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The UCU Left
is a national organisation of University and College Union activists.
It is committed to ensuring that the new union has a democratic structure through which
members can determine policy, and elected officers and professional officials can be
held accountable. It seeks to defend educational equality, and to oppose the consequences of neo-liberal marketisation.
It is opposed to all forms of racism, sexism, oppression and imperialism. |
| UCU/NUT/PCS - PAY STRIKES 24th APRIL 2008 Massive Support for Fightback Thursday! |
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| By Howard Miles, Bradford College UCU & UCU NEC (pc) |
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April 24th, Fightback Thursday, has been an inspiring start to our campaign for better pay and to defend
education. Today was the most widespread united action over pay for decades. 400,000 of us brought schools, colleges and
job centres to a halt. 25,000 strikers in Birmingham linked the strike over equal pay and regrading with the
fight over public sector pay. Shelter workers joined the strike as well. Students joined the rallies and UCU
picket lines wearing stickers in support of their lecturers' action. It's estimated that 25,000 public sector
workers were on picket lines and at rallies today. |
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The many joint rallies have been absolutely fantastic, with marches in places like Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham
and several parts of London. The biggest turnout was 10,000 in London, but there were thousands elesewhere as well -
2,500 in Bristol, 1,000 in Sheffield, over 500 in Leeds, 250 in Bradford. The UCU leaflets went down well and lots
of teachers and lecturers showed interest in the joint UCU Left/STA '
Education for Liberation' conference on 14th June. The NUT action closed thousands of schools. Even the national press was predicting up to 9,000 school closures. Most English colleges were largely devoid of teaching staff and students, leaving the managers to manage each other. Because many school heads had decided to close their schools the number of NUT picket lines was sometimes limited (this was certainly the case in Leeds and Bradford) yet conversely, because most colleges remained open, UCU picket lines were often big and lively. People were joining UCU right up to the strike day and on the day itself and there were similar stories about recruitment to the NUT. What all this shows is that UCU Left supporters were absolutely right to reject the pay cut last year, right to link pay to the need to defend further education, and right to fight for a joint campaign with the NUT. The slogan 'Our Schools, Our Colleges, Our Communities' was a big hit today precisely because, as virtually anyone you spoke to said, this is about pay, but about so much more than pay. It's also about workloads, about educational quality, about funding, about privatisation and the effects of the market. The numbers turning up to the rallies shows how keen public sector trade unionists are to fight together against the pay cuts. NUT members, UCU, PCS all had big delegations from our workplaces with our banners and placards. Many speakers' platforms included Unison members, Shelter workers, school students and NUS members. Messages of support from other groups of workers, MPs and others were read out. What struck me was how young the picket lines and rallies often were. This was a whole new generation of public sector workers often on their first outing into trade union action, their first time on strike and largely free of the demoralisation that followed the shattering defeats of the 1980's. Now we need to urgently discuss the next phases of the campaign. At the Leeds rally Patrick Murphy of the NUT national executive took a straw poll of support for another ballot for strike action in the NUT. It was unanimous. The next NUT NEC meeting hopefully will reflect that urge to build the campaign and empower more strike action. UCU FEC last week agreed that we need to have a Special FEC meeting in the first half of May. We need to think about how we can involve the maximum number of members in the pay campaigning. We need to think about what forms of action short of strike action we can implement, and we need to think about building for another strike day. The most obvious date is June 9th, the TUC national lobby of parliament. Between us the several unions in dispute about pay could build a really massive lobby. What a day that could be! Brown's government is now in utter disarray. He's wobbling around like a kelliwobble man over the 10% tax rate, forced into retreat by the opposition from a minority of Labour MPs who are more in touch with the outrage among their constituents than most. After next week, and the drubbing New Labour will get at the polls, they will be even more vulnerable. Many speakers at the rallies today expressed the hope that the huge number of workers organised by Unison Health and Unison Local Government would decide to join the action. And the other teaching unions, especially NAS/UWT members, must now be looking at today's action and thinking 'why aren't we involved with this'? Nor must we forget the other unions in the FE National Trade Union Side who are part of the joint claim we have submitted to the AoC, to which we will receive a response in early May. UCU members should be talking especially to Unison members in the colleges about joining our fight. Many of them are very interested to find out that our leadership actually asked UCU members whether they wanted to accept a below inflation deal rather than have it accepted on their behalf by their negotiators. So, Fightback Thursday's been a brilliant inspiring day. Let's build on it! |
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| Related Material | |||||||||
May 12th - Report to FE Branches from Negotiators - details here Apr 30th - Wales FE - Strike Wins Assembly Support - details here Apr 20th - Wales FE - Report of April 16th Strike Action - details here |
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