Sheila Caffrey, NEU Executive Committee member, personal capacity
The annual conference of the National Education Union (NEU), involving over 1,000 delegates, has hours of discussion about education over four days – what is going well, what education workers would like more of, and what desperately needs to change.
The biggest debates tend to be around union strategy. The mood on the conference floor was definitely to push the leadership for a stronger national fight than has happened so far.
Workload
For example, it is agreed that workload has to change, but how to tackle it often sees Socialist Party members arguing a different tack to other left groups. We argue that fighting over workload should be included in national action; the current leadership grouping, the NEU Left (which includes the SWP), argues that it is better to win these things school by school. That’s fine if you’re in a big school with a fighting union group. It’s not either/or – Socialist Party members support these strikes and have played a leading role in successful local disputes, but national action improves things for everyone, even if you’re the only NEU member in a tiny village school.
However, this year, two members of the NEU Left withdrew from speaking against an amendment that Socialist Party member Sean McCauley moved, which called for national action to protect limits on workload. The amendment pushed for this to be added to our national ballot over pay, funding, job losses and some workload protections, a ballot which is currently at the indicative stage. The amendment strengthened this, and protecting limits on workload would be entirely winnable.
Move to a formal ballot
The fight in the union now will be to ensure a formal ballot for action actually happens, and doesn’t just wither away once the indicative ballot closes. This has happened the last two years, with national officers that are unwilling to show decisive, strong leadership against this Labour government.
Our current general secretary Daniel Kebede hasn’t led any national strike action and prefers to fight workplace by workplace, where the wins and losses are led by local NEU leaderships – a strategy designed to never end, as it only takes new management in a school for the union to need to fight again. Socialist Party members will continue to push for national action, as the national action in 2023 showed that where there is a lead, members are ready to fight to defend education workers and to save education.
Academies and privatisation
Another significant shift in policy at the conference was moved by Socialist Party member Louise Cuffaro – calling not only for no new academies, but creating a way for them to be brought back into public control. Louise, an elected member of the NEU’s National Executive with a history of successfully fighting academisation in Newham, stated clearly that academisation has been the privatisation of schools, allowing inflated wages to line the pockets of CEOs, with right-wing curriculum and policy changes seeping in. Louise called for all academy trusts to be brought back into democratic, accountable local authority control, with all funding to go to frontline services rather than CEOs and reserves. Loud cheers and clapping accompanied the endorsement of this as the NEU’s new position.
Supply and agency
The last two motions of conference were on the precarious nature of supply and agency education staff – closely linked to the discussion on privatisation, as private agencies have been able to drive down wages and pensions, to maximise their profits.
Sean McCauley introduced one of these motions, and I brought an amendment calling for campaigns to push local authorities to create local pools of supply staff, with proper wages and pensions, and no creaming of profits from education or education workers. This was alongside a strategy for local bargaining for supply staff, which I am currently developing in the union.
Supply staff are mainly non-unionised and are open to the most exploitative parts of the education system. If union groups in education settings could push union recruitment and negotiate better deals on pay, pensions and support, agencies would no longer be able to undercut national pay and conditions. This is being trialled in Bristol this term, before becoming a national campaign in September, to hopefully win better deals for supply, agency and contracted education staff in all settings.
Socialist Party
We held a Socialist Party fringe meeting, tying together all the issues that face education workers. This was addressed by Socialist Party Executive Committee member Rob Williams, and was chaired by young teacher and Socialist Party member Rees Melville, who pinpointed the blame for the crisis in education on the politicians who defend the capitalist system. Education is used to serve profits and big business rather than to inspire a new generation.
An education system under socialism would open minds, develop skills and talents, that are likely to never be found under capitalism. We believe that to get away from an education system that is just training children and young people to be ready for the workplace, we need to link the fight for pay and funding now to the fight to change the whole economic system and create a socialist world where children, young people and education workers could design an education system that would allow all to flourish.
