Tuesday 12 May 2009

Martin Powell-Davies stands again for NUT VP

Since Martin Powell-Davies last stood as NUT Vice-President in 2007, the pressures on teachers and education have carried on getting worse.

As you will see from his many posts on the 'Classroom Teacher blog'started at that time (http://classroomteacher.org.uk/weblog/), Martin has been active in building local and national campaigns to defend teachers against the continuing tide of rising workload and the break-up of Local Authority comprehensive education.

He is presently very involved in a campaign to save Lewisham Bridge Primary School where parents have been occupying the school roof since the beginning of term. Martin was, as usual, to the fore at NUT Conference this Easter, calling for the Union to follow up the strategy agreed at last year's Conference - for national action on workload, linked to pay and class sizes.

Unfortunately, the Union has not been successful enough in resisting the pressures on teachers. The national strike on pay was enthusiastically supported but was not followed up with further action. Failing to link the dispute with workload, as Martin and others supporting 'Classroom Teacher' had suggested, was a mistake.

Martin is therefore standing again in the election for National Vice-President, focussing on the need to overcome the isolation of individual school groups by pulling together a campaign of national action to defend teachers and education.

Before nomination papers have been officially issued, Martin has already been nominated by Bristol, Lewisham and Merton Associations. We hope other Associations will also give Martin their support to help him win the election - and so that Martin can help strengthen the leadership of our Union.

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