Turkey: Statement from DISK trade unions - striking with KESK tomorrow

This way to Taksim

Before I post my own report, I am sharing a message I have received tonight from Kivanc, from DISK's International Relations Department. He was a great support to the British trade union delegation over the weekend, including as we stood facing the police near Taksim last night.

Kivanc confirms that the DISK federation of unions will be joining the KESK federation in taking strike action tomorrow in protest at the invasion of Gezi Park. 

In addition, here is a statement that he also passed on to me from a DISK source:

The people's resistance and mobilization is in its 20th day. Since 8 pm last night, in Taksim Square and many districts there have been non-stop clashes with police. Police attackes over peaceful protestors with excessive violence, with pepper and tear gasses, water cannons and water with liquid pepper gas and plastic bullets.

On Friday early morning, PM Erdoğan had to meet with Taksim Solidarity representatives including DİSK General Secretary Mrs. Dr. Çerkezoğlu, Turkish Doctors Association, Turkish Architectures Association and other mass organizations to find a solution however PM was very angry and agressive, he discussed with our General Secretary and after the meeting he targeted our Secretary, claiming that she is a "ultra unionist". After the meeting, spokeperson of the government stated that they would respect to the legal court's decision that stopped the construction of the shopping mall in Gezi Park, the only green public place in central Istanbul.

However this is not sufficient for people. If government had stated this 20 days ago, this might be a solution, however in this 20 days, 5 people died, almost 7.000 people were injured. 15 people lost their eyes. There are 50 heavily injured people. Thousands of people were taken under custody. In all cities millions poured to the streets demanding resignation of the government. The number of people joined this mobilization is estimated to be as almost 10 million by press but this may be higher. Government now tried to limit all mobilization to Gezi Park issue and make propoganda to spare "innocent-pacifist environmentalists vs marginal, illegal groups." People oppose and object this issue.

In Saturday, Taksim Solidarity decided to normalize the process, they cleaned some barricades and decided to establish one symbolic tent and lifting all other hundreds tents. Platform decided to continue mobilization with other peaceful mass demonstrations. However despite such decision, at 8 pm, police attacked Gezi Park with intense gas bombs, injured hundreds of people and destroyed all tents. Since then, spontenously, hundred thousands poured to streets in all parts of Istanbul, ten thousands of people closed the traffic in main international motorway and marched over the Taksim Square. Ten thousands marched in Asian side over Bosphorus Bridge. They clashed with police and passed all police barricades.

Police forces normally have numbers in their helmets but in this two days, there is no any number in helmets of police that let them to do whatever they like. They even got in Shopping Malls and 5 star hotels where protestors try to hide. They send pepper gas inside hotels, cafes and normal houses. There is no limit of the police violence.

Clashes still continue in many districts and people insist on pouring streets and marching over police by using ferries, buses, cars and on foot since 8 pm last night. (this is written on 6 pm) People will meet at 7 and 9 pm as well. People only use peaceful ways, protesting police, horning their cars and they try to re-send pepper gases back to police.

Last night one lady (55) was died in Istanbul by hearth attack after police attack with pepper gas. Today there are many heavily injured people and there may be more deads.

Clashes have spread to Ankara, Adana. In Ankara since last night, clashes have been continuing. Today there was a funeral of a young man, Ethem Sarısülük, who was killed last week by police bullet that was recorded by TV channels. Police even attacked over the funeral with water cannons. There are mass demonstrations in Izmir, Eskişehir, Bursa, Trabzon and even strongholds of the government as Kayseri, Konya.

DİSK and KESK declared strike and called their members to be at demonstrations to protest government.

Government and Pm Erdoğan's reaction was to polarize people and suppress the mobilization with violence. He calls mobilization of his supporters. Yesterday, he had a mass meeting in Ankara and he declared that he will clean the Taksim Square and just 2 hours later police started intervention. Now he organizes a mass meeting in Istanbul. government uses all public sources to mobilize his supporters with free transport and free meal. Erdoğan targets CNN; BBC and other international media channles by giving fabr,cated news and blaming foreign and domestic interest groups to stop raise of Turkish State as a global power. But until today, he was defending to be a part of EU, NATO and he was enjoying the US support. He is threatening protestors and making propaganda of fabricated lies as showing people as looters, anti-religion, anti-nationalist people.

