Dan Warrington, NEU executive member, personal capacity
The first meeting of the new academic year of the National Education Union (NEU) executive was held on 26 and 27 September. Day one featured an induction for newly elected executive members such as myself, followed by elections to the various committees.
Demonstration against Labour austerity – TUC name the date!
In response to a question raised by Socialist Party member Sheila Caffrey, general secretary Daniel Kebede committed to call for a date to be named for a national trade union-led demonstration against Labour austerity at the next meeting of the TUC General Council.
The TUC (Trades Union Congress) has agreed in principle to call such a demonstration. In the face of continued attacks on funding to public services by Keir Starmer’s government, the TUC needs to ramp up the pressure and call a demonstration to demand Labour properly funds our services.
Teacher pay
The executive also heard that the teacher pay review panel will be meeting next year, but that the Labour government is making it clear that there will be no new funding for pay deals, and is looking at reducing pay protection and protected non-teaching time. The NEU will be opposing these attacks, with discussion of the union’s approach scheduled for the next meeting of the executive in October.
School and college support staff – Unions should work together to organise workers
In another decision related to the TUC, the executive gave Daniel Kebede approval to write to Paul Nowak of the TUC laying out the NEU’s plans with regards to recruiting school support staff to the union.
The executive agreed to hold a Special Conference in early 2026 to debate beginning active recruitment of support staff in the spring term. Kebede stated that this is not about ‘poaching’ members from other unions but rather organising to unionise the majority of support staff who are currently not in any union.
This comes on the heels of a TUC decision to censure the NEU for pursuing recognition as part of the SSSNB (the collective bargaining body the government is setting up to negotiate school support school pay and conditions) – a move opposed by the leaderships of sister unions GMB and Unison, which already have collective bargaining rights for school support staff. The NEU has a growing number of school support staff members but does not have collective bargaining rights for those workers at a national level.
The leadership of the NEU, including Kebede and the NEU Left grouping, which includes the SWP, had previously signed up to an agreement which curtailed the ability of the NEU to organise support staff. Socialist Party members opposed this at the time and, while we welcome the change of approach from the leadership, we pointed out that members have already expressed their support for organising support staff at NEU conference.
We continue to argue that the best approach is to appeal for discussion with the other unions, at a national and local level, for a united front against the employers and the government. We have proposed a meeting between the executives of the unions.
At a time when austerity threatens thousands of school support staff jobs, unions in education should be focused on building union membership and organising education workers to win on pay, funding and workload. The Socialist Party calls on the members of the NEU, GMB and Unison to work together and find a resolution to strengthen the trade union movement in schools and colleges.
Equality and sector conferences – working together gets the boot
In a bizarre turn and after heated debate on the issue, the NEU Left faction voted to limit attendance to the NEU Equalities and Sector Conferences to one conference per member per year. The rationale for the change was that there are too many members attending multiple national conferences and not engaging with the union at a local level. However, applications to these conferences already need approval from local districts and priority is given to first-time attendees. Rather than limit engagement with equalities and sectors conferences, it is our view that districts should explore ways to encourage greater involvement in the local structures of the NEU. As it stands, the likely outcome of the executive’s decision will be to silo each equalities conference, creating unnecessary barriers.
While the NEU Left faction holds a majority on the executive, there was significant opposition to this move, which culminated in the decision being a recorded vote, meaning each executive member can be held accountable for the way in which they voted. It was heartening to see many new members of the executive get up to speak against. The opposition to the NEU Left majority is growing and making the demand for a more democratic union.
Unite union staff dispute
The ongoing dispute between NEU management and union staff represented by Unite hung over the Daniel Kebede’s address. The result of an internal restructure of NEU staff, the dispute saw Unite members take strike action against the NEU earlier in September. Though strike action for the week ahead had been postponed to enable talks, the tone from Kebede was far from conciliatory. Socialist Party members hope for a negotiated resolution to the dispute. Until that time we stand in solidarity with striking NEU staff.
Bristol school staff prepare to strike over stolen pay
Every year, cost-of-living pay increases are agreed for school support staff and backdated to April – apart from in Cathedral Schools Trust (CST), where the academy chain has been pocketing the money for April-September every year!
Many school support staff are on minimum wage, paid term-time only, and need to have more than one job to make sure they can cover the bills. These essential staff roles include lunchtime supervisors, cleaners, admin staff, support for children with special needs, pastoral, librarians, nurture, language support and teaching assistants.
They have been in negotiations with school leaders this year to recoup these stolen wages. The joint union pressure from the National Education Union (NEU) and Unison led to this back pay being paid for 2025 and agreed going forwards. But some staff have had this taken from pay packets for up to 15 years!
Roz Keir, NEU rep at Bristol Cathedral Choir School says: “The trust have had opportunities to give us the back pay but to date have only paid us this year’s amount. We don’t want to strike, but we need the money that is owed to us. Support staff are vital to keeping our schools running and are already underpaid for their incredible work.”
Sheila Caffrey, assistant secretary of Bristol NEU, commented: “The trust claims that all support staff are valued and essential to running successful schools, but having reserves of £1.5 million while your lowest-paid staff aren’t receiving their full pay is dishonest and disrespectful. We remain committed to negotiations to support our members and education at CST and hope that this can be rectified soon.”
With successful strike ballots, both unions have agreed seven strike days across seven schools later this term, starting 5 November, if CST management don’t repay this money and ensure that these key staff have fair pay and conditions in line with support staff across Bristol. A ballot is running in two more schools, and action is being prepared in the remaining five schools in the trust, including in North Somerset.
Edited version of Bristol NEU press release
