The Socialist 4 April 2007

Children suffer in low pay Britain

Iran - Sailors fall victim to imperialist policies

Brown's pension robbery

Blair: No solutions to crime or crowded prisons

Waltham Forest protest - more memorable than Prince Charles!

Commemorating the abolition of the slave trade

One Life: Ricky Tomlinson

In The Line of Fire

Days of Glory

Take national action to defend education

Labour's market policies damage education

Privilege and privation in our schools

NUS leadership abandon fees fight

London strikers close passport office

PCS members take industrial action

Anger on Newport picket line

Upbeat London rally

How to stop the BNP: Build a political alternative

Campaign for a New Workers' Party

Ammanford home care workers march

Frustration at demo delay

We shall not be moved!

Save Sadiq Abakar

Leicester protesters challenge Home Office

Trade union leaders heckled over inaction

Action needed as Ford bosses close Leamington plant

Celebs fail to save Burberry

Greenwich: "We've got to strike"

Burslem postal workers strike again

British government and local parties retreat on water charges

We Won't Pay Campaign

Previous issues, etc

Print this issue

PO Box 1398, Enfield EN1 9GT

020 8988 8777

[email protected]

Link to this page: https://www.socialistparty.org.uk/issue/481/2246

Search the site	Printable version

Home | The Socialist 4 April 2007 | Join the Socialist Party

Subscribe | Donate

Teachers face heavy workloads, stress, performance pay

Take national action to defend education

AT THE National Union of Teachers (NUT) conference this year, teachers are discussing how to resist government attacks on our pay and conditions and on comprehensive education. We are being ground down by the pressures of intolerable workload, underfunding and performance pay. Academies and trusts are designed to further undermine collective opposition to the government's divisive policies.

Martin Powell-Davies, Lewisham NUT

Our stressful lives are bad for our health, our families and the children we teach. Too many teachers are already voting with their feet. Some resign, some are driven out by ill-health or bullying managers.

Local NUT Associations are struggling valiantly to defend members through individual casework and local disputes. But the strategy of relying on school reps and officers to fight local battles alone will not succeed. At best, as when striking against Teaching and Learning Responsibility (TLR) pay cuts, we may win some local victories. But as a long-term strategy it leaves the NUT playing King Canute trying to stem the New Labour tide.

Unless the union acts, the attacks will continue on pay, conditions and comprehensive education. But, if the NUT led from the front and campaigned to win a ballot for national strike action, members would respond. A successful one-day strike would give an outlet for teachers' many grievances and raise the sights of members who aren't yet confident to take action in their school alone.

It's not that the union is short of issues to galvanise the membership around. By the government's own admission, teachers are still working 50 hours a week and more. Pay rises are being pegged beneath the rate of inflation. The Education Act is fragmenting comprehensive state education.

A demand to withdraw the new performance management regulations could prove the clearest focus for action.

They threaten to add a cruel twist to the existing performance pay regime. Schools will be expected to carry out more nit-picking observations and set teachers more 'challenging' objectives. More staff will be demoralised and denied their pay rise. More will accept an unreasonable workload so as to keep in line for salary progression.

But the union doesn't have to choose one priority for national action above all others. The civil service union, the PCS, with Socialist Party members playing an important role in its leadership, have recently successfully won a ballot and called national strike action.

They linked different threats to jobs, pay and conditions into one national action. The NUT can do the same.

We must have confidence in our members. Teachers are fed up with everything that has been thrown at them by this government. A fighting leadership should be able to harness that anger. It's time the union gave a lead. NUT conference delegates have a responsibility to make sure it does.