FAQs - why NEU members should vote for action

With the preliminary ballots for NEU Support Staff members, and in Sixth Form Colleges already open, the NEU's electronic vote for teachers in state schools opened this weekend. Already tens of thousands have voted. Now we all need to drive that vote up until we smash through the 50% threshold that will be needed in the further, fully postal ballot required to call a strike under the Tories' anti-union legislation. 

Many members understand straight away why they need to vote for action but some may have a few queries before they do. Here's answers to four of the questions that I have come across in speaking to members in my District:

WILL STRIKING MAKE ME LOOK BAD WITH MY HEAD AND PARENTS?

No. There's no reason to feel awkward about taking strike action. It's your legal right to do so, as long as we win the ballot with a high enough turnout. Our action would be a national strike to campaign to win a fully-funded pay rise. It's not directed against your Head or your school, in fact it would help your school by making sure they had improved funding and fewer problems with retaining and recruiting staff.

Of course, parents will be inconvenienced by a strike but, as railworkers and postal workers have found when they have taken strike action over the summer, with everyone's cost of living rising, there's a widespread understanding that trade unions have no choice but to take action. We will also produce information for parents and governors so that they can read the facts about our campaign.

CAN WE AFFORD TO STRIKE?

With the cost of energy, transport, food and housing rising steeply, and inflation forecast to rise even further by 2023, can we afford not to? If we don't take action - especially when other unions are - that will only encourage this government to think they can keep cutting school budgets, holding down our pay, and piling on yet more scrutiny and workload.

Strike action has already won victories for trade unions in a number of local disputes. Even the threat of action has just won an improved pay offer for Scottish council workers - including school support staff - and over £400 million in extra funding to pay for it too.

HOW CAN SCHOOLS AFFORD TO PAY MORE?

The government's 'mini-budget' has shown it has money to spend - but it will need action to persuade them to direct some of it into education, instead of towards tax cuts for the wealthy. 

It's not a question of ‘either’ pay ‘or’ school funding - our campaign is to win both. So, don’t be put off voting for a pay rise because you fear school budgets won't be able to cope. The battles for better pay and for better school funding are two sides of the same coin. Strike action is the most powerful way of winning both.  

CAN STRIKE ACTION WIN?

Yes. With support staff unions consulting over pay, and the NASUWT teaching union also talking about action, NEU members can vote for action with confidence that our action could be taken across school staff, and alongside other unions in the public and private sectors too. 

We won't be alone. With inflation rising, the government is under growing pressure to act. Our action can make it think again on pay.

So, keep talking to your colleagues and make sure everyone has voted - and voted YES to action. EiS members in Scotland have just secured a 78% turnout, with 91% voting in favour of strike action - can we do the same?

You can download a Socialist Party in Education bulletin containing some of the key information about the ballots here.

Listen to the voices of protest in Blackpool

Watch a full-length video of the protests here.

On a welcome day of sunshine, hundreds of trade unionists, NHS campaigners , RMT and P&O strikers and disability and anti-fracking activists marched in Blackpool on Saturday 19 March. With samba band and trade union and climate banners prominent, we marched from the Comedy Carpet opposite Blackpool Tower to the Winter Gardens where the Tories were holding their spring conference.

This was a chance to protest against the Tories ruthless squeeze on livings standards and their attempt to make workers pay the cost of the Covid through a cost of living crisis. Darren Proctor of the RMT union spoke powerfully on behalf of a contingent of P& O strikers ; the RMT and now Nautilus union both in dispute with P & O Ferries since their ruthless ‘fire and hire’ and the sacking of hundreds of their workers. Darren received rapturous applause for his call for solidarity.

Ian Hodson from BFAWU at the Saturday rally

The rally gathered outside the Tory conference and was chaired by Lynn Goodwin , President of Blackpool, Fylde and Wyre Trades Council BFWTUC with speakers including the Trades Council secretary Ken Cridland and others from the various campaigns represented. Socialist Party members who spoke included Chris Baugh, Jenny Hurley, Marion Lloyd and myself.

Pointing at the Tories in the Winter Gardens

The TUC had called a national mobilisation outside the Tory party conference on 19 March in Blackpool.  In an unfortunate impression of The Grand Old Duke of York, they decided to call it off three weeks later.  But the need to protest against the Tories was as strong as ever. So through the BFWTUC, alongside Lancashire trades councils, Unite branches in the region, NHS protestors who also  provided an ad-van which was driven round the town calling for opposition to the Health Care Bill, climate activists involved in the successful anti-fracking protests in the area all came together and decided the protest should go ahead.

