – not a step down like lobbying MPs, or other such low-key activity.

Traditionally other workers, like miners, were seen as being in the forefront of struggle, setting the tone for other trade unionists. However in today’s changing world, where industry is fast disappearing, education is a key plank of government policy. There is so much media attention on all aspects of schools. Teachers do hold a lot of power.

In practical terms parents often use schools as a national childminding service. Shut the schools and thousands of parents will not be able to go to their jobs. There could be a ripple effect. Nor should we be afraid of what parents will say – many will also be struggling with their bills and be pleased to see someone ‘having a go’ at last! The prospect of schools closed all over the country would firmly hit the headlines and put pressure on New Labour to pay up for teachers.
The money is there. It was there for Northern Rock, it is there for weapons of war. The rich get away with evading tax worth millions. The government should penalise the super-rich tax dodgers not hardworking public servants like teachers.
And don’t let’s forget that, so far, Brown has not really been tested. The stronger the threat, the more pressure that can be piled on Ed Balls and Gordon Brown, the more likely they will want to find a way of defusing the situation.
First we need as big a YES vote as we can in the ballot. Then, we must call the strike. The faint-hearts on the Executive who want to base our outlook on the least organised areas must not be allowed to hold us back. We can be confident of a good response on the day, with schools closed nationwide on April 24th.
We must go on to threaten further strikes, at the same time as we agitate for a massive joint public sector strike against the pay restraint threatened across the public sector.

UNITE TO MELT THE PAY FREEZE

Teachers are just one of the groups of trade unionists threatened with a pay freeze – and just one of those taking action to fight back:
LECTURERS – OUT ON 24 APRIL ?
Lecturers in FE Colleges in England are being balloted by the UCU from March 14th to April 14th. They hope to co-ordinate strike action by coming out alongside the NUT on April 24th.
PRISON OFFICERS
85% of POA members in England and Wales have voted to reject the 2008 pay offer of 2.2%. They are still in dispute over last year's pay, so there could be further confrontations with the government in the near future.
CIVIL SERVICE
Different sections of civil servants, under the firm leadership of the left-led PCS, in which Socialist Party members play a leading role, have already taken strike action this year.
Staff in the DWP (Department for Work and Pensions) went on strike for two days on 6-7 December against the imposed three-year pay offer, which even means a 0% pay 'increase' for this year! PCS then called further strike days on 17 and 18 March.
As well as pay, PCS have also included demands on a number of non-pay issues to widen the dispute into areas that are of vital concern to members. These include a demand for a no compulsory redundancy agreement, no automatic warnings for sickness absence, and rights to work flexibly. This is a tactic that the NUT also needs to follow, linking up concerns over pay with others like workload into one national dispute.
PUBLIC SECTOR ACTION ACROSS EUROPE

Germany
Berlin has seen many more cyclists on its streets than usual as bus and tube workers have taken all-out strike action for higher wages. At the same time, there has been a series of mass warning strikes in the public sector, with workers demanding a wage increase of €200 as a minimum or 8 per cent.
Hundreds of thousands of public sector workers have taken action in three waves of warning strikes in recent weeks; in hospitals, local councils, airports, childcare facilities, public transport and other parts of the public sector. The train drivers’ union, GDL, showed the way by securing an 11% pay rise from the Deutsche Bahn (DB) rail operator.
France
Sarkozy’s policy is to smash all the social gains from the past - social security, free public services, pensions, labour laws, working hours - with the aim of protecting the biggest French multinationals. And this while he gives himself a 170% pay rise and spends his holidays with the richest bosses.
In October and November 2007, a wave of strikes developed against the government’s attacks on pensions and universities. At its peak this strike gathered more workers than in the last generalised strike of 1995, which precipitated the fall of the right wing Juppé government. On October 18th there were 73.5% rail workers on strike, compared to 67% at the peak of the strike in 1995. The potential for extension was shown on the November 20th day of action when 700,000 public sector workers demonstrated all over the country.
Portugal
Major strikes and mass protests are taking place in Portugal against the anti-worker polices of the Partido Socialista government of Jose Socrates. Big cuts have taken place in public spending, pensions have come under attack and a huge assault made on public sector workers’ pay, conditions and jobs.
On 8 March, 100,000 teachers held perhaps their biggest ever demonstration. About 2/3 of teachers in the whole country were on the march. This involved all the teachers’ unions and was probably the biggest protest by these workers since the Revolution of 1974/75. A general strike is not ruled out.
Greece
On 13 February, workers, pensioners and youth from all over Greece came out for the second time in less than two months in a general strike to defend their pension rights. At least 2 million workers went on strike, on 13 February, and over 50,000 marched in Athens despite freezing cold. A new general strike is expected to be called in the next few weeks. Greek workers and youth will respond massively once again.