NEU consultative ballots
Martin Powell-Davies, NEU member
The new academic year has started, but staff and parents alike will be worrying how they are going to manage to get through an autumn and winter of soaring energy, food and housing costs.
Education workers must answer this threat collectively, aiming for every member to use their vote in this September’s preliminary ballots, so that we can join the growing wave of strike action fighting to win pay rises that match the rising cost of living.
As the lowest-paid section of the education workforce, school support staff desperately need an inflation-busting pay rise. But the government offer is at least 4% under inflation. It would leave a teaching assistant £10 a week worse off in real terms.
The National Education Union (NEU) has begun a consultative ballot of support staff. Reject the offer and vote yes to strike. Join with teacher members of the NEU, and support staff in other unions, in saying no to poverty pay!
With inflation forecast to reach over 18% by early 2023, the 5% pay award imposed on most teachers in England and Wales from this September is actually a huge pay cut. It is also just the latest in years of cuts, that have seen teachers’ pay fall by 20% in real terms since 2010.
Some school staff worry: can we afford to strike? If we don’t – especially when other unions are taking action – that will only embolden new prime minister Liz Truss and the Tories to keep cutting school budgets, holding down our pay, and piling on yet more scrutiny and workload.
Others might worry: is there enough money? Yes – but it’s being hoarded by profiteers instead of being used to fund education and meet public need.
The FTSE 100 companies paid a record £110 billion in dividends to shareholders in 2019, double what it was a decade previously. The energy companies are making money hand over fist. In the first half of this year alone, BP made £11.9 billion, Shell £17.3 billion. Nationalisation could take hold of these profits.
Fight for pay and funding
So it’s not ‘either’ pay ‘or’ school funding – our campaign is to win both. It will be understood by communities who are growing angry at seeing how society’s wealth is being used to boost the cash piles of a minority, while they can’t pay their bills.
The battles for better pay and for better school funding are two sides of the same coin. Strike action, supported by our school communities, is the most powerful way of winning both.
With support staff unions consulting over pay, and the NASUWT teaching union also talking about action, NEU members can vote with confidence that a strong programme of strike action could be coordinated across school staff, and alongside other unions in the public and private sectors too. For example, UCU members are about to take action in 26 further education (FE) colleges.
This government is under pressure. Our action can make it think again on pay.
A determined stand this year can be a springboard for further action to demand a complete overhaul of existing pay and conditions, including limits on working hours and class sizes, and an end to performance pay.
What NEU members can do
- Make sure the NEU nationally has your correct email and mobile number, so that you get sent your online vote.
- Talk to all your NEU colleagues and urge everyone to be ready to vote for strike action.
- Look out for the NEU messages containing your personal voting link – for teacher members in state schools, from 24 September. The online vote for NEU members in Sixth Form Colleges and some FE Colleges will open on 12 September.
- Local officers, reps and ‘ballot volunteers’ must organise to make sure we build the big ballot turnouts that we need. Personal contact is key – conversations, workplace meetings and phone calls are far more effective than emails!
Scottish teachers’ massive rejection of pay insult
Jim Halfpenny, West Dunbartonshire EIS Joint Secretary (personal capacity)
In an indicative ballot, members of the EIS union, who make up over 80% of teachers in Scotland, have voted overwhelmingly to reject a derisory 5% pay offer and to take industrial action including strike action.
The turnout for the ballot, conducted over just two weeks, was a phenomenal 78%, with 91% voting in favour of strike action and 94% to reject the 5% offer.
Unless a major improvement is made to the current pay offer, a formal strike ballot will now take place. The employers – the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (CoSLA) – and the Scottish government need to stop attacking workers and play their part to invest more in education and in teachers.
While we, and other frontline workers, did essential work throughout the pandemic the rich and the privileged were making huge profits at our expense.
Schools need to provide quality education, to help alleviate the effects of poverty and give every young person a good and equal chance to thrive.
