Sheila Caffrey, NEU National Executive member and Bristol delegate, personal capacity
As we go to press, the National Education Union (NEU) is meeting in Brighton at its annual national conference, to discuss what the priorities for the next year need to be for education workers to win the funding, pay, workload, pensions, curriculum and working conditions that we need.
The background to the conference is a crisis in funding in education under Starmer’s Labour government, real-terms pay cuts for education workers, and increasing workload. The union is running an indicative ballot for national action and Socialist Party members are arguing strenuously for the need for serious national action.
We need national action
Teachers and support staff have shared what they’re experiencing on the front line – with many horror stories, but also many successful struggles, such as Little Ilford in Newham and Cathedral Schools Trust in Bristol, where Socialist Party officers play a leading role.
There is a real feeling of pride at our wins and the desire to fight, but the approach of the union nationally has been to restrict these battles to small, local disputes against attacks, rather than a proactive, national fight to substantially improve national pay, conditions and funding.
End academisation
An emergency motion was brought to fightback against the Labour government’s White Paper which, amongst other horrendous attacks, aims to put all schools into academy trusts – pure privatisation with no transparency and no accountability.
Socialist Party member Louise Cuffaro, a member of the union’s National Executive and a delegate from Newham where academisation has been successfully fought, submitted an amendment, not just opposing new academies, but fighting for a legal mechanism to bring academies back under local authority control, as part of the fight to increase funding and democracy in local authorities.
Unfortunately, the amendment wasn’t heard. But when I raised the same demand in a speech about working across unions to build a strong fightback, it received a cheer. NEU members definitely want a fight against privatisation!
The conference continues, so a fuller report will be shared next week – with hopefully a plan for action!
- Zack Polanski addressed NEU conference on Monday
