Motion for school NUT groups - We support action on pensions

Alex Kenny and I - who have both been elected unopposed for the 2012-14 NUT Executive seats for Inner London - may have voted different ways on an amendment that I seconded at Thursday's NUT Executive, but I think we are both very clear that we wish to see further co-ordinated strike action to defend pensions - and that we need NUT members to show their support for such action.

Alex has already circulated a motion for school NUT groups to discuss - expressing support for action. This is also pasted below.

Please do meet in school groups and association meetings to pass this motion and send it to me, Alex and the National Union as soon as possible and certainly before the NUT National Executive next meets on January 26th.

Motion for school NUT groups to discuss

This union meeting notes that the Heads of Agreement “offer” made by the government to teaching unions on December 19th still means that we would have to pay more, work longer and get a smaller pensions.

We note that the government is still intent on:
i) increasing our pension contributions by 50%;
ii) raising the retirement age for teachers to 68;
iii) introducing a pension based on a career average rather than final salary;
iv) using CPI, rather than RPI, as the index for annual increases in our pensions.

These are the measures against which we took strike action on June 30th and November 30th and for these reasons we believe the NUT was right not to sign up to the Heads of Agreement.

We note that the NASUWT and UCU have also refused to sign up to the Heads of Agreement.

We note that whatever concessions the government has made have only come as a result of our campaign and strike action, but go nowhere near enough to meet our concerns.

We believe that the campaign to defend our pensions must continue and that this should involve further strike action.

We call upon the NUT National Executive to draw up plans for further strike action and to discuss these with other unions who have also refused to sign the Heads of Agreement.

We therefore agree to indicate our support for:

i) the decision of the NUT to reject the Heads of Agreement document;

ii) further strike action in defence of our pensions.