At this year’s National Union of Teachers conference (29 March – 2 April, Liverpool), delegates debated what strategy the NUT should adopt in response to Michael Gove’s attacks on teachers’ pay, due to come into effect in September 2012.
The NUT Executive’s priority motion promised a rolling programme of industrial action alongside NASUWT (Britain’s other major teaching union), leading up to national action sometime in the autumn. But the proposal was devoid of strategy or even any concrete commitments about when action would take place. This is despite existing NUT policy which should commit the Executive to announcing specific calendars of action for industrial disputes, which was passed at the 2012 Conference and has been flouted by the leadership.
The Local Associations Network National Action Campaign (LANAC), a rank-and-file network within NUT, held a large fringe meeting of over 150 people on the Friday of conference to discuss what amendment to propose to the Executive’s policy. Workers’ Liberty members in LANAC wanted to propose an amendment setting out a comprehensive programme of action, including a national strike in May. Unfortunately, delegates from the Socialist Workers Party packed the meeting and won a narrow vote which meant LANAC’s amendment would simply propose a national strike on 26 June (the day before an already-scheduled regional strike in the north west). The amendment was heavily lost on conference floor.
While it is unlikely that an amendment proposing a more radical and comprehensive programme of action would have passed, it would at least have raised the level of debate. The SWP promoted approach simply added another token one day strike to an already woeful strategy, a strategy we will nevertheless have to implement and seek to strengthen from the bottom up.
Despite the setback on the pay debate, LANAC continued to develop as a serious rank-and-file force in the union. Its two fringe meetings were both attended by between 100 and 150 people. It now has plans for a steering committee meeting in Birmingham on 18 May and a national conference shortly afterwards.
The task for LANAC activists now is to build the regional strike on 27 June and make sure it has a national amplification by organising protests and other actions elsewhere on the same day. LANAC will also be pushing the Executive to stop ignoring agreed union policy by refusing to name an explicit calendar of action, as well as publishing bulletins for NUT members to plug the information gap left by the union leadership’s failure to produce adequate information about the pay campaign.
