'Militant Teacher' Teachers' Charter
(see footnotes at bottom of post for additional explanation)
The renewed militancy of teachers is now beyond dispute.
We have recently seen the Special Conference decisions reversed by a National Conference which gave the go ahead for an interim claim, an increased basic scale and an expanded strike fund. Following almost on the heels of this conference came the strike in Inner London* which - despite the silence of the educational press - won the overwhelming support of union members in the area.
But this new situation places tremendous responsibilities on us as active members of the unions up and down the country. The discovery of every other group of ‘white collar’ workers from bank clerks to nurses has been the necessity to struggle in order to improve their conditions. Teachers too have come to this conclusion. This term will see another upsurge of militancy from hitherto inactive or uninvolved teachers. The local associations may soon find their meetings transformed again as in the salary struggle of last January.
However, as with last January, the upsurge of militancy will not last indefinitely. It is useless for activists in the union from one point of view, and cynical members of the EC from another, to despair at the ebb and flow of the movement; to moan that teachers are different from other workers and are not prepared to struggle. No movement goes in a straight line upwards. It would be utopian to think that teacher militancy once begun would grow without interruption. The most important point to be faced by us - and by the Executive - is: having once begun, how is rank and file militancy to be channelled in the direction of victory?
It is in this context that the teachers around MILITANT pose the need for a Charter. In our view a Charter must contain demands for which teachers would be prepared to struggle and sacrifice, and around which support could be mobilised from all sections of the Labour Movement. We have consistently pointed out the need (and possibility) of winning support from other workers for national action by teachers, against the Executive and others who have pointed out (correctly) that teachers make no impact on production, but then go on to urge local or even ‘one school’ strikes! But we cannot hope to gain support unless we go out to the parents of the children we teach and show their organisations in the labour movement that we have a programme which is just as much in their interests as it is in ours. When dockers marched in support of the nurses it wasn’t because they stood to gain directly from a nurses' pay rise, but because they recognised the service which nurses perform.
It is for this reason that it is absolutely essential for any teachers Charter to escape from the confines of the classroom and contain a programme which goes beyond the school gates. Such a programme would need to contain the following points:
Salary:
1) A realistic basic wage in the region of £1200pa and tied to the cost of living.
2) Laid down hours of work for a normal school day with at least one preparation/marking period each day. Overtime should be paid at a national rate for any marking periods lost and for all extra time given beyond the school day.
3) The scrapping of all differentials such as the graduate and good honours allowances and the secondary/primary differential.
These three points in relation to salaries would end the divisions among teachers which have helped to hold the movement back. A high basic wage tied to the cost of living would guarantee a much higher rate of pay than the present increment system which is completely unrelated to the real cost of living.
Given higher pay plus extra pay for extra work, the old differentials would no longer be necessary. If the heads of departments and those with special allowances really do have to put in extra work and extra time this would be covered by their overtime earnings.
Conditions
4) A maximum of 20 in a class.
5) A crash programme of school building and teacher training, and a substantial increase in the education budget.
The demand for a maximum class size of 20 involves the whole question of pay and conditions. The parents, as working people, are just as concerned as we are that conditions within the school should be the best possible. The labour movement, the members of the trade unions and the Labour Party, have always been at the forefront of educational advance. As early as the 1930s the TUC in their “Statement on the Spens Report” opposed the three tier system of secondary education. As recently as last year, both the TUC and Labour Party conferences (the latter defeating the platform) rejected the education cuts.
It is of supreme importance that we prove by our actions that our campaign is waged in the best interests of pupils as well as teachers. To allow the authorities to brand as "selfish” or “irresponsible” our "neglecting of professional duties" would quite unnecessarily drive a wedge between teachers and other workers. A reduction in the size of classes and a big expansion in investment in education would relieve the intolerable burdens on most teachers and thus ensure a rapid improvement in educational standards.
The union and a strike policy.
6) The establishment of a strike fund with a national levy. A proportion of subscriptions to go to this fund.
7) A democratic union whose officials should receive the same salary scale as teachers and who should be liable to immediate recall by the members.
8) Affiliation nationally to the TUC and locally to the trades councils. (The ATTI** is already affiliated to the TUC).
9) The need to work towards the unity of all teachers into one union.
Once having decided on the need for action, a strike fund is essential. Many of the white collar unions, such as DATA, for example, finance a fund from union subscriptions - which are far higher than NUT subs. But members of DATA have the satisfaction of seeing their wages rise at a phenomenal pace in recent years. They do not resent paying higher subscriptions for a fund which has brought them real and dramatic improvements.
But we must fight for control of our own union. If our representatives had our standard of living they would inevitably have the same interests! It is not a utopian and distant dream to demand the right of recall over our union representatives. This is something we can campaign for locally as well as nationally. We must end the “old boy " cliquishness of union affairs at every level.
A half-hearted lead on the question of TUC affiliation from the executive was clumsily posed in terms of the union leaders having their say in the corridors of power. Not surprisingly the rank and file were unable to see the benefits to themselves in this kind of affiliation. In fact the necessity of affiliation to the TUC and genuine links with the trades councils at local level has already been graphically demonstrated in action. At the time of the NAS campaign, for example, as was reported in the March issue o f MILITANT, an ATTI delegate to the Bristol Trades Council raised the issue of the suspended NAS teachers***.
