LANAC’s Steering Committee meeting in Birmingham on Saturday
18 May marked another step forward in the development of the Local Associations
National Action Campaign. The meeting brought together teacher trade unionists
from Hull to Plymouth, Liverpool to Lewes, to share experience and discuss proposals
as to how to successfully build collective action to defeat the escalating
attacks on teachers and education.
LANAC’s agreed democratic structures give every affiliated
NUT Association a vote. On Saturday, there were 26 delegates present, along
with observers from three further NUT Associations. Those structures provide
reassurance to Associations that LANAC’s decisions are properly based on the
views of those affiliated. However, LANAC meetings are open to school reps and
observers from non-affiliated Associations, and there were 40 people present altogether
at the meeting. Affiliations had come in from a number of new Associations in
the last few weeks, such as Redbridge, Stockport, Rotherham, Harlow and Bolton.
The first
session, on “Building for June 27 and beyond”, heard reports from the
North-West, where regional strike action will be taking place in June, but also
from many other regions as well. Plans and suggestions made included:
·
Building for the calendar of regional and
national action that has been outlined, recognising both the enthusiasm of the
teachers turning out to rallies and local meetings, some for the first time,
but also the doubts and frustration of some reps and members who understandably
question how serious the NUT and NASUWT leaderships are in building a programme
of action that is strong enough to defeat Gove’s attacks.
·
Continuing to push for the ongoing plan of strike
action to be confirmed and publicised.
·
Building links locally with NASUWT members so
they also put pressure on their union to maintain the battle after June 27 and
beyond.
·
Confirming twinning arrangements between
Associations in the North-West and other regions to send messages of support,
perhaps delegations on the day, and to make direct twinning links between
schools.
·
Calling LANAC meetings to follow the strike
rallies on June 27 to allow teachers to discuss the next steps in the campaign.
·
Campaign work in other areas including public
leafleting and local demos on June 25/26/27.
·
Linking the battle over pay to the linked
attacks on pensions and conditions, making clear to teachers and parents that
this is part of a wider battle to defend education as a public service.
A second short session, on the campaign to win acceptable pay
policies, followed. During the discussion, encouraging news came from the
nearby NAHT Conference of the Heads’ vote of no confidence in Gove. However,
this was tempered by the knowledge that the NAHT pay policy accepted some of
the worst aspects of Gove’s performance-pay proposals! Nevertheless, along with
the clear divisions within the Government, it was another sign of the weakness
of the Coalition and why, with a clear and determined plan of action, we could
reverse these attacks.
There were
some positive reports – for example from Leicester – where Local Authorities
seemed willing to recommend policies that broadly protect existing pay progression
and ‘portability’ arrangements. However, other Authorities were clearly
planning to push ahead with DfE recommendations. The meeting agreed that we
needed to make sure that Associations weren’t left to just organise isolated
school-by-school battles which would be totally insufficient to defend the
majority of teachers. We needed to
collectivise and co-ordinate disputes as much as possible. Suggestions
included:
·
Writing jointly to Heads, Governors and
Councillors to explain the dangers of PRP (an example of a letter from Lewisham
ATL/NASUWT/NUT was circulated).
·
Proposing rolling strikes in schools who have
adopted unacceptable pay policies so that, each week, schools are on strike
across an Authority, to persuade the LA to step-in and recommend acceptable pay
policies to be adopted by schools.
·
Warning Heads that school groups would request
strike action if any one of their colleagues were denied pay progression
·
In line with advice issued by PCS on performance
management to its HMRC members, calling on members to refuse to agree
unacceptable numerical targets and to use appeal and grievance policies as part
of building up a campaign of opposition.
·
Call on unions to pursue further the legalities
of a dispute about the role of OfSTED given their clearly political role in
monitoring PRP implementation and in bullying Heads and schools to comply.
·
Circulate model LANAC materials to all NUT Associations
on these issues.
The third
session, on building LANAC, reflected on the influence we have already built
over the last year and reached a number of conclusions:
·
the next LANAC Steering Committee will be held
in September, acting as an AGM to elect LANAC Officers last elected in September
2012, and a Conference in December to review the progress of the joint
NUT/NASUWT campaign following the national strike action which should be taking
place in November.
·
LANAC will have its own office at the Premier
Inn in Brighton for the 2014 NUT Conference and a block booking of 50 rooms,
most of which have now been allocated to Associations (to confirm).
·
We confirmed the existing voting arrangements
(outlined above) although discussion could, of course, continue and any
association could propose alternative arrangements in future.
·
LANAC should produce a further newsletter,
certainly to intervene around June 27th actions.
The final
session discussed the elections taking place in the NUT in 2013/14. Events
since LANAC had been set-up at 2012 Conference had confirmed that, the
divisions over action policy seen at that Conference (and indeed in 2011), and
in debates on the NUT National Executive, had continued. 2013 Conference had made clear that LANAC
represented a definite trend of opinion within the NUT over calling national
action. While we had narrowly lost the vote on our amendment, we had received
substantial support. If we were to give voice to those views, and an
opportunity for teachers to vote for them, LANAC needed to support candidates
in these elections. These proposals made were:
. On the 2014 NUT National Executive elections,
LANAC-supporting Associations should work together to support the re-election
of those candidates seeking re-election to the NEC.
. We would not oppose other sitting members of the
‘Left Caucus’ seeking re-election
. We would seek to strengthen the support for
candidates supporting LANAC in areas where either there were vacant seats
and/or seats where we could seek to challenge ‘Broadly Speaking’ members and
that we should discuss locally to seek agreement on candidates and campaigns.
. LANAC should support a candidate for
Vice-President and call on Local Associations to nominate that candidate. This would, firstly, help increase the pressure
next term to ensure that the calendar of action was maintained and extended. A
VP supporting LANAC would also ensure that LANAC continued to have a voice in
the discussions that take place on the NUT National Officer’s body. We would
also be able to clearly back a candidate who had argued, and voted, for
national action at Conference which may not otherwise be standing.
The points on the NEC election were generally accepted. A
suggestion was made that, if possible, all candidates supporting LANAC should
try and include a minimal set of demands common to all.
However, some observers and delegates argued that it would
be wrong for LANAC to call on Associations to back a VP candidate when LANAC
only stood for a limited program that did not extend to wider educational
issues. However, others pointed out that it was precisely our program of
consistently supporting national action to defend pay, pensions, conditions –
and education as a whole – that distinguished LANAC from other trends within
the Union.
There was also an argument that the decision should be postponed
until a later meeting but it was pointed out that, the issue had been
highlighted on the agenda in advance and, in practice, postponing a decision effectively
meant deciding not to back a candidate for VP, given the timescale for seeking
nominations – which had to take place this term or, by the latest, by the end
of September. While Local Associations had to make their own democratic
decisions about nominations, the decision of the delegate-based LANAC meeting
also gave genuine backing to any candidate endorsed by the Steering Committee.
A vote was
taken:
a)
For LANAC to support a candidate for
Vice-President. This was agreed by 17 votes to 6.
b)
To support Martin Powell-Davies, the LANAC
Convenor (and the only name proposed by the meeting) as that candidate. This
was agreed by 18 votes to 7.
LANAC will publicise all the points above in order to build
collective action, strengthen the campaign to win local battles over pay
policies, build the strongest possible response to the regional strikes on June
27, September and October, and to keep up the pressure for national strike
action to be called in November – and beyond.