In the ballot for strike action on pay by the National Union of Teachers, which closed on 3 November, 51.7% voted yes, on a turnout of 29.7%. The NUT Executive on 5 November decided to call no action.
After the well-supported strike on 24 April, Workers' Liberty teachers argued for a strategy of ongoing discontinuous action, to build on members' mobilisation and bridge the gap until another all-out strike this term. This was rejected by the "left" majority on the NUT Executive, with the result of seven months of... nothing. In this situation, the initiative was quickly lost and members allowed to become demoralised. This must be a large part of the explanation for the weakness of the yes vote, and the NUT Exec bears a large part of the responsibility.
Patrick Murphy, an Exec member and a member of AWL, comments: "There wasn't much debate about this decision. The overwhelming view on the Exec and in the left caucus was that the result did not provide a mandate for calling action. Regional breakdowns and numbers of branches voting each way made the decision even clearer.
There was no compelling case to proceed, and it would have risked huge damage to the union for no likely gain whatever to go ahead. That kind of situation sometimes happens. Refusing to recognise it when it does is neither militant nor principled. It's dogmatism".
Liam Conway in Nottingham adds: "Just over 51% voting yes on a 29% turnout can't be described as 'members have clearly voted for strike action'. I would say that given the huge amount of material urging a yes vote both locally and nationally, the size of the no vote has to be considered significant. The no vote is solid, based on mistaken ideas for sure, but pretty solid I would think.
"The yes vote is probably solid too, but I did quite a few meetings in schools and a number of members said they would vote yes because they wanted to support the Union. Not many in my experience were talking in really positive terms about a campaign to win the pay claim. Should we ignore that likely reality or just blunder on anyway?
"The mistake was not having discontinuous action as the option in the first ballot - we had built up the confidence of members for the fight earlier this year and we got a good ballot result. The initiative was lost because the first action was one day only, with no serious action in the Summer Term.
"Then the credit crunch came, economic collapse in capitalism and probably a big fear factor among workers in response to that crisis.
"I think we have to take stock of this result, think about what we do next carefully, look to open up new fronts of opposition to the government, on SATs and Workload for example, and remember that we face a three year pay deal with an interim STRB report coming in January.
"We certainly shouldn't throw in the towel on pay but we need to look carefully at how we marshal our forces for a renewed fight on pay in the future".
One of the new fronts opening up is cuts already been tabled by some school administrations in preparation for the coming into effect, in September 2009, of new legislation which will ban schools from depriving teachers of their marking and preparation time to make them cover classes for absent fellow-workers.
Some schools are already demanding that teachers agree to cut their marking and preparation time, and that teacher aides take classes on their own, telling them that the budgets show "no alternative".
What is needed, of course, is more money from the Government so that schools can pay for supply teachers and for reserve teaching staff. In a period of economic crisis and decreasing tax revenues, that will take a fight.
But it's a fight that links in to already-strong feeling among teachers on the issue of workload, and can give the feeling a focus for national action.
A mistake. Where to go from here?
The decision to not strike was a mistake and that should be clearly said by socialists-we should have had a one day strike as voted for by members- on a relatively low turn-out, yes but still a win albeit a narrow one. I know many people in Bolton are disappointed at the news and though some were concerned at both the delay and the dithering of the leadership we will without doubt support a resolution condemening the calling off of the strike and demanding a new ballot. However, members will be getting pretty annoyed that we pass such motions all the time and all the time they are bounced back, or bablots are called off or they are called and then ignored.
At the very least- and at a push I could accept this as principled though I would have voted for strike action on the NEC_ a delegates meeting should have been called , perhaps of all divisional secretaries plus extra delegates for larger branches (i.e. proportional to size) and this could be used to call divisional meetings to get members feelings.
As it is we need to really take action to increase union workplaces, to get more members to meetings, to push for a ballot in the next term and get support for those asosciaitons and schools that are taking action whether on workload, privatisation or victimisation.