The teachers' (NUT) and lecturers' (UCU) strike in London on 28 March was strong, with a lively demonstration maybe 10,000 strong. Yet NUT Exec will put a "priority motion" to its 6-10 April conference which commits it only to "reviewing" things and then maybe calling more action.
The 28 March demonstration was lively
The way NUT conferences work is that debate on the issue will be around amendments to this motion from the floor, and motions from local NUT branches will be effectively superseded.
If you want to know what the Executive proposes, skip the blah-blah which makes up most of the text and scroll down to the end...
It mandates the Exec to "review... in the light of the London action of 28 March 2012... bringing all other regions and Wales, in turn or together, into pensions action"; and to "seek to build a coalition of unions committed to further strike action".
Members already know that the Exec was willing to overrule a 73% survey majority to strike nationwide on 28 March, at a time when, if the NUT had gone ahead, it would almost certainly have had PCS, UCU, EIS, and NIPSA on strike with it.
They will not be satisfied by the Exec vaguely promising conference that it might call some further action of some sort sometime, with the implied condition that this will happen only if a "coalition" is available.
Restarting action will be harder in April than in March, and harder in May than in April. As more time elapses without the unions taking any national action against what the Government declares are its final and settled terms, inevitably more momentum is lost and the Government becomes more able to impose on teachers' minds the idea that the pension changes, however bad, are a settled fact.
For example, the increased pension-contribution deductions from wages start in April. Striking against those deductions after they have been made is harder than striking against them before they are made.
To believe in the motion, you have to believe in some deus ex machina which will somehow make the Executive's vague promises to call action more "operational" in future and more difficult circumstances than they were for 28 March. Or you must be resigned to the pensions campaign dying amidst continued pleas from the Exec that it would call strikes in some future favourable conditions (and so the Exec is not to blame for any setbacks: God, or the labour movement in general, is to blame, for not providing those favourable conditions).
The only realistic and serious next step forward now is a decision by the NUT's Easter conference to:
* set a national strike day now, for early as possible in the third term, and campaign to get the PCS, UCU, Unite, EIS, and NIPSA out on the same day. This is possible. PCS, Unite, and NIPSA are already talking of a strike in "late April", and PCS leaders will be under pressure from their members to display some action before their union conference in May.
* formulate plans now for a quick-tempo rolling programme of regional and selective strikes, sustained by strike levies, to follow the national strike.
* put out those plans to wide democratic discussion in the union, including in democratic strike meetings on the national strike day; and organise strike committees in every area jointly with other unions continuing the campaign.
* formulate precise and credible demands on the Government.
It will be difficult to restart the campaign now even with the best policy. But it is possible.
We need to build a rank-and-file network in the NUT which will provide space for democratic debate of strategy when the official union channels do not allow it, and enable local activists to come together to exert organised pressure on the supposedly "left" Executive and general secretary, and where necessary campaign in an organised way across the union for alternative strategies.
1. Conference condemns the Government’s attacks on the pensions of teachers and public sector workers and its broader attacks on our living standards. Conference commits the Union to resist measures which seek to make teachers and other public sector workers pay for the economic crisis.
2. Conference recognises that we have to mobilise our members to resist the threat to pensions as part of the broader determined attack by this Government on public sector workers and the services they work in, including the pay freeze, the move to introduce local pay, cuts to public services and the continuing undermining of teachers’ professionalism.
3. Conference congratulates NUT members for the outstanding role that they have played in the fight to defend teacher pensions, public sector pensions and State pensions and the campaign for Fair Pensions for All, particularly through the national strikes on 30 June and 30 November and the London strike of 28 March and for their response to all of our other lobbying and campaigning activities.
4. Conference endorses the decision by the National Executive in March to reject the Government’s “final” proposal on teachers’ pensions.
5. Conference believes that the strike action taken by the Union and others on 30 June and again on 30 November, which galvanised the trade union movement and won concessions from Government, has shown that our campaign can succeed.
6. Conference affirms that the concessions made so far are insufficient to justify ending the Union’s campaign. More must be done to protect teachers’ pensions and to secure decent pensions for all workers. Teachers cannot be expected to work until they are 68 or beyond; nor should they have to work longer and pay more to get less.
7. Conference welcomes the decisions of other unions which have not accepted the Government’s pension proposals, including NASUWT, UCU, NAHT, ASCL, EIS, SSTA, UCAC and INTO in teaching and PCS, Unite, BMA and NIPSA in other public sector schemes. Conference welcomes the NUT's leadership role in ongoing efforts to co-ordinate continuing joint campaigning by all those unions which have not signed up to the Government’s deal. Conference expresses its support for creating the maximum unity in action of all TUC affiliates towards the attacks that are taking place against public sector pensions, the state pension and the attacks on public services such as those on Education and the NHS.
8. Conference calls on the National Executive to continue to seek unity with the other teacher unions, in particular, to secure further progress on pensions, including through further joint strike action. Conference notes that NUT member opinion surveys throughout 2011 and 2012 have consistently shown that NUT members believe that persuading the teacher unions to stand together is of vital importance and that support for joint action has always been far greater.
Conference instructs the NUT Executive to:
Maintain the NUT’s opposition to Government attempts to make us pay more, work longer and receive less;
Maintain our principled and determined campaign to protect teachers’ pensions;
Work to secure the widest possible alliance of trade unions and others to continue the fight for pensions including “fair pensions for all”;
Continue to work with those other unions which have not signed up to the Government’s proposals and seek to persuade other unions to the joint campaign.
Further, Conference instructs the Executive to:
Speedily conclude the review it is undertaking with Division Secretaries, in the light of the London action of 28 March 2012, on bringing all other regions and Wales, in turn or together, into pensions action and to act on it.
Submit a motion to TUC Congress to develop the maximum unity in action against the attacks on Pensions and against any measure to introduce local pay and conditions.
Seek to build a coalition of unions committed to further strike action in the summer term and beyond to defeat the Government’s proposals;
Discuss with those unions all possible forms of joint strike and non-strike action, including national, regional and selective strike action, and campaigning activities such as joint national and local demonstrations and public meetings;
Seek immediate talks with all the teacher unions on campaigning jointly on teachers’ pensions and other attacks on the teaching profession, through strike action and other means of opposing the Government; and
Write to all members to explain the Union’s view that, at this time of increasing attacks on teachers, it is now crucial that the teacher unions begin to work together much more strongly – and to outline the NUT’s support for the maximum unity in the co-ordination of campaigning whilst working towards a merger to create one union for all teachers.
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