Hackney ballot wins significant workload gains

NUT members at Morningside Primary School have secured some significant gains after a strong 17 to 1 ballot in favour of strike action helped make sure that a new “Work-Life Balance Policy” was adopted by the school.

The policy - drafted jointly by Peet Naude, the school NUT rep, Mick Regan, the Hackney NUT Secretary, and myself – contains provisions that should provide some real protection against excessive workload.

Importantly, as well as clearly defining the 1265 hours of directed time and confirming NUT policy over meetings and observations, the policy also sets down limits to the additional ‘undirected’ hours that are mainly responsible for the 50+ hour weeks that so many teachers endure. It includes a demand that all activities are time-audited and that no new initiative is introduced without considering their impact on work-life balance.

Key points include:
• Following consultation, a regular calendar of meetings, deadlines and events will be provided to staff so that they can plan ahead and adjust their workload so as to help maintain a work-life balance.
• As part of our commitment to achieving a reasonable work-life balance, we agree to regularly audit staff to estimate the amount of additional hours that teachers are typically carrying out per week. Where an audit shows that a particular policy, format or initiative is contributing to excessive workload, or when it is raised by trade unions on behalf of staff, the school will consult and review the policy, format or initiative to seek to reduce workload pressures.
• We recognise that NUT policy seeks to limit the overall number of hours worked to a 35 hour week and commit to seeking to reduce overall working hours to this limit.
• Teachers must be able to exercise their own professional judgement and be able to use the need to maintain a work-life balance as a legitimate reason to decide to limit the time taken on carrying out a task. For example, a teacher could decide to limit the number of books that they were able to mark in detail within a whole class set of books.
• Properly conducted exit interviews, or use of exit questionnaires, when staff resign to find out if problems with work-life balance led to the resignation.
• Consultation between the head or deputy head and NQTs, new appointees, and those promoted internally, 6 weeks after they take up their new post, to explore work-life balance issues and to see if the school can offer further support.
• All new initiatives will be fully discussed with teachers and consulted upon before being implemented. Those consultations should include an audit of the working hours that might be required to implement the initiative and, therefore, consideration of what other tasks or initiatives will need be reduced or withdrawn in order to maintain a reasonable work-life balance.
• Teachers will not be expected to check email after 5 O’Clock Friday or during holiday periods.
• A yearly audit of planning to make it more streamlined
• Teachers not expected to take work home at week-ends
• Any PPA lost due to school closures, illness of cover teacher etc to be repaid within 3 weeks.

As with any policy, the key will now be to make sure it is implemented in practice. It is certainly a policy that could be used as a model for other schools to take on and adapt. Do get in touch if you would like a full copy of the agreed policy sent to you.

Martin Powell-Davies

Two members of West Sussex NUT (President and Equalities officer - Derek and Angela) went with Crawley Trades Council to Tolpuddle this year.

There are a series of events celebrating the release of six trade unionists - the Tolpuddle Martyrs - arrested and transported in 1834 for joining a union.

More information is available from Tolpuddle museum, which is supported by the NUT.

It was a good occasion and an opportunity to see the three teachers' unions taking part in the same march and under the same slogan "Save our Schools".

It came as a surprise to see the Labour Party gracing us with their presence and talking about "this dreadful academies programme" - I expected to see a few pigs flying around but no.

The Labour Party is pro-war, pro-privatisation and viciously anti trade union.
I imagine if New Labour had been around in those days they would have locked up the Tolpuddle Martyrs without the formality of a trial and probably carted them off to Guantanamo for good measure.

The Trades Council coach only cost a tenner and we will seek to get more teachers (history teachers for example) involved next time.

Capita(lism) = we have cuts, they have "opportunities"

Capita is a firm which will be familiar to any teacher who has tried to use SIMS in school and found themselves using very outre language while waiting for yet another upgrade while you desperately try to do the register.

According to the Guardian (16 July 2010) "Richard Marchant, head of local government strategic partnerships at Capita, an FTSE-100 company which already works for councils in Harrow, Swindon, Southampton and Sheffield, said: "A major problem for the public sector is, we feel, a significant opportunity for us. Opportunities are at their highest level in two to three years. This year we have probably seen a 100% increase in opportunities [compared with 2009] and I suspect we will see another 50% increase in the following year."