He was given solid support from delegates representing the Transport and General Workers Union and NALGO, among others. Within three hours the suspensions were lifted. Similar examples of working class action in support of teachers and education were seen in Plymouth, Liverpool and Brighton. This at such an early stage! Imagine the response and effect had Associations up and down the country affiliated to the labour movement in their areas and campaigned on the issue of teachers’ salaries.
The feasibility of the demand for one big union of all teachers has also been demonstrated in action. When the NAS called out its members in selected areas, NUT members came out in solidarity. They came out not because they supported the claims of the NAS leaders, but because they were opposed to the victimisation of their colleagues - next time, it might be they who were suspended! In addition, the rank and file of both major unions have gone on record as being in favour of one union. The ordinary teacher has no interest in inter-union rivalry.
The control of education
Inevitably, all the points of a Charter such as the one suggested here for discussion strike at the very heart of the control of education. Teachers need more money – why can’t they have it? If they were paid more there would be more teachers and consequently smaller classes – so why the cuts in education spending? Whose interests did they serve? Not ours and not those of education itself - but possibly those of the bankers and industrialists who have received grants from the Government to the tune of £1,000m last year alone whilst demanding cuts in "wasteful” public expenditure.
It is a fact illustrated by many educationalists (and on which the MILITANT TEACHER hopes to have articles in subsequent issues) that education and economics go hand in hand. We know that children from overcrowded homes and homes inadequate in other ways do not achieve as much as children from middle-class homes. We know that as far as higher education is concerned there are only
Sufficient places for a limited number of pupils. The vast majority are consigned to the dullest and most stultifying jobs in offices and factories. Instead of children being educated for life in any genuine sense, to become complete and cultured human beings, they finish school with a rudimentary education which fits them for a specific role in society.
Those who at present control education - the bankers, company directors, priests and others on the boards of governors; behind them the LEAs and behind them the DFES - all stand for the preservation of the status quo. On the other hand the organised workers, as they have time and again demonstrated, are the only class in society which has a direct interest in the all-round expansion of education. If the working people through their organisations were in control of education, the initiative and creativity of teachers and educators within the school would be allowed to develop in a free and unfettered way, governed only by a regard of what was best for education and not by the needs of an outmoded and crisis-ridden economic system. It is for this reason that our discussion Charter ends with the demand:
FOR OVERALL CONTROL OF THE EDUCATION SYSTEM TO BE PLACED IN THE HANDS OF THE WORKING CLASS.
These are the sort of ideas we believe should be thrashed out in every association and Young Teacher group throughout the country. We believe that armed with such a programme the increasingly militant teachers of this country could step outside the school gates and campaign in society generally for a series of demands which would lead them to victory.
COMPREHENSIVES - A 'REVOLUTION' ? A LETTER
Liz Knight Newham N.U.T.
Recently Lady Plowden expressed concern about the fact that ‘young adults are allergic to learning'. But is it surprising that young workers do not see the point of education, when so clearly the system cynically regards education for the vast majority of working class children as a mere formality? Despite the 'revolution in education’ that would see an ‘expansion and reorganisation' aimed to 'enrich the experience of all' promised by the Labour Party in '64, today ¾ of all children leave school at 15: approximately 3/5 of boys under 16 enter semi-skilled and unskilled employment: and only 1/3 enter even the limited training provided by apprenticeships. (The figures for girls are of course even worse).
Indeed education today is only marginally in a better state than it was under the Tories. It is true that the Labour Government has introduced to some extent comprehensive secondary education. But those teachers and activists in the Labour Movement who campaigned believing comprehensive education could really begin to break down class privilege in education must now feel their efforts were largely wasted.
The fact that many of the more far-sighted Tories support comprehensive education might seem a paradox. But Big Business generally has long recognised the need for a more efficient education system simply to produce a greater number of skilled workers for the changing demands of industry. It is the monopolists who run education, and in their eyes its purpose is to churn out a streamed and graded labour force to fit into a streamed and graded society. Only the organised working class has fought for a genuinely comprehensive education. Teachers must join them in their struggle.
Notes (for those reading in 2017 and beyond!)
* Another article in this first issue of 'Militant Teacher' reported on the action taken on July 9th, when over 7,000 members of the Inner London Teachers' Association of the NUT took half-day strike action in support of the NUT's campaign for an interim pay award.
** The ATTI, the Association of Teachers in Technical Institutions, amalgamated to form NATFHE (National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education) in 1976, later to merge with the AUT to become the University and College Union (UCU).
*** The NAS, the National Association of Schoolmasters (later to merge with the Union of Women Teachers in 1976 to form the NASUWT) was carrying out a 'work to rule' campaign aimed at persuading the Labour Government's Prices and Incomes Board to look at teachers' salaries - confusingly, given that it was designed to bring about wage restraint. The campaign led to suspensions of some teachers in Bristol, and elsewhere, as they were deemed to be 'in breach of contract'.
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