His aim is to consolidate his support. He had almost 50 % vote in the election and he defends that he is still having support of 50 % and threatening the other 50 %. But it is widely known that AKP government is a coalition with different groups. ıt is estimated that political Islamists have almost 10 % vote power. AKP Government could come to power after the 2001 economic crisis in which central right parties had collapsed. People who vote for central right, secular parties voted for him for the economic stability. And he knows that he may lose this support immediately as a result of this mobilization and authoritarian rule of PM. Additionally, economy is not going well for over 1 year. Also his adventurous Syrian policy had conflicted with the US policy, so he had danger of losing support of the US. It is necessary to note that Turkish economy is heavily dependent to short flow of foreign debt. They fear of losing flow of debt that would definitely bankrupt the economy. Now from one hand, by polarazing people, he tried to consolidate his power and tried to show that he preserves mass support to international public.

However hundred thousands of people who are resisting against excessive police violence in Istanbul and in almost all cities, demonstrates that this is the final phase of the PM Erdoğan.


We call for international support for the cause of people!

Teachers have no choice but to to take strike action

Every teacher needs to know that we have no choice but to engage in a very serious battle. It is not just a battle for our livelihoods but for the very future of education.

The post-war consensus that high quality education was a vital investment for the future of society and that comprehensive education, run by Local Authorities, was the best way to provide it, is now long gone.

As Gove's attacks on GCSEs have shown, these real 'enemies of promise' are calculating that there is no point in providing education-for-all when society cannot provide job opportunities for most school-leavers. Why have a broad curriculum to educate critical thinkers, when they want  schools simply to teach most children to 'know their place' ?

Why have experienced, qualified, teachers when a compliant deregulated workforce that is hired, overworked, then spat out, is so much easier for them to manipulate?

Why staff schools with properly paid and valued teachers and teaching assistants, if it it gets in the way of your business friends making profits out of privatised education, as has been 'achieved' in Sweden ?

Of course, these attacks started under New Labour but they have been taken on with a vengeance by Cameron and Gove. They seem determined to get through as much of their neo-liberal agenda as possible before the next General Election, knowing that any future Labour administration is unlikely to reverse any of their cuts and attacks.

The attacks on pensions mean teachers are already having to pay more out of their salary for the privilege of working for longer.

Union dithering earlier this year has meant that the new Pay and Conditions Document has been imposed before we even take strike action. That could pave the way for schools introducing pay policies that will enforce Performance Pay even on the Main Scale. It provides a perfect tool for Gove to achieve his aims of lowering costs, dividing the workforce, bullying staff into taking on even more workload, while undermining trade unions and collective national conditions.

The ending of 'pay portability' could create a frantic 'race to the bottom' as teachers underbid each other to secure employment at the lowest salary. Already, I have heard of a Lewisham school trying to propose that a M6 teacher accepts a job for lower wages. Unless we fight firmly, this will become the 'norm' across education.

Emboldened by the delay in unions calling action, Gove has already announced that he also intends to claw back non-pay conditions as well. The Review Body will make its report in January, in time, if Gove thinks he can get away with it, to impose this next round of attacks by September 2014. It could mean the end of guaranteed PPA non-contact time and limits on cover. It could even mean the end to any proper limits on our working day and year if the '1265 hours' and '195 days' limits are removed.

Gove hopes to undermine our opposition by setting parent against teacher, rubbishing teachers in the press and putting out false information about our holidays and workload. However, if we go out and explain the reality of teachers' lives - and the reality of Gove's plans for education - we can win parents to our side. 

Teacher 'burnout' rates are already the highest in Europe; we already work some of the longest hours and shortest holidays; the constant turnover of staff in many schools is both bad for education and bad for teachers. 

Most teachers know that Gove's attacks have to be stopped. After all, our incessant workload is almost impossible to maintain already. But the question in teachers' minds is, 'can we stop these attacks'? The answer has to be YES !
 
If teacher trade unions organise a firm calendar of action, then we can burst the balloon of this shaky and divided Government. Teachers' strikes have enormous potential power because of the way schools are used to provide child-care for so many working families. We have to use that power to defend those families' education - and our livelihoods.

Our 2011 action did achieve some gains, such as the concession on the retirement age for the over 50s - but the sudden ending of the action meant that most of the pension attacks were carried through - and led to real doubts in staffrooms about whether Unions were serious in their opposition.

The delay in calling action earlier this year has also increased doubts, while giving confidence to Gove to step-up his attacks. We are now having to fight a rearguard battle to try and reverse the new Pay and Conditions Document and to win pay policies that at least give some level of protection.

However, despite those doubts in some teachers' minds, there is a growing anger and realisation that something has to be done, and soon. A calendar of joint NUT / NASUWT strike action has now been agreed, starting with the regional North-West strike on June 27th. That should - and must - be followed with further regional action in the Autumn and a national strike in November - and further action beyond that. 

