James Ellis, lead NEU rep, personal capacity
In June, the National Education Union (NEU) hosted its New Professionals and Young Workers annual conference. There were hundreds of education workers, many new to the profession, discussing important political issues such as how to oppose academisation, win funding for schools, and the best way to build a strong and unionised workplace.
I represented the NEU on a panel alongside representatives from NASUWT teachers’ union, the University and College Union and the Communication Workers Union. This was a varied discussion, with one of the themes being the best way for unions to effectively work together.
My contribution focused on how to push back against privatisation in education, drawing on the lessons from the successful strike campaign in my academy trust, the University of Brighton Academies Trust. I called for coordination across unions to oppose privatisation, and for the trade union movement to end ties with Labour and put its financial and organisational strength into building a new workers’ party.
Daniel Kebede, NEU general secretary, opened the weekend with a speech followed by questions. He spoke about the negative impact that the academy system is having in education, highlighting excessive CEO pay as just one example. At NEU conference this year, a motion was passed almost unanimously calling for the union’s executive to launch a national campaign on academisation, with a first concrete step being to fight for legislation to be passed in parliament that creates a mechanism for academised schools to be able to return to local authority control.
I asked Daniel for an update on this, but unfortunately he did not give a clear reply, instead talking about the need to ‘begin a discussion in our union about the kind of education system we want’. We already know what we want – democratically controlled and properly funded local authority education! We don’t want to be left to fight privatisation locally in our workplaces and districts alone – the NEU must launch a national campaign on this issue as a matter of urgency.
Daniel correctly attacked the inadequate levels of education funding and called on the government to fully fund the upcoming teacher and support staff pay awards. However, he stopped short of fully committing to a formal ballot on the issue, instead calling for the union to launch a ‘political campaign’ to secure funding.
The Socialist Party bulletin for the conference argued that it would be a mistake to back away from balloting over pay at this stage – even the threat of strike action has forced an improved pay offer. Funding is crucial – but any political campaign will be much stronger if we maintain pressure on Starmer’s New Labour by moving to a formal ballot, alongside other unions – this is the approach that was agreed by NEU national conference. Our executive now needs to show clear, bold leadership by calling a ballot and fighting for action.
