"NUT members are taking strike action..." - the rest of Alex Kenny's opening sentence was drowned out by cheers and applause - even though he was just requesting a message of support to tomorrow's NUT action at Forest Hill School - before we even got on to discussing the pensions action on the 30th!
The same enthusiastic mood continued through the evening as union leaders, classroom teachers and anti-cuts campaigners spoke to the packed rally at Friends Meeting House.
Young teachers tellingly linked the battle on pensions to their excessive workload. As they put it, after years of working 60 hour weeks, don't the Government think teachers deserve at least a decent pension?
Rob Williams from the NSSN reminded the meeting of Brendan Barber's comments last Autumn when Jeremy Paxman had asked him why British workers weren't taking action like the Greek and French - "we don't do that in Britain". As Rob pointed out to applause - who can say that after the student marches, the March 26th demo - and now the strike action on June 30th?
No comments:
Post a Comment