Education

East Sussex pay strikes spread

Ballots in eight schools began this week, adding to the five schools already in dispute as the campaign for fair pay in East Sussex grows. The dispute is over the failure of the local authority to recommend the agreed union rates for teachers, (2%) across the main scale from September 2017, instead recommending 1% in the grades between the min and maximum. The sums involved are relatively small (between zero and about £10K per school). Members in five secondary schools in the area have already taken two days of strike action which was solidly supported. A further school faced with action...

No to an even more tiered HE system!

In the wake of the new Higher Education review, we are once again hearing suggestions that Oxford and Cambridge should declare themselves independent, thereby allowing them to set their own tuition fees. A tiered fee system was one of the many market conditions for which the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) sought to lay foundations. This is not the only front on which such whispers have formed. The pensions dispute between the University and College Union (UCU) and Universities UK (UUK) has similarly raised the possibility of Oxford and Cambridge breaking away from the Universities...

UCU: Build the rank-and-file revolt!

Workers' Liberty UCU members produced a bulletin for the UCU rank-and-file revolt meeting on Sunday 29 April. You can download the bulletin as a PDF here.

"A union that belongs to its members"

Written for a Workers' Liberty bulletin for the UCU rank-and-file revolt national meeting on 29 April 2018 An often cited example of a rank-and-file network transforming its union for the better is that of the Caucus of Rank-and-File Educators (CORE) in the Chicago Teachers’ Union. The change in the union came to wider attention during their 2012 contract strike. Where the strength that CORE as itself, and then through the structures of the union, had built up was put to the test — and performed spectacularly. There are many lessons to be learnt from that strike: how the ballot was built for...

UCU: new network launches

Planned strikes by members of the University and College Union (UCU) in pre-1992 university, aimed to stop cuts to the University Superannuation Scheme for academic workers’ pensions, have been suspended after union members voted to accept an employers’ offer. UCU members voted by 64% to 36%, on a turnout of over 60%, to accept an offer from bosses’ organisation Universities UK which proposed to set up a joint “expert panel” to review pension reform. However, many UCU activists argued that the deal, which did not contain any firm guarantees to abandon plans to reform pensions, or any long-term...

Teachers call for strike ballot on 5% pay demand

The conference of the National Union of Teachers (NUT) section of the National Education Union (NEU) (Brighton, 30 March to 3 April) called for a 5% pay rise. It said the union should ballot all members for strikes in the 2018/19 school year if we don’t get that. The initial motion on pay from the Executive called only for a ballot “if internal polling suggests that there would be sufficient support”. Conference passed an amendment from Coventry which linked in the issue of workload and made the commitment to a ballot clear. However, the motion only commits the executive to put forward the...

Universities plan job and course cuts

Job cuts have been announced at the Open University and at Liverpool University. Cuts at the Open University would result in 41 degree courses being axed, leaving only 71, reducing the number of courses available by a third. The University plans to save £100m from its £420m annual budget, yet the University has spent £2.5m on consultancy fees to KMPG. From money put aside for redundancies, the UCU estimates that the University is planning for at least 250-300 voluntary redundancies in the coming year, and for compulsory redundancies to follow. The University of Liverpool, whose Vice-Chancellor...

Victories at London schools

School workers across London have been striking against academy proposals, terms and conditions, appraisal, and management styles. In January National Education Union (NEU) and GMB members at Charlton Park academy in Greenwich won an agreement that nationally negotiated terms and conditions would apply to all staff (see: bit.ly/2Gh5Six). Campaigns against academisation in Newham have linked up NEU members, parents, and Labour Party activists. Strikes have happened at Avenue Primary school, Cumberland school, and Keir Hardie school. The strikes have stopped academisation at Keir Hardie school...

Strikes over pay and academisation

Workers at Connaught school in Walthamstow, London, and Avenue school in Newham, London, were both on strike on Tuesday 13 March. School workers at Avenue school have been fighting the proposed conversion of their school to an academy. Avenue strikers have been had support from parents and the local labour movement. This has included lobbies of the Labour council, including by Labour members, over the council′s support for academies. Workers at Connaught school are striking after their demands for a pay increase were rejected. The school is in the outer London pay band and teachers demanded an...

Victory for Southwark teachers over box-ticking culture

Teachers at the City of London Academy Southwark have won significant improvements after three days of strikes by the National Education Union, 1 March and 7-8 March. A union group meeting on Monday 12 March voted to suspend further strikes, scheduled for 13-15 March while management carries through its promises to redraft appraisal and support-plan policies in consultation with the union. The strikes drew over 40 teachers to the picket lines on each day, despite snow and winds on the first day. Management kept the school open for Years 10-11, and for Years 12-13 to do mock exams, but support...

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