Marching through Blackpool on Saturday 19 March

Blackpool is a famous destination for working class holidaymakers that has seen gradual economic decline from the seventies onwards. A 2019 government report showed eight of the ten poorest neighbourhoods in England are in the town of Blackpool. With Middlesbrough, Blackpool has the highest level of child poverty. Yet in the past decade a massive £180 million has been cut from the Blackpool council budget.

Sacked P&O workers on the march

Austerity in the form of deep cuts in health, local government and civil service jobs, combined with the vigorous enforcement of DWP sanctions policy, has had a devastating effect, particularly on the poorest and most vulnerable families in Blackpool.

The TUC were wrong to cancel the demonstration. The protest defied the most optimistic expectations and had an impact not seen in Blackpool for many years. While it has helped build support for trade unionism , a living wage of £15 an hour and the fight for climate jobs rather than any renewed attempts to start fracking, the protest confirmed the need for the TUC to call for mass protests around the March/Demo they have called for 18  June.

We need a timescale for a ballot for action to win on pay

For the last few weeks, NEU Branch Officers and school reps have been working hard to encourage teacher members to respond to an online survey about pay. In the end around 70,000 members, a little under 30% of those who had been polled, responded to the texts and emails sent to them nationally.

This was a very good initial turnout, particularly given that a turn towards campaigning on pay had only recently been made by the Union. A 0% ‘pay freeze’ had been imposed on teachers paid under the School Teachers Pay and Conditions Document for the previous 2021 pay award without the Union responding in the way that is now being done. Despite the short lead-in to the survey, 74% of those voting were already saying they would support strike action over pay.

Two NEU branches, East Riding and Redbridge, even managed to exceed the 50% turnout that would eventually be needed in a formal strike ballot under the anti-trade union legislation, showing how other branches could also improve their turnout with the right approach, support and organisation.

The Executive agrees we will need to ballot – but when?

On Thursday, 10^th February, a special meeting of the NEU Executive met to discuss the overall response and to plan the next steps in the pay campaign. Important steps were agreed but, in my view, a key step was missing, and that was to agree a clear timescale for proceeding to a ballot for strike action.

A timescale for a ballot is not just a small detail, it is a key part to any pay campaign. Of course, NEU reps and officers can, and will, encourage members to take part in the demonstrations, rallies and other activities that were agreed by everyone on the Executive. However, in all those activities, it will be important to explain to members that we will need to vote for, and firmly enact, strike action if we are really to influence this Government and warn off its big business backers calling for Ministers to maintain ‘wage restraint’.

A timescale provides a sense of urgency and an assurance to members that it’s important for them to attend the demos and rallies, because they are part of a serious campaign to win our pay demands - of an 8% pay rise over both of the next two years across all points on the pay scales. It also gives a clear idea to busy branch officers, reps and staff as to what priority needs to be given to updating addresses, holding meetings and other preparations.

When I heard that the Executive had not agreed any timescale, and posted criticism on my personal Facebook page last week, I received angry responses from members of the majority ‘NEU Left’ group on the Executive including accusations that I was ‘misrepresenting’ what was agreed.

This has since been followed by an article on the NEU left blog that criticises “some in the union who don’t support [the agreed] strategy, calling instead for an immediate indicative ballot. Some of those people have said that the Executive have ruled out strike action. Nothing could be further from the truth. We question the motivation behind this spreading of misinformation”.

Now that’s quite a serious accusation and, although nobody is specifically named, presumably aimed in part at me. So let me explain further as to why, no, I am not spreading misinformation [on the contrary, as I explain below, no Executive amendment actually called for an “immediate indicative ballot”] but, yes, I am raising questions and concerns. I do so not light-mindedly, but because, at a time when prices are rising so rapidly, alongside pay cuts through national insurance increases, a failure to win on pay would be so serious for so many members.

What was agreed by the Executive – and was voted down

What was agreed by the Executive was a commitment “to put every effort nationally, regionally and locally to put ourselves in a position to call and win a national ballot at the earliest possible opportunity”.

But the Executive still needs to clarify what timescale they are looking at and how that relates to the timetable for the Government and the Review Body to make decisions over teachers’ pay.

