Rank-and file teachers organise

Submitted by Matthew on 6 June, 2012 - 10:39

National Union of Teachers activists will meet in Liverpool on Saturday 16 June to found a new network based on local branches (divisions and associations) of the union.

The Local Associations for National Action conference is the product of rank-and-file initiatives at this year’s NUT AGM, where teachers angry at the leadership’s caution and ultimate capitulation over the pensions fight organised together to intervene into the conference debate, holding fringe meetings attended by up to 150 people. The conference will discuss a statement drafted by the steering committee elected at the AGM fringe meetings, with delegates being invited to submit amendments.

Workers’ Liberty teachers, who were integral to initiating the conference, plan to bring amendments arguing for the network to be open to all school workers (not just teachers).

Although still an embryonic project, the conference represents one of the most important initiatives in the British labour movement today.

The current model of union “broad lefts” is of loose agglomerations of like-minded individuals which function essentially as electoral machines or as mechanisms for getting policy on the left’s favoured international issues passed through unions conference. The 16 June conference seeks to break with that model and organise rank-and-file union members on the basis of a shared commitment to militant industrial strategy and union democracy.

The network could help reinvigorate genuine rank-and-fileism in the education sector and across the wider trade union movement.

• The conference takes place from 10:3am on Saturday 16 June at the Quaker Meeting House, 22 School Lane, Liverpool L1 3BT. Conference website here.

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