Teachers' rank-and-file network decides on election push

Submitted by AWL on 2 February, 2014 - 10:40

The Local Associations National Action Campaign (LANAC), the rank-and-file network in the National Union of Teachers (NUT), held its latest conference in Leicester on 1 February.

NUT National Executive member Patrick Murphy reported that there would now be a national strike before the end of March, with the date to be announced on 7 February. Promises to follow the three well-supported regional strikes last year with a joint national strike by NUT and NASUWT have now been broken twice by the two unions. All delegates agreed that the immediate priority now was to build for the March strike, but that it could not hope to win significant concessions from the government unless it was followed by a campaign of action which kept members mobilised and Gove under pressure.

LANAC has been the only force in the NUT arguing consistently for a planned and escalating campaign of strikes and other action that can win. Until now, that has been done via motions to branches, proposals made on the union’s National Executive, at Annual Conference, and through agitational material produced at key events in the dispute.

The conference made some key decisions which will step up that work in a major way. In particular, it was overwhelmingly agreed that LANAC should support candidates in the forthcoming elections for General Secretary and Deputy General Secretary of the NUT. These candidates will seek nominations based on principles agreed by LANAC, including the need for a serious fight on pay, pensions, and workload, a focus on organising in workplaces, developing and supporting reps, and a commitment to take on paid positions on a teachers’ salary.

The discussion and debate reflected the fact that this was a major step for LANAC to take. When it came to the vote, however, there was only minimal opposition to the proposal. An amendment was presented to the meeting by supporters of the SWP which would have deleted the proposal to compete in these elections. They argued that this would move away from the original aims of LANAC and turn the network into an electoral front. Their amendment insisted that it was for political groups with individual membership to decide whether to run candidates in union elections.

As one delegate said in the debate, this represented everything that was wrong with previous practice in the union: until now, a self-appointed, official “left” has confronted the branches of the union with its own chosen leaders, who then fight elections on their own terms. It will be a very good thing indeed if that can be replaced with a more representative and accountable process. The fact that the SWP-inspired amendment was lost by 18 votes to 3, attracting no support beyond their ranks, suggests that this new approach will be welcomed by the associations affiliated to LANAC and beyond.

The LANAC conference also decided that the candidates to be supported for these elections should be Martin Powell Davies of Lewisham for General Secretary and Patrick Murphy of Leeds for Deputy General Secretary. That proposal was made by Eleanor Davies from Lewisham and Gemma Short of Rotherham and was overwhelmingly supported.

The other important business at the conference was a revised set of aims for LANAC. Much of the original remains but there were commitments to mobilise for specific ballots and actions which are now no longer relevant. As well as removing these the revised aims include the intervention in elections, a commitment to a lay-led union with all negotiations in the hands of elected reps and members, a collective organising approach including by the development of academy chain “branches”, and for the collective defence of victimised school reps.

LANAC will, for the first time, have its own base at NUT Conference in Brighton at Easter, where the future of the national campaign will be decided. That conference, and the imminent elections, offer a huge opportunity for LANAC to build its profile across the union, broaden participation and take the case for a serious escalation and a turn to much more effective industrial organising to the whole membership.

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