So bear that in mind when politicians tell you cuts are necessary - the net effect to channel public money into the capacious pockets of the likes of Capita.

It is ironic in the extreme that this was published in the Guardian. The Guardian urged people to vote Liberal Democrat to keep the Tories out.
They should be in sackcloth and ashes for at least the next five years.

And Capita have profited greatly from the privatisation agenda of the former New Labour Government.

The unions need to oppose the privatisation agenda whichever canaille is in power!

July Classroom Teacher Out Now

It's the last month of a long year but it's definitely still important to circulate one more copy of Classroom Teacher!

This month's copy emphasises the need for national action on Academies and Cuts and reports from two NUT Associations that have passed calls for action.

The back-page is designed as a leaflet that can be used for both parents and staff to oppose Academies - particularly those that have appeared on the DfE's list of schools 'registering an interest'.

Martin Powell-Davies for Classroom Teacher.

We need national action against these cuts

JUST HOW POOR do they think our memories are? This Government wants the public to believe that it is the ‘excesses’ of overpaid public sector workers, with our ‘gold-plated’ pensions, that are to blame for the debt crisis.

But that’s just not true. Do they think that we have forgotten that it was the reckless gambling by greedy financiers that led to this crisis? Or that it was the unprecedented multi-billion pound bailout of these banks that created these state deficits?

Our pay and pensions are not to blame. After all, despite the pay campaign that included national teachers’ strike action in 2008, recent pay awards have really been pay cuts. Teachers will still get a 2.3% pay award in September but inflation stands at over 5%. Then the Tories tell us we’ll get a two-year pay freeze from 2011-13. In real terms, that’s at least a 10% cut.

Public sector pensions were reviewed as recently as 2005. The Government and unions agreed changes that protected the retirement age for existing teachers but increased our contribution rates too. That was supposed to ensure the scheme was fully budgeted for.

Now the Government have set up a new Public Services Pensions Commission that is due to make its first report in September. It’s clear that this is going to be used to mount a huge attack on our living standards and pension provisions.

If that wasn’t enough, Osborne’s Budget announced 25% cuts in Whitehall spending over the next five years. The Comprehensive Spending Review in October will spell out where those cuts will fall. However, local councils are already warning of big cuts and job losses to come.

This is no surprise to the Government. A leaked Treasury document confirms they expect over half a million public sector jobs to be lost by 2015, plus even more in the private sector.

But these huge cuts won’t even save the economy as Ministers pretend - they’ll wreck it. Countries like Ireland - where pensions and pay have already been cut - show that the economy and deficits will just get worse, not better.

This Government is really just using the recession as an excuse - to help their friends by cutting corporation tax while they attack the rest of us. It’s also their excuse to attack both our national conditions and our public services through Academies, Free Schools and other privatisation plans. We must not fall for their lies.

THIS IS THE MOTION THAT WAS AGRRED IN LEWISHAM NUT:
This Association agrees that the Union, locally and nationally, must mount a determined campaign to defend pay, pensions and conditions and our schools and public services from this Government’s cuts and privatisation plans.

We are angered that the Budget is targeting public sector workers by proposing that teachers and other colleagues pay for a financial crisis that was none of our making. These cuts will only damage our living standards and damage the economy as well.

We oppose the Academies Bill and Gove’s plans for Free Schools. Both proposals are intended to dismantle Local Authority schooling so as to undermine planned local comprehensive provision and staff pay, conditions and trade union organisation.

We recognise that the severity of these attacks requires an urgent response from trade unions and local communities working together to defend public services.

Locally:
• We urge all school reps to organise joint union school meetings to explain to staff about the attacks we face and to organise joint opposition to cuts and Academies.
• We ask every NUT member to feedback any news that they hear about schools seeking to become Academies so that we can target our campaigning activities.
• We invite NUT members to attend the NUT Officers’ Committee on Monday July 5th at the LLDC where we will be reviewing our local campaigning activity.
• We agree to liaise with other unions, the Trades Council and other local campaigns to set up a joint committee to oppose cuts and attacks on services, support each other’s campaigns and to organise further protests, meetings and public activities.

