UNISON could be balloting for a July strike!

How about this for encouraging news!?! The UNISON NJC has approved a ballot for action in May/June with the planned first day of strike action being on July 8th. While this still has to be approved by their national action committee, this really raises the prospect of joint action by teaching and support staff in July.

The success of April 24th has clearly encouraged UNISON – and hopefully their decisions can encourage the NUT in turn.

This news went down very well at our quorate Lewisham NUT meeting tonight and confirmed members’ views that the timetable should include a ballot this term for action after the exams in July (and not the alternative of delaying a ballot to next term and, therefore, not taking further action until perhaps late October at the earliest).

We unanimously agreed a motion which concluded (slightly amended from the original version to take into account news from UNISON):

Lewisham NUT therefore calls on the National Executive meeting on May 22nd to:
· Agree to hold a ballot for discontinuous national action to seek to achieve our objectives on both pay and workload;
· Agree a timetable for balloting this term which allows the first day of further national action to take place in July 2008;
· Seek to build co-ordinated action on that date alongside other public sector unions such as UNISON who are considering taking action on July 8th 2008

Martin P-D