Martin Powell-Davies, Lancashire Socialist Party and NEU member
Around a quarter of a million members of the National Education Union (NEU) will be taking a first day of national strike action across England and Wales on Wednesday 1 February.
It will be followed by four days of rolling action, firstly in Wales, then by English regions, followed by a two-day strike across both nations, coinciding with budget day on 15 March.
The strike, called as part of the NEU’s dispute over pay and funding, will provide a significant new impetus to the ongoing wave of strike action demanding real-terms pay rises.
In the NEU Cymru/Wales ballot, both teachers and support staff achieved the required turnout of over 50% to take official strike action, voting 92% and 88% to strike respectively. The biggest number of votes to be returned was among teachers in England. Despite all the barriers to be overcome in getting such large numbers to return their postal ballot, over 120,000 (53%) did so, voting for action by a huge 90.4% majority.
This was no mean achievement, particularly for a union with a membership spread over 20,000 different schools and colleges. A vital role was played by individual workplace reps, backed up by their local branch and district officers, chasing up members to return their votes.
Unfortunately, the support staff ballot narrowly missed the legal threshold with a 46% turnout. However, with so many NEU members taking action, many schools will still be closed to most or all classes by strike action.
Rallies and demonstrations will be organised in many towns and cities, with the strike also coinciding with national action taken by the civil servants’ union PCS.
A support worker in Unison told the Socialist: “As school workers in Unison we wholeheartedly support the teachers in this dispute and the battle they are fighting to defend our education system, currently in total funding crisis. We are seeking assurances from school leaders that support staff will not be asked to cover striking teachers’ duties and that refusing to cross a picket line will not be met with any disciplinary action but will be treated as being on strike. Only by sticking together can we turn the tide.”
