Waltham Forest teachers demand decent pay

Last week around 60 Waltham Forest teachers packed into a local NUT meeting in support of a campaign to win a pay upgrade to the level of the inner London pay scale.

In January the local Labour council launched a submission to government for “fairer funding” claiming that the borough gets less education funding than other similar boroughs, and crucially that the lower outer London pay scale is causing teacher recruitment problems.

Waltham Forest is surrounded by three boroughs all on the higher scale. So a short journey could increase teachers’ pay by £2,000 for doing the same job. The lead councillor said that, now the election is over, the campaign begins in earnest to win more money.

He was in no doubt about the strength of feeling of teachers, who contributed on how their pay was unjust, and how it was becoming increasingly difficult just to live. He agreed to report back to us about any developments in September.

However, the teachers present decided that, if we are going to win, we must intensify the campaign first and foremost among our own members. We decided to step up preparations by going for three bigger but more local events across the borough in July before the summer break. We got teachers to volunteer to go to schools not represented at this meeting and encourage them to join in too and come along in July. In this way we hope to prepare the mass of NUT members in the borough for the tough fight ahead in the new term.

Linda Taaffe