Workers' Liberty

The past few months have seen a surge in student resistance to cuts at UK higher education institutions. It has involved direct-action tactics such as occupations and has, for the most part, been built using grassroots democracy and open meetings. But what about the resistance from workers in the education sector?

My college is facing £2.5 million worth of cuts, which would critically damage our capacity to provide decent education for our community. Now the UCU (University and College Union) branch has voted unanimously to ballot for strike action in the event of compulsory redundancies.

The Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS), the Scottish teachers’ union, has called a march and rally in Glasgow on Saturday 6 March under the slogans “Why Must Our Children Pay? Invest in Their Education!”

It’s been a long time coming but the National Union of Teachers and the union that represents most primary Heads, the NAHT, have finally agreed to hold a joint ballot to boycott this year’s SATs tests in primary schools in England.

On Monday 1 February the higher education funding body, the HEFCE have announced the details of how the budget cuts imposed by Peter Mandelson back in December 2009 will fall. The headline cuts is one in the universities' teaching budgets — £215m in the acedemic year 2010-11.

The three-way contest for Deputy General Secretary of the largest teachers union, the NUT, resulted in a major victory for the left. Kevin Courtney, the Camden NUT secretary and leading light in the Socialist Teachers’ Alliance (STA), was elected after an impressive campaign which maximised his support amongst activists and local branch officers of the union.

It would be better if the individuals and groups who define themselves as left in the Union could agree to support common candidates in national elections. It will be important in the period ahead to consolidate the small majority the left has gained on the national executive and avoid the prospect of Broadly Speaking regaining either the Executive or the GS or DGS positions. Just as important is the need to build a clearer, sharper, more determined left which acts collectively on the key issues facing members, particularly those which require us to mobilise members for action.

Local community campaigners in the Hyde Park district in Leeds recently occupied the site of a school building in an attempt to save it for their use.

Download pdf. See "attachment".

Strikers at Tower Hamlets College returned to work on Friday 25 September, after winning major concessions from the college.

Management at Tower Hamlets College, in East London, have insisted that they must show a profit at all costs by the end of the financial year.

Leaflet for Thursday 3 September 2009.

UCU members at Tower Hamlets college, in East London, are on indefinite strike against cuts. The union reports:

Another front in the Vestas jobs battle has been opened by the involvement of Vestas Technology in a plan to transform almost all the Isle of Wight's schools into Academies (privatised schools receiving public money but run by their business sponsors).

According to the Teacher Development Agency (a quango overseeing teacher recruitment and training), over 50% of all newly qualified teachers will have left the job within three years.

Friday 12 June saw hundreds of English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) students, staff and supporters march in East London in protest at major cuts to ESOL announced at Tower Hamlets College.

The (overwhelmingly female) student protesters led chants on megaphones, carried placards with their own powerful slogans, and spoke eloquently and emphatically to the national press about what ESOL means to them.

The admin offices of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London were occupied from Monday 15 to Wednesday 17 June, in response to an immigration raid on SOAS cleaners.

The raid was organised by ISS, the contractor for SOAS, and several cleaners were deported.

If the Government puts out £1100 billion in cash, credit, and guarantees to the banks, as it has done, then someone is going to foot the bill. On current plans, both Tory and New Labour, it is public services and public service workers.

Industrial action over pay by the National Union of Teachers was one of the first casualties of the economic crisis.

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Teachers and the Crisis
Pat Murphy, NUT Executive (personal capacity)

Activists from Nottinghamshire Stop the BNP returned to the streets in their campaign against the British National Party. Leafleting door-to-door in the Beeston area of Nottingham, a small group of anti-fascists found themselves on the same front steps as the BNP, who’d covered the area a short time before.

Roundup of Union news in brief: Linamar, Tube, UCL, PCS

By Ruth Cashman (Unison activist and participant in the March labour movement conference in Iraqi Kurdistan)

The Iraqi Teachers’ Union is facing a vicious attack from the Iraqi Government. The Iraqi government has demanded that the leadership of the union hand over the keys to its headquarters, along with membership and other records, to a state body.

Lecturers at two thirds of higher education institutions face the real threat of losing their jobs. The Universities and Colleges Employers Association (UCEA) has said that 100 institutions are planning collective redundancies.

Thursday 7 April saw the beginning of a fight back by workers and students in Higher Education. UCU members at London Metropolitan University staged a walkout, and the Universities UK conference on privatisation of higher education was disrupted by free education activists.

UNITE: You might think the leaders of a union whose members occupied the Visteon factories and took wildcat strike action in engineering construction would be pre-occupied with struggle.

The lecturers' union UCU is striking at London Metropolitan University on 7 May against planned job cuts. The union branch says: London Met UCU have been balloting on industrial action to oppose our management's insistence on the loss of 550 full-time-equivalent posts – which will result in up to 800 job losses, one quarter of our entire workforce.

This year’s National Union of Teachers conference, held over the Easter weekend, voted unanimously to boycott SATs in the next academic year if the government fails to recognise the damage the tests are doing to our primary pupils. Conference called for the tests to be scrapped.

NUT Conference, Cardiff April 10-14 2009
 
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