Workers' Liberty

From Workers' Liberty Teachers NUT conference bulletin 2007
Those of you who have not been to NUT Annual Conference for a few years may find the experience a very odd one.
Internal unity in the NUT is at an all-time peak and there are few parts of the agenda where fierce division and debate can be expected.
Some of this is for healthy reasons. The NUT has remained outside the government’s social partnership since the national Workload Agreement was adopted by the other teacher and support staff unions in 2003. Last year the group which came up with TLRs (RIG) agreed new performance management regulations which promise to ration performance pay more rigorously and divide staffrooms and departments as line managers become responsible for making decisions about the pay of their colleagues. The fact that the NUT is the only union outside this shoddy and abusive relationship has created a tremendous unity of purpose in the Union.
Being outside RIG has also forced the Union to consider an alternative strategy and, in the absence of an alternative of their own, this has led the leadership to borrow from and adapt the ideas of the left. So we have had a campaign of industrial action against pay cuts threatened by the TLR regime and a ballot to endorse comprehensive new guidelines on workload which could lead to action on lesson observation, planning and meetings amongst other things.
Another factor in this new-found unity is the end of the Doug McAvoy era. McAvoy ran an old-style internal regime in which the left was excluded, isolated and generally treated with contempt. It appears that many on the right were treated similarly, though they should be reminded that they were complicit in this authoritarianism too. New General Secretary Steve Sinnott has promised a union which is more inclusive and uses ‘all of their talents’ as he put it. Those that have been on or around the Executive for a long time, left and right, are adamant that the atmosphere is completely transformed from that of the recent past.
Some of this will be evident at Conference. Many of the motions and amendments in the name of the Executive have either been through real discussions in the Union structure with members from all sides or, in some cases, have originated with the left (the amendment on lesson observation). In the past anything from the Executive came from one political faction only. There will be debate, however, and it will cover absolutely key issues. How can we build an effective pay campaign given that our two-year 2.5% pay imposition has turned out to be a pay cut as inflation exceeds 4%? Can we mobilise industrial action against the new performance management regime and if so can it be national or only school by school? Can we adopt the aim of replacing religious schools with a secular system without alienating the thousands of members working in voluntary-aided schools?
In the longer term it is likely that the NUT leadership will feel the pressure to move towards social partnership. Steve Sinnott has described RIG as a ‘corrupt and dishonest social partnership’, implying that there is a better kind out there somewhere. He has praised the decision of NAHT leader Mick Brookes to rejoin RIG as ‘brave’ and he has repeatedly signalled that he expects much better from Gordon Brown. This together with the basic politics of the General Secretary and his supporters on the Executive suggests that they see independence from partnership as a temporary state forced on them by the legacy of McAvoy, the aggression of the Government and the strength of the left rather than a basic precondition of self-reliant trade unionism. It is the job of the left to demonstrate the superiority of militant independent trade unionism as a way to protect and improve the pay and conditions of our members. If we can do that the Government’s partnership with the other unions will collapse from within.
Right now that means coming away from Conference with at least two major campaigning priorities. One is to build the workload campaign by generating and spreading successful action. Supporting motion 37 can help develop that campaign. The second priority is to build a national campaign of action on pay for the first time in many years. The prospects for such a campaign are growing with more and more teachers reaching the top of the upper pay spine, a two-year imposition which cuts our pay and inflation at 4% plus. Motion 16 can be the launch-pad for a national fight that links the union with other public sector workers facing pay cuts after Gordon Brown’s pledge to keep pay deals below 2%.
We should continue to reject absolutely any pressure to join the government’s social partners and be proud that we are outside it. Our partners are our members not the government or our employers. The NUT is the teachers’ union not the Government’s union.
Pat Murphy, National Executive