Socialist Party members on the NEU NEC
The excitement and enthusiasm seen on the giant 1 February strike was fantastic, and a real display of what national unions can mobilise when they take a lead.
National Education Union (NEU) members had picket lines, rallies and demos in places where they’d never mobilised before. Many hadn’t been on strike before, and so based their understanding of strike days on what they’d seen the rail unions and the postal workers do, which included active picket lines and loudly sharing the political message of the action.
Bristol had over 100 attend training to become a picket supervisor and ran 57 picket lines. Newham had over 35 picket lines. For a union that has never taken a stand like this before, it shows the mood of members: ‘If you fight, you can win!’
As well as Socialist Party members being part of the strike, many other members visited picket lines and were warmly welcomed, with our bulletins and papers snapped up. Members could see the benefits of uniting the strikes, and working with other unions to fight for pay and conditions for all.
The Labour-led Welsh government has already made a move (see box). It is good that something new has been put on the table, but this pittance must be rejected outright! 1.5% still offers teachers 5% below the inflation-proof pay rise we demanded. There is nothing for support staff. This means that workers who are often part-time and paid only for
termtime, many forced into second or third jobs and to use food banks, are still being offered a pay cut. The lack of funding for the first 5% means that Welsh schools could still be looking at cuts and redundancies. And we want no suggestion that the action across England could be called off for crumbs!
Executive must plan what next
So, the National Executive meeting on 25 February needs to plan: where next?
1 February was extremely well supported by NEU members, as well as many other education workers who weren’t on strike refusing to cross picket lines. This ensured that many schools were either closed or just relied on head teachers and school managers to keep schools open for a small handful of ‘at-risk’ children. We need to push this and get even more out next time!
In England, only teachers passed the strike threshold, so support staff weren’t part of the action. However, in areas where a strong lead was given, support staff refused to cross the picket lines in droves.
This needs to be replicated across the country with a strong lead from the national union, declaring all members will be robustly defended against any action taken if they refuse to cross picket lines. Many fewer schools would take this tack; and indeed, many school managements are in support of the action as they need the increased funding and face the staff retention issues that come with poor pay and funding.
We also need to escalate the action. The two national days of strike action in March, with a national demonstration on the first day, 15 March, is certainly a step in the right direction.
15 March a day to up the pressure
However, there has been a recent move to de-politicise 15 March by calling it a ‘carnival’ and a ‘family fun day’. This underestimates the mood of education workers, hungry to fight for the pay and funding they know schools desperately need. It also gives the bosses’ media a green light to attack us for having a day off with paid-for funfairs, while children and young people are not getting taught.
Education workers will want to show again the strength that was seen on 1 February. A national demo, with clear demands on pay and funding, will have coachloads of members from all areas flooding to London.
This will be strengthened with the 100,000 civil servants in the PCS joining with a national strike, and could be built further by the Trades Union Congress (TUC) coordinating the action and a demonstration that day with as many unions as possible from across the public and private sector joining. The University and College Union already has national strike action that week; health and rail unions have live ballots; and the Royal Mail workers in the CWU are shortly announcing their reballot result. This could bring three-quarters of a million workers or more to the picket lines and the streets, fighting together for pay and conditions.
Coordinate
The 1 February rallies were coordinated in many areas by local trades councils, showing the role that they can play in bringing unions together.
Unfortunately, the leadership in many local trades councils is not reflected in the TUC leadership. The new general secretary, Paul Nowak, has made it clear that he won’t do
anything that could embarrass or compromise Keir Starmer’s Labour. The suspension of action in Labour-run Wales is a warning of the pressures that will come on trade union leaders under a Starmer government.
This makes it even more important for union members to push union leaders to be bold and to call action, unified with other unions where possible.
Not: Since this article was written NEU members in Wales have overhwelmingly rejected the offer and the strike is back on on 2 March
