Education unions

Delegates will meet at the National Union of Teachers Conference in Manchester this month (21-24 March) in the middle of the union’s first national strike ballot for 22 years. Most activists are expecting a strong yes vote to endorse the union’s opposition to a 2008-10 pay deal which offers three further years of pay cuts. Tory-era trade union laws on balloting have however made it much harder for workers to take part in union ballots and much more likely that they will not even receive a ballot paper. Such conditions may effect turnout in this ballot. Should the ballot be successful, however...

Around 200,000 teachers in the National Union of Teachers (NUT) will receive ballot papers from 28 February asking them to vote for strike action on pay. The importance of a yes vote and a good turnout in this ballot cannot be overstated. A good result would lead to the first national teachers’ strike in over twenty years. The strike is planned for Thursday 24 April. More importantly, teachers are the first group of public sector workers to respond to a pay offer for the 2008 pay round. A successful ballot and strike action could set the tone for more widespread action across the public sector...

Amendments for NUT conference on Workload and on War Amendment to motion 8 on Workload. Under 'Conference therefore instructs the Executive to' add new point (viii) and renumber accordingly. '(viii) ensure that such guidance encourages divisions and associations to identify the key workload concerns in individual schools and the willingness of members to take action and to seek to co-ordinate that action across the maximum number of schools. Members should be encouraged to consider a wide range of actions including refusal to hand-in short-term planning, to plan to a prescribed format or to...

This leaflet from Leeds NUT outlines the reasons why teachers are fighting for better pay. Activists in every union, especially public sector unions, need to put the teachers’ case to other groups of workers. This is an important pay battle that we should all help the teachers to win. A special meeting of the NUT National Executive on 24 January decided to call on its members to support industrial action to challenge the teachers pay award for 2008-11. The ballot will open on 28 February and the planned strike day is Thursday 24 April. Here are ten key reasons for teachers to support this call...

The lecturers' union UCU plans to ballot its members in Further Education colleges to strike over pay alongside the National Union of Teachers on 24 April. UCU says: Our colleagues in the National Union of Teachers (NUT) have recently rejected a pay settlement of 2.45% and are to ballot for strike action on the 24 April. Just like the pay offer of 2.55% made for FE this year, this award is well below inflation and represents a pay cut for members. UCU continues to reject the offer for this year (now imposed in the majority of colleges) and is joining the other FE unions in submitting a new...

The Executive of the National Union of Teachers has decided to ballot the union for strike action over pay on 24 April. The strike will protest against the official Pay Review Body's decision for a three-year formula of increases of 2.45% 2008-9, 2.3% 2009-10, and 2.3% 2010-11, when inflation is running at 4%. It is set to be the first union action in the 2008 pay round against the Government's line that public sector pay rises must be kept around 2% (i.e. be cuts in real wages) and locked into three-year deals. The next big sections coming up are local government and health, both of which...

For the shareholders and potential buyers of Northern Rock, the Government is all smiles and graces. Another few billion pounds? Yes, sir, of course! For millions of public sector workers, it is a different story. The Government is insisting not only on a limit of around 2% on pay rises - which, with inflation at 4%, means cuts in real wages - but also on locking that in with settlements lasting three years. A first blow against that policy is possible on 31 January, when members of the PCS civil service union in the Department of Work and Pensions may strike against a three-year below...

"Teachers have to pay increases in the cost of housing, fuel and food. This settlement is in effect a pay cut," said National Union of Teachers general secretary Steve Sinnott as schools minister Ed Balls announced on 15 January that the pay review body had recommended increases of 2.45% in September 2008 and 2.3% in each of the following two years, and that the Government would comply. With inflation (RPI) running at 4.0%, and the acceleration of food and fuel prices not likely to slow soon, Sinnott is right about the deal being a pay cut. The NUT has already-established policy to ballot for...

The AWL teachers' bulletin for NUT Divisional Secretaries' meeting 9 January 2008 (download pdf below, "attachment") called on the NUT to "step forward" against the Government's 2% limit on public sector pay rises. "Wherever we can co-ordinate action with others we should. But the fact is that someone will have to step forward and start the campaign to resist Brown’s 2% limit. Unless we rise to that challenge no-one else will. If we do, we will increase the confidence of others..."