Bulletin of the Opposition!

[Derek McMillan]

http://socialistteachers.org.uk/PublicationTLR.pdf

New newsletter from Lewisham NUT on TLR.

The government are cutting your pay.

Should they be allowed to get away with it?

NUT reps cannot be excluded from discussions on TLR. If your head (like some in West Sussex) sets up a secret committee to discuss TLR, get their reasons in writing, and publicise them as widely as possible.

[Derek McMillan]

The Socialist Party Teachers' bulletin is available online

here

There is an Open Office/Word version and an HTML version.

Articles include:

Academies

Asian earthquake

Behaviour

Building a strong workplace-based union

Bullying

Class_size

Campaign for a New Workers Party

Faith schools

Free_market reforms

Iraq

Pensions

Play

TLRs

Young Teachers

[Derek McMillan]

I have put Ken Smith's report on conference online.

However we need more comments especially on the bullying issue and the motions passed by conference. If anybody wants to comment.

If anyone wants to post reactions to John Illingworth's speech we would welcome that too.

Conference Report

[Jean Walker]

http://www.aeutas.org.au/

It's interesting but not surprising, that bullying is equally an issue here. I just made a speech to our State Union Council which is at the above link. This caused great media reaction and I ended up on the front page of our local papers. Now there is much angst and soul searching about who bullies who and why. But in our case I believe the top of our DoE has been allowed to become what is already being referred to as a "command and control" culture and that like the military, that culture is passed down the line and becomes the acceptable style of behaviour. Getting rid of it and replacing the culture is now the big item we face. With a new Minister for Education, it's a good opportunity to try.

http://www.themercury.news.com.au/common/s...255E921,00.html

Here's the link to the above story.

[John Simkin]

http://www.aeutas.org.au/

It's interesting but not surprising, that bullying is equally an issue here. I just made a speech to our State Union Council which is at the above link. This caused great media reaction and I ended up on the front page of our local papers. Now there is much angst and soul searching about who bullies who and why. But in our case I believe the top of our DoE has been allowed to become what is already being referred to as a "command and control" culture and that like the military, that culture is passed down the line and becomes the acceptable style of behaviour. Getting rid of it and replacing the culture is now the big item we face. With a new Minister for Education, it's a good opportunity to try.

http://www.themercury.news.com.au/common/s...255E921,00.html

Here's the link to the above story.

Very interesting point. I have never considered that the culture being developed in schools is comparable to the military. But of course you are right and over the last few years "that like the military, that culture is passed down the line and becomes the acceptable style of behaviour."

[Derek McMillan]

Mr Bartlett's statements certainly seem to be addressing the issue but I am reminded of Stalin's speeches denouncing bureaucracy and oppression. It depends what actually happens in the schools.

I think the important consequence of the debate at our conference was that West Sussex delegates were able to discuss a particular example of bullying and I imagine other divisions were similarly prompted to hold such discussions at conference after a very good debate.

We have also [put online the leaflet distributed by supporters of Eileen and Natara Hunter

here

I was privileged to meet Eileen and Natara at the conference. As the leaflet explains Eileen and her daughter were disciplined for standing up to bullying senior management at their school. We could do with more reps like her.

[Derek McMillan]

http://socialistteachers.org.uk/bulletin2007.htm

You can read the bulletin online.

Articles on

Slavery: the truth

Supply Teaching

Workload

Academies

Testing

Young Teachers

Performance Pay

Defending Reps

Professional Unity

SEN and Privatisation

Early Years

Building Schools for the Future

Political Fund

Classroom Observations

Pupil Behaviour

Salaries

Fringe Meeting

National Action

Read before you judge!

[Derek McMillan]

Martin Powell-Davies' article in this week's Socialist

Union leaders out of touch with teachers' discontent

The conference demonstrated just how many different attacks teachers and education face under New Labour. Workload, teacher stress, the public-sector pay freeze, performance-related pay, management monitoring of staff, academies and privatisation were some of the issues under discussion.

The key debates centred on the need for the union to take national strike action. An emergency motion from the union's executive, calling for a ballot for a national one-day strike against Gordon Brown's 2% pay target for teachers was unanimously agreed. Conference also agreed to encourage members to support the civil service union, PCS strike action on 1 May.

However, it was proposals from Socialist Party teachers that the NUT also pursue the PCS' strategy of taking national action over a range of different issues that sparked the fiercest discussion.

Delegates applauded speeches from Robin Pye and Martin Powell-Davies pointing out the limits of only taking school-based action against workload and performance pay. Despite the lack of support from the main left groupings within the union, delegates responded by defeating an executive amendment deleting their call for national strike action to defeat new government performance-management regulations.

It was only when a succession of leading executive speakers were brought to the rostrum that the main motion was also defeated on a card vote. Ian Murch called on delegates to take a "reality check", warning that the NUT hadn't taken national action for over 20 years.

These debates exposed the union leadership's pessimism and how out of touch they are with the discontent within staffrooms. NUT members now have the opportunity to build united national strike action against the pay freeze, but the need for the NUT to have the same fighting leadership as a union like the PCS has never been clearer.