Teachers organised in the National Education Union (NEU) are striking over pay, real-term funding cuts, and Labour’s insidious attempts to push state schools towards academisation.
32 colleges are either on strike or are set to strike in the coming weeks. Revolutionary Communist Party members across Britain visited their picket lines in solidarity (read their reports below).
Academies have been offered a 5.5 percent pay rise by the government. This is above the rate of inflation, but barely makes up for the 29.5 percent fall in real wages since 2010 for sixth form college teachers.
Scandalously however, sixth forms that have not become academies have been denied this pay rise.
Like true cowards, Starmer’s government hasn’t offered any explanation for this ‘head-scratching’ decision, showing once again the complete bankruptcy of this government.
But Labour’s motives are clear enough to the staff that we spoke to, who can see that they’re being held at ransom: Starmer and co. are merely continuing previous Tory governments’ policy to accelerate academisation.
Shockingly, college funding has fallen by 20 percent since 2010. But academisation – which essentially turns schools into businesses competing against one another – will do nothing to redress this funding shortfall.
Instead, academies are already asked to fund their 5.5 percent pay rise through cuts to other parts of school budgets.
Their berserker CEOs will wield the axe to slash through all manner of educational standards – all while smugly awarding themselves six-figure salaries and handing out juicy contracts to private companies.
Schools are vital centres of learning for future generations. But none of that matters for Starmer and his big-business chums in the City of London. All they care about are their bottom-lines. A system that cannot invest in its own future doesn’t deserve a future!
The funding for a high-quality, fully public and free education exists. But it sits in the accounts of the big banks and monopolies, and their shareholders’ pockets.
The Revolutionary Communist Party says:
- Solidarity with the NEU! Fair pay for teachers!
- Reverse academisation! Schools are not businesses!
- No to Labour’s austerity! For socialist policies to fund education!
Saint Francis Xavier Sixth Form, South West London
George Williams, NEU (personal capacity)
We may have a ‘Labour’ government in power, but you wouldn’t know it in the Education sector.
Sixth form staff have been completely left out of the government’s new pay offer. Rather insulting, considering the clean up job we do in the sector. Hence why the NEU and education workers are fighting back!
My co-workers and I arrived bright and early to build a strong presence on our picket line. Positioned just by the gate to the college, we were in the perfect position to speak to other staff, passers-by and most importantly our students.
The picket was also supported by local activists and another local South London RCP member. Despite the bitter cold, we were universally supported in our struggle & many workers stopped to chat, take stickers & leaflets etc.
Moreover, politics was on the agenda! We engaged in conversations ranging from the economic demands of the strike itself to the role of worker’s democracy in the early years of the Soviet Union.
One colleague commented that ‘we so rarely get to speak about politics at work because we are so busy’. And indeed, Lenin described revolutions as ‘festivals of the oppressed’. Strikes often do the very same, even if on a micro level.
Victory to the NEU! Workers of the world, unite!
Cardinal Newman College, Preston
Callum Parkinson, Preston
On Thursday morning, two comrades from Preston went to support the NEU teachers’ strike at Cardinal Newman College.
The RCP’s solidarity and support was very much welcomed on the picket, and we were even invited to a joint Wetherspoons breakfast afterwards!
When we first arrived, as strikers first began filtering onto the picket, there were only a handful of teachers outside the college entrance – some of whom were on their way into work, since they were organised in a different union, the NASUWT, which hadn’t organised to join the strike.
There was clear frustration on both sides of the divide at the fact that colleagues were split into two separate unions, which hadn’t coordinated strike action together. A NASUWT member expressed his support, saying:
“We should be on strike. We’re in the minority as Sixth Form teachers as it is – we should either have two unions which strike together, or one that’s united!
“What am I paying [union fees] for if they’re not going to fight my case?”
For him, the need for militant action is becoming “more and more obvious”.
One teacher called the government’s lack of justification for denying non-academy sixth forms a pay rise “pathetic”.
However, there was also an understanding that this is part of a broader attempt to apply pressure to staff and to push academisation – a policy initiated by the Tories and continued by Labour.
Regarding Labour’s austerity, a regional union rep told us:
“If you think all your prayers will be answered under a Labour government – think again!
“We’re just seen as militant loons and ‘woke’ extremists – that’s what the media paints us as. What’s extreme about redistributing wealth and power?
“If Labour isn’t there to redistribute wealth and power, what’s it there for?”
The only force which can take wealth and power into the hands of the workers isn’t Labour or any big business party, but the workers themselves!
It’s clear that there’s plenty of frustration amongst educators after being underpaid and overworked for so long. This is completely justified, and is the case in many other parts of the public sector.
Preston RCP will be at the picket lines again on Tuesday and Wednesday in greater numbers, supporting the strikers through the wintery northern weather.
Notre Dame Sixth Form College, Leeds
Amy Harris, Leeds
At Notre Dame Sixth Form College in Leeds, 80 percent of the teachers participated in the NEU ballot and 100 percent of those voters agreed to strike. Comrades from the Leeds RCP attended the picket line in solidarity.
One young history teacher expressed feelings of frustration and betrayal:
“This is my fourth year teaching. When I became a teacher, I thought it was a safe profession, that the progression was guaranteed and that you would be receiving fair pay.”
She went on to state: “We’re not just going to accept what we’re getting because we’ve got Labour [in government]. I’ve always been Labour, my whole family have always been Labour, and it feels like they’re not caring about us anymore.”
Another teacher and union representative spoke to us about his worries that the government is trying to casualise the education sector:
“If we lose our collective pay and conditions, we’re worried we’ll end up like our colleagues in Further Education colleges, with casualised contracts and no holiday pay.”
Such underfunding leads to an increase in class sizes and a decrease in staff retention, affecting both teacher workload and quality of education.
It is abundantly clear who Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves represent. The economic policy of the UK serves capitalist investors, while only scraps are awarded to education.
But education workers are seeing right through the lies and distortions of the current Labour government. As another teacher on the picket line put so eloquently:
“At the heart of [the education sector], there needs to be somebody who’s interested in education… somebody who has been in the classroom and knows what’s going on.”
There is no place for profit in education. We must overthrow the rotten capitalist system, and take the future of the next generation into our own hands!
Hills Road Sixth Form, Cambridge
Jo Bunkle, Anglia Ruskin University worker
On 28 November, Cambridge RCP members attended the first strike day of NEU members at Hills Road Sixth Form.
Despite the cold weather spirits were high, and the breakfast pastries we brought went down a treat with the strikers.
As it stands, academies are given more funding by the government. This in spite of them receiving no public oversight – which state schools have for instance through democratically elected parent-teacher councils.
Instead, academy trusts are run by unelected chief executives who decide where funding is allocated, including the vast amounts that go into their salaries.
Two-thirds of academy trust chief executives are paid over £100,000 per year, adding a further £106 million to the running of schools. Privatisation does not lead to efficiency!
According to the government, academies are given more funding as they ‘build skills’. Do state schools not teach ‘skills’ in mathematics, the English language, or the arts? Not according to our big business-backed Labour government, apparently.
The local president of the NEU correctly highlighted that, though the government insists there’s no money for schools at the moment, they seem to have more than enough to give to the IDF to rain fire down upon children in Palestine.
We completely agree. ‘Our’ imperialist government has thrown its interests entirely behind the warmongers, and it is more than happy to let the working class foot the bill.
This shows the need for workers’ control in our schools and workers’ democracy in the state. Under workers’ oversight, resources can be allocated correctly based on schools’ needs, not redirected towards bloated senior management teams.
