On Thursday 10 May the executive of the National Union of Teachers voted for a recommendation from general secretary Christine Blower and deputy general secretary Kevin Courtney: "That in the light of the responses to the survey of divisional secretaries and in the light of the positive work with the NASUWT the union should not proceed with a one day strike in June".
An amendment declaring that "the Executive resolves to comply with policy determined by [NUT] Conference 2012... the union will take strike action in June" fell, with 16 votes for, 24 against, 2 abstentions.
Nominally the left has a majority on the NUT Executive (and, indeed, Blower was elected, first to deputy general secretary, as a left candidate). However, as in every other decisive vote on the pensions campaign, the right-wing minority on the Exec got its way. The general secretary proposed what the right wing would vote for, and enough of the left went with it to ensure it passed.
The Exec also voted to prepare for a new ballot for action in autumn on a wide range of matters.
At the rally in London for the PCS, UCU, and Unite strike on 10 May, Unite general secretary Len McCluskey said:
"Today has been a fantastic success and there will be more strikes in June, at the end of the summer, the winter, next spring and on and on and on".
But the June date is now in doubt. And the "strategy" of having an indefinite string of one-day strikes - "on and and on and on" - at intervals of about six months will not work.
To mobilise members, and hit the Government, a quicker tempo is needed, and a greater ability for workers to decide on their own plans for action rather than just wait for the call from the leaders every so often.
The turnout on 10 May was good considering that it comes after five months' loss of momentum, and after union leaders scuppered two previous strike calls which would have got more unions out (1 March and 28 March). Workplace activists did an excellent job.
But the unsurprising fact is that the London rally at which McCluskey spoke was much smaller than demonstrations on previous strike days. Unions need to change course radically if the pensions dispute is to be won.
Comment from Patrick Murphy
I would like to add my comments on the NEC decision yesterday. I think it was a bad decision which has damaged our pensions campaign and potentially our ability to mobilise members for future campaigns. I spoke and voted for a June strike to proceed. The decision not to proceed wasn't inexplicable in the sense that people who voted not to proceed provided reasons for doing so and they are not stupid reasons. I think, however, that the arguments relied upon are almost all based on a very wooden understanding of the relationship between the confidence of members and the actions of the union. The essence of this understanding is that we use various means to find out what members of a 300,000 strong union think about a set of scenarios and then use that to determine what we do next. It is extremely difficult to challenge this approach as, to all appearances, it is simple democracy. Who can be against consulting members? Not me.
What it misses though is the way in which our actions and inactions affect the views, the confidence and the morale of members. There is no doubt, and it can surely be no surprise to anyone, that the confidence of NUT members that they can deliver pensions action, has fallen since November 30th. In all the circumstances how it could be otherwise? A number of unions, including our erstwhile allies in ATL, have signed up. The unions representing school support staff likewise. The NASUWT haven't but have shown no indication of taking strike action on pensions with us anytime soon. But in addition to, and in fact in response to, these factors we have added our own vacillation and indecision. The mood of members now is not what it was in December or January and we are partly to blame. It was our job to maintain and rebuild that confidence and morale. There was no more important task and we failed to do it. The drive by government to impose a settlement and close this dispute down in December required an urgent demonstration that in fact it was very much alive and they wouldn't get away with it. We failed to understand that and so didn't deliver on it. I am very confident members would have followed a clear lead and supported us on that in January. I don't want to repeat stuff I've written before and elsewhere about the sequence of events since but some key actions, like the failure to clearly reject the final offer, the publication and then abandonment of March 28th and the decision to go in London alone have all had very serious effects indeed on morale and confidence. It is therefore immensely frustrating for people who have argued for months for an urgent return to action to have that reduced morale and confidence cited as a reason for yet again calling off action we led members to believe was likely to take place.
And of course there is a huge element of 'self-fulfilling prophesy' to all of this. Each failure to act has added a little more to the weakening of members confidence and resolve. The decision not to take action in June is a further episode which can only push more members over to the side of those who are less confident and militant about pensions action. The NEC majority obviously think that that is where most members (or enough to make action a failure) already are now. But there must come a point where even people like me reach the same conclusion as all but the most committed and loyal members will simply lose heart.
The extent to which this is a disaster may be mitigated a bit by the possibility of significant joint action with the NASUWT in the Autumn. We probably cannot say much more about that here but I would suggest three things: 1. It would be a very good thing indeed if it can be organized and developed even if it doesn't deal with pensions. There was no division whatsoever on the Executive about this and no-one will do anything other than work to make it successful
2. I think it is very unlikely indeed that our pension campaign will be rescued or continued in a meaningful way by this development. There is no guarantee of any joint strike action and even less guarantee that should it happen it will be about pensions (other than in the most distant way as part of a long list of issues). I hope that's wrong and will work (and support our negotiators in working) to ensure that its wrong. It's fine for our 'member-facing' position to be that we are working to continue the campaign in this way etc but assessments should be made on the basis of evidence not hopes. And its crass, I think, to suggest we shouldn't be honest in sharing more pessimistic assessments where we have them in discussions like this. Otherwise what is the point of discussions like these, caucuses, email lists and so on.
3. I think the argument that the pensions campaign is a long haul, will never die etc because 'we all have to retire some time' is risible. The fact is that it hasn't stopped the loss suffered by indexation changes or the contribution increases now being experienced by every member. It will not stop further increases or the other major changes without significant action before these things are legislated for. To argue, in effect, that this is a campaign with no deadlines to meet is a bizarre approach to an industrial dispute. At root it is a refusal to face an uncomfortable reality squarely