Lewisham NUT ready to do battle on pay!

Thirty-seven members packed into Lewisham NUT's General Meeting tonight to show that they were ready to do battle to oppose performance-pay - and to support my campaign to become NUT National Vice-President as well!

After hearing a reportback from our two delegates to the Annual NUT  Young Teachers' Conference, our first decision was to send messages of support and encouragement to NUT members in Liverpool preparing for regional strike action on June 27th.

Our second key decision was to agree that we would all be marching in London on June 25th in the Regional NUT 'March for Education'. Orders for T-Shirt sizes were taken so that we can all march to the rally in the same NUT clothing, behind the Lewisham NUT banner!

The next vote was to agree that we must urgently go back to our schools tomorrow and warn Heads that, if they support the damaging draft pay policy that Lewisham Authority has circulated in advance of Tuesday afternoon's negotiation meeting, then Lewisham teachers would be calling for National Union support for urgent strike action.

The meeting then unanimously agreed to nominate me to stand in this Autumn's  NUT Vice-President election and also to contribute to my campaign with funding, support, and through a campaign team.

Finally, after a short report of my experiences in Istanbul, the meeting agreed to donate £200 to Turkish teacher unions as a gesture of international solidarity. 

This is a picture of Turkish teachers taking strike action today in protest against state repression