As has now become their standard practice, the Government are likely to announce the next pay award in late July. But, this time, they are going to impose a two-year pay award for 2022/3 and 2023/4. Therefore, our strategy needs to have maximum impact before July.

Recognising this, a ballot timetable crafted to allow strike action to take place in July was put to the February Executive. It proposed that the next half-term, up until Easter, should be used to share best practice amongst reps and branches and identifying areas in need of further support. 

Meetings, rallies and demonstrations, such as the one now called by the TUC on 19 March, could be used to increase confidence and engagement, building on members' concrete experience of rising bills and falling incomes.

All these steps would be preparation for launching an indicative ballot from April’s Annual Conference. The indicative ballot would then have been followed by an emergency National Executive meeting on 14 May, hopefully agreeing it was in a position to move to the formal ballot needed to sanction strike action before the end of term.

However, this proposal was only supported by a minority of Executive members. This decision effectively rules out any chance of building for national strike action by July. This, I believe, is a missed opportunity and presents a complication. The Union will now have to take action to persuade the Government to reverse its decision, rather than before it is made.

A clear announcement needed by the Union

I appreciate that the NEU Left majority on the Executive believe the Union would not be ready to win the necessary turnout and majority by July. But when do they think “the earliest possible opportunity” will be? What timescale is the Union working towards?

The NEU left blog concludes that the agreed strategy “will include moving to an indicative ballot – whether in the autumn term or sooner if we judge the mood is strong enough and we can win it”. Leading NEU Left member Alex Kenny has written to officers in London stating that “the fact that we may be looking at a two year pay award gives us a longer timeframe over which we can map this campaign”. But will a full ballot be launched early enough to give members confidence that an inadequate two-year pay deal can be reversed, and not become seen as a fait accompli?

Postponing a national ballot doesn’t guarantee generating greater momentum, delay can also see it being lost. By constantly telling activists that a majority can’t be won, and postponing action to some undefined future date, there is a danger that some in the Union conclude that national action can never be taken. Our strategy then becomes only one of building workplace-by-workplace, following the Union’s long-term ‘VEVE orientation’, but never brings members together in united action.

This would be a one-sided strategy that risks demoralising activists and failing members. Of course, we need to build workplace strength and rep density and organisation but the key drivers of pay, workload and funding cannot be tackled at a workplace level alone, they require national action. A serious campaign for a national ballot can help build at workplace level and vice versa.

After responding in such high numbers to the initial survey, NEU members now need a clear message about how the Union intends to, not just protest, but win on pay, reversing any two-year pay cuts imposed on teachers in July. It also needs to make clear to support staff members how we are planning to organise around their pay award as well.

Now that a timetable seeking to take national action before the pay award is announced has been rejected, is it not now time to make clear to members, and the Government, that the NEU will however ballot for action in the autumn term if our pay demands are not met? Such an announcement would give the whole union a timescale to build around.

NEU Member Survey - say yes to action on pay

WORKLOAD AND INFLATION GOES UP, INCOMES FALL

This term promises to start just as last term finished. School staff will be under intolerable pressure from incessant workload and Covid absences. Yet, in return for all our efforts, our real incomes are sharply falling as the cost of living rises. Fuel prices are set to rise further, as are the costs of mortgage payments.

Many support staff and supply colleagues are already struggling. The hourly rate of a newly qualified teacher working 50-60 hours a week, but being paid less than £2,200 a month, is at minimum wage levels.

Years of below inflation pay awards show how little value is being placed on both educators and education by this Government. It’s time to demand change. WE DESERVE BETTER. EDUCATION DESERVES BETTER. 

VOTE YES FOR ACTION IN THE NEU SURVEY

Between now and July, the School Teachers’ Review Body will be deliberating over what pay increase they will recommend teachers get in September 2022. Once again, this Government will be telling them to keep any increase to a minimum. They certainly won’t be looking to match an inflation rate that could soon be as high as 6%. In short, we are set for another pay cut – unless we take action to win our pay demands.

The NEU Executive wants to know how strongly you feel about how badly educators are being treated. That’s why a survey is being sent out to the email address on your union record from 14 January. It’s vital that you, and as many of your colleagues as possible, return the survey and SAY YES TO ACTION ON PAY.

Download the flyer drafted by Socialist Party in Education for use by NEU Officers and Reps as a pdf, jpg or an editable word document from this folder