Education unions

The first instalment of this article ( Solidarity 765) looked back at the strike at Poundswick High School in Wythenshawe, south Manchester, in 1985, from which several lessons stand out to me for today. Firstly, considering the dynamics of strikes about “behaviour” — not just how a dispute starts, but what it *becomes*. Had the Poundswick strike remained solely on the issues of teachers sent home, with demands arising from that, it would have been a very different thing. But it didn’t. It was about “behaviour”. Secondly, these dynamics can be affected by outside forces, as well as the...

This is the first of a series on schools. This part looks at trade union disputes about student behaviour. Later parts will look at positive ideas for school culture. The 2026 conference of the National Education Union debated a motion titled “Tackling the violence and behaviour crisis in schools, a union-led campaign”. It was a composite of two motions, one submitted by South East Hampshire and one by Portsmouth. It started by noting “the escalating behaviour crisis in schools across England and Wales”. It referred to the 2025 report by another school worker union, Nasuwt, Behaviour in...

The strike action by the NASUWT teachers’ union at St Cuthbert’s High School in Rochdale, reported in Solidarity 762, has been suspended, with results of a ballot for action in the same school due before Easter. The Nasuwt action was over student behaviour, rooted in the decline of the school since being forced by the Diocese of Liverpool to join the St Theresa’s multi-academy trust (MAT). The (highly paid) management of the MAT have removed posts from the school and left vacant posts unfilled, at the same time as imposing cuts on provision central to good relationships in the school. The...

Members of the Nasuwt teachers’ union at St Cuthbert’s High School in Rochdale have started nine days of strikes described by their union as being “over the failure of the trust leadership to provide adequate staffing and resources and to put in place systems to address violent and abusive behaviour from some pupils”. Whilst press reports focus on pupil behaviour, the issue is actually the decline of the school since it was forced by the Catholic Diocese of Liverpool to join an academy trust, St Teresa of Calcutta Catholic Academy Trust. Staff in the school have told Solidarity that the school...

Queen Mary London UCU reports five more universities announcing cuts to staffing just in late August and early September. In the last two years thousands of jobs have been lost, and courses or in some cases entire departments shuttered. Half of all universities are making cuts to jobs and courses. The pace continues unchecked. University of Sheffield bosses agreed, after strikes, to a stay of execution and no further job losses for 2024-5. Roll forward a few months and a new programme of cuts is being forced through. Staff there are balloting for new strikes. That story repeats itself up and...

We republish a statement from the Teachers' Union of Iran (Tehran), part of the Coordination Council of Iranian Educators' Professional Organisations. It was originally published on the union's Telegram channel.

As of 23 April 2025 Nasuwt has confirmed that Matt Wrack has the job, uncontested. The rival candidate was not able to get enough nominations to allow a ballot. An earlier version of this article reported that the Nasuwt executive had considered Mick Lynch, former general secretary of the rail and transport union RMT, as a candidate for their general secretary position. Mick Lynch has written to us to correct this: “I did not apply and would not have done so on principle”. We apologise for the error. Matt Wrack, who was General Secretary of the Fire Brigades Union from 2005 until January this...

The confrontation between black and Puerto Rican communities and the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) in Ocean Hill-Brownsville, Brooklyn, New York, 1968, was a bitter and unfortunate struggle and a setback for workers’ unity and the fight against racism. The teachers’ union organised three militant strikes in 1968, eventually decisively winning, and so putting an end to an experiment in community control of local schooling. The teachers’ union struggle was right, broadly, but there is no denying that the conflict produced lasting damage, dividing workers along communal lines, between...

Over 500 people took part in the 24 June March for Education in Glasgow city centre. Initiated by the umbrella Glasgow City Parents group, the march was also backed by the NASUWT, the AHDS (Scottish head and deputy-head teachers union), the GMB, Unison and the EIS (the main teachers’ union in Scotland). The trigger for the demonstration was the decision of the Glasgow City Council SNP-Scottish Greens coalition to cut teacher numbers in Glasgow by 172 this year, and by a further 450 over the next three years. But the demonstration also raised broader demands, directed primarily at the Scottish...

The campaign of rolling strike action by EIS FELA – the Further Education section of the Scottish teachers' union – entered its third week on 28 May.