If Gove refuses to budge, perhaps even going further by announcing major attacks on working conditions too, then we have to consider responding with a two-day national strike in 2014.

We need every member to prepare for a serious battle. That also means collecting for hardship funds and advising colleagues to put some money aside to pay for salary deductions on strike days.

We will need to be mounting local battles too over pay policies. Where possible, strike action should also be co-ordinated across schools to overcome the pressure and isolation that an individual school group can feel under.

Can we pull off such a campaign? Well, if we don't, just consider the consequences: a divided workforce where pay progression can be arbitrarily blocked; a regime where teachers bullied out of a school find they have to accept huge pay cuts in order to secure another post; teachers exhausted by even longer hours and greater demands. The job would become absolutely intolerable.

We have a stark choice. We can allow the Government to enforce a future of deregulated salaries, with no real workload limits, with rapid staff turnover making it hard for unions to organise - or we stand firm and fight.

Gove's plans will be terrible for teachers - but they will be terrible for our school students too. 

We have no choice but to act. If we act firmly together, then we can not only confirm to Gove and Cameron that we are, indeed, the "forces of resistance" but show that we can be the "forces of victory" for education as well!

A battle for the future of education - report from Luton NUT

I was asked to speak to last night's meeting of Luton NUT to explain the need to take firm strike action against Gove's attacks on pay and conditions. Quite correctly, however, that discussion was first  put in the wider context of the struggle to defend democratically accountable comprehensive education.

Howard Stevenson, from the School of Education at the University of Nottingham, opened the discussion by explaining how teacher unions were one of the key obstacles in the way of the attempts by successive governments to introduce a privatised system of schooling where private investors can profit from public funding for education.

Howard correctly looked back to 1987/8 when, following the abolition of national collective bargaining, the Tory administration imposed its Education Reform Act. There were clear similarities with this Government's hopes to confront, then defeat, teacher trade unions, in order to then be able to accelerate the attacks on education. Chilling quotes from speeches by Cameron and Gove - about the need to take on and defeat the "forces of resistance" - helped to illustrate this clear agenda.

The proliferation of different routes in - and speedier routes out - of teaching are all intended to undermine the idea of teaching as a stable profession. Instead, the aim is to create a low-cost, compliant workforce. Howard pointed out that in some parts of the US, after similar attacks, the average length of time people stay in teaching is just TWO years! 

In England, increasing pressures are already driving teachers out of the job at a rapid rate Reports from the Luton members revealed the same picture of bullying, capability procedures, and failing of Newly-Qualified Teachers that are found right across the country.

Making a point that I stressed later in the meeting, Howard explained how Performance-Pay was an ideal mechanism for exerting managerial control, deregulating national pay scales and undermining trade union organisation. In response, teachers had to strengthen their own organisation, particularly in the workplace as Local Authorities are increasingly marginalised by Government.

I was able to follow Howard by explaining how vital it was to  prepare members for an ongoing campaign of strike action, including putting aside money to 'save to strike'. This could not just be a token show of strength followed by another retreat. We had to take decisive and ongoing action if we were to defeat these attacks on our livelihoods - and defend education from this onslaught.

Luton NUT agreed to do everything it could to support colleagues taking action in the North-West on June 27th and also to bring their banner and a delegation down to the march and rally in London on June 25th.

Discussion points included the need for united action across teacher unions, recognising the need to build a momentum from below that would mean that no union leadership could walk away from the action we needed to take together. 

Luton NUT Officers, as in several others NUT Associations who were meeting this week, also confirmed that they would be holding a further meeting before the end of September where nominations for NUT National Officers would be on the agenda and that my name would be put forward for consideration to stand in the NUT National Vice-President election.

GCSEs: 'Creating aspirations which society cannot match'

"There has to be selection because we are beginning to create aspirations which increasingly society cannot match … When young people cannot find work at all … or work which meets their abilities or expectations … then we are only creating frustrations with perhaps disturbing social consequences … people must be educated once more to know their place” 

Senior civil servant quoted in Thirty Years On, Chitty and Benn

 

Protesting against the GCSE marking scandal last August

Just as tens of thousands of 16 year-olds sit their GCSE exams, Tory education wrecker Michael Gove has announced a further shake-up to the examination system. In doing so, he is shamefully sending out a signal that these students' achievements will be, in his mind, 'second-rate'. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Gove and the Conservative Government can't accept that, through the hard work of students, teachers and schools, and under emormous pressure to achieve imposed targets, GCSE results have improved year-on-year. In the past, improved examination results would have been a cause to celebrate but widespread achievement no longer matches the needs and wishes of the Government and its big business backers.

