Despite leftie-bashing by the Times newspaper, with the help of former General Secretary Fred Jarvis, a sizeable minority of National Union of Teachers members voted for LANAC NUT General Secretary candidate Martin Powell-Davies.
Martin, who stood on a platform calling for escalated and co-ordinated industrial action against Gove’s measures, gained 27% of the vote against incumbent Christine Blower. The result was declared on 25 June.
The lack of union publicity about the election was reflected in the very poor 13% turnout. It cannot have been helped by the union repeatedly marching members up the hill into strike action only to demobilise them for months at a time.
The 10 July strike action must not be allowed to become yet another example of this pattern.
LANAC is also standing Patrick Murphy for the position of Deputy General Secretary. Nominations close on 1 December. It will be important to build on the result of the General Secretary election. NUT members should urge their associations to hold hustings for the two candidates.
This will be as much of a referendum on the current union leadership’s policy as the General Secretary election was.
