Stop Gove - Build for Strike Action!

Gove’s attacked your pensions, he’s after your pay - and now he wants to cut your holidays too!

MICHAEL GOVE’s announcement that he plans to attack our holidays and conditions, on top of his plans to cut pensions and drive through performance-pay, has angered teachers right across the country.

These proposals have nothing to do with improving education. Forcing overworked teachers to work even longer hours certainly won’t help to produce high-quality education.
It’s not just teachers who are exhausted by the intensity of an education system distorted by an obsession with tests and targets. Children also need proper breaks to work efficiently. They also need free time, holidays and a chance to spend time with their family and friends. 

Gove’s attacks are driven by this Government’s agenda to break trade union opposition by deregulating our conditions, as well as to drive down costs so that big businesses can make money out of privatising schools and other public services. 

This continuing barrage is also a warning that, the more that we hold back from action, the more this Government will attack our pay, conditions, services & communities. 

If we want to defend our rights - and our children’s right to a decent education - we have to stand firm and take action together. Our children and families deserve no less from us.

In the North-West, Gove’s threats will only encourage an even stronger response to the call for joint regional strike action on June 27th. Then, after the summer, it will be our turn to act.

It seems likely that teachers in the Midlands will be taking regional action in late September with teachers in London and the South following them in early October. These regional strikes should build to a joint national strike in November - and more must follow.

Other TUC unions could join with us in co-ordinated strike action and help to pile the pressure on this Government to pull back from its continued programme of cuts and privatisation.

It’s taken longer to get started than Lewisham NUT had wanted, but the calendar of action is now underway. So colleagues need to prepare financially for ongoing action. With these attacks, how can we afford NOT to strike ?

This article, and others, can be found in the latest copy of the Lewisham NUT newsletter, via:

http://local.teachers.org.uk/templates/asset-relay.cfm?frmAssetFileID=10847