Nationally:
We call on the NUT Executive and the emergency SFC Committee to:
• Urgently liaise with other trade unions and the TUC to fix a date for a national trade union called demonstration to focus opposition to cuts and privatisation
• Announce that we will be balloting for national strike action against the Government attacks in the Autumn Term and to call on members and Local Associations to build for a successful ballot result.

The TUC should get off its knees!

Margaret Thatcher always advised her friends only to employ a gardener who had patches on the knees of his trousers. Thatcherites like the working classes on their knees and the present coalition is no exception.

The NSSN is potentially very useful for public sector unions to co-ordinate actions and simply to exchange information. Various unions have produced data on the “gold plated” public sector pensions one reads about in the media. The median pension for PCS members is 8000 pounds a year – you couldn’t get gold-plated cufflinks on that.

There was a wide range of participants from pensioner activists who reported on the number of OAPs who are up in arms about the government’s plans…down to the Youth Fight for Jobs representatives who are seeking to secure a future for school-leavers.

The representatives of the BA cabin crews got a standing ovation – as you would expect really.

Linda Taaffe moved the keynote resolution . She is using her so-called retirement to invigorate the NSSN.

The resolution aimed to get the TUC off its knees. The suggestion is that union branches and individual members should be urging them to organise a national protest against the cuts. This is in contrast to their current plan of inviting David Cameron round for tea. Matt Wrack of the FBU said this was about as useful as having a chat with the hangman about what kind of knot you want.

A number of trade unions support NSSN at the highest level – the PCS, POA, RTM and FBU for example. The NSSN will work with the official Trade Union Congress when possible but without it when necessary. We have no plans to invite David Cameron to our next conference.

Report from the June NUT National Executive

LET’S BUILD JOINT NATIONAL ACTION
The National Executive met before the June 22 Budget but it was clear that the Government was planning to make public sector workers pay for the costs of a crisis that was none of our making. By the time you read this Report, you may already know exactly what cuts have been announced. Do they propose the same kind of attacks as Irish workers have faced where a 7% pensions levy and a 5% pay cut have added up to a 12% cut in incomes for some public sector workers?

Those cuts may have helped renew ‘confidence’ - i.e. bankers’ profits - but, as a TUC pamphlet given to the Executive points out, have done nothing to revive Ireland’s economy. The same will be true in Britain. We have to mount a joint struggle to defend our living standards - and to prevent cuts that will only further undermine the economy and cut jobs and vital services.

This Government threatens teachers and other workers with cuts and privatisation. We have to respond - and quickly. We must organise joint action linking together different unions - and build support in our communities.

Within the Executive - and the Union as a whole - there is a serious debate about what action to call, and when. My own view is that we have to send a clear signal to Government that we aren’t accepting these attacks - by saying that we will ballot for national strike action. We should set a date for a ballot next term and urgently start the work in schools to make sure that we win it.

No firm timetable was set at the June meeting but the Executive agreed unanimously to an amendment calling on a new emergency committee to be given the job of:
* Developing an action strategy, up to and including local and national strike action, as part of the Union’s campaign against academies, cuts, attacks on pay & pensions and other government actions.
* Co-ordinating action with other unions when possible
* As a first task, considering action to meet the immediate challenges of Academies and the Budget.

As the amendment states, local and national action can both play their part. We will certainly support ballots for action in schools facing cuts or where governors want them to become Academies. But it will be other schools in a Local Authority that will also be hit as Free Schools and Academies take away vital funding and undermine pupil admissions in neighbouring schools. That’s why I suggested that we might ballot members across the whole of an Authority - to defend the whole Authority. This strategy will now also be considered.

In preparation for joint national action, the NUT, PCS and other unions are urging the TUC to call a national demonstration. We hope that firm plans can be agreed soon. Locally as well, NUT branches should link-up with other unions to plan joint activities against cuts.

Martin Powell-Davies