As the quote above, rumoured to be from a senior adviser to Sir Keith Joseph, spelt out long before the current economic crisis took hold of the world economy, big business no longer requires a widely educated workforce. Now it's time for Gove and Co. to draw up the ladder so that only a select few youngsters are able to succeed.

It would be wrong to idealise the GCSE examination system, Any exam regime is there, in the final analysis, to decide who is given the opportunity for certain careers and higher education, and who isn't. However, at least the introduction of the GCSE marked an acceptance that all students should have the chance to achieve a qualification of equal worth to their peers. 

Gove has had to abandon his attempts to ditch GCSEs altogether but is insisting that exam boards revert to the old-style method of assessing all learning on the basis of terminal examinations at the end of Year 11. However the various changes to assessment methods, while significant, aren't the fundamental point. No, the key to Gove's agenda is to be found in the short sentence in today's article on the BBC News website (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-22854908 ): "the pass mark is to be pushed higher". Whatever happens, Gove wants to make sure that far fewer students succeed.

Coursework will be ditched under Gove's proposals even though it has allowed students to show skills that can't be so easily assessed in a brief final examination. However, it also has to be said that, as schools came under increasing pressure to improve results, teachers have been expected to go to increasing lengths to coach and support students to complete the work required. Now the pressure will be on to cram students for the terminal examination instead, rather than being able to spread the work over separate modules and coursework elements as well.

Of course, if teachers, schools and students were consulted properly, it may well be that changes and improvements to the current system could be agreed upon. In an NUT press release, Christine Blower was right to criticise Gove's attempts to rush through changes without proper consultation, saying "We would like the Secretary of State to have a longer consultation period to achieve a consensus on what we all want – the best possible exam system in which the greatest number of young people engage".

Unfortunately, while engagement and success of the many will be what teachers , parents and students want, Michael Gove is working to a very different agenda. As the economy crumbles, the post-war consensus in favour of high quality public services and comprehensive education-for-all is becoming a distant memory. 

It is now the responsibility of trade unions to use their strength, backed up by their communities, to defend the gains of the past against those like Gove who are trying to steal them away from us. 

  

Solidarity Saturday in London

Last Saturday, I was campaigning, together with other local trade unionists, to defend one section of London's community against the divisive - and completely unjustified - attempts by the BNP to hold the Lewisham Islamic Centre responsible for the horrific murder of Lee Rigby.

Update - a video of part of my speech to the Tamil Solidarity Day has been posted here: http://youtu.be/RLUqTz6-Aa8

This Saturday, June 8, gave me an opportunity to show that solidarity on an international basis - in support of the struggles in Turkey and of the Tamils in Sri Lanka. The day started, however, with a Lewisham NUT stall in Catford.

'Michael Gove' on our NUT stall !

Our activity in Catford was one of a series of campaign stalls being held across London to explain to parents and the public about Gove's attacks on education and to explain why we were having to embark on a calendar of strike action to defend teachers and schools.

There was plenty of support and lots of discussion, particularly about the growing lack of school places in Lewisham and elsewhere across London. Our petition - "Time to Stand Up for Education" had a column to record your support as 'parent/student/teacher'. We got all of those to sign - plus 'grandparent' and 'teaching assistant' too!

I was then able to join the crowds gathered by the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square demonstrating in support of the ongoing protests in Turkey against the actions of the Turkish Government. Following the discussion at the NUT National Executive, I am grateful that a link to a Labour Start campaign email that I forwarded to the NUT General Secretary has been circulated to all NUT Associations.

In Trafalgar Square, Saturday June 8

The email allows you to send a simple message to the Erdogan Government: "I support the demands of trade unionists and others in Turkey  that police violence against protestors must stop, that those responsible must be held accountable, that those who have been arrested must be freed and charges dropped, and that the ban on demonstrations must be lifted". It can be accessed via
http://www.labourstartcampaigns.net/show_campaign.cgi?c=1840

Speaking in Trafalgar Square last Sunday

My day finished at a 'Tamil Solidarity' Day held in SOAS, near King's Cross, called jointly by the Tamil Solidarity (TS) campaign and the British Tamils Forum (BTF). Both organisations have been campaigning vigorously to expose the genocidal campaign against Tamils by the Rajapaksa regime, during and following the civil war that ended in 2009. 

Tamil Solidarity Day, June 8 in London

What was particuarly significant about the event was that TS and BTF had recognised that one of their main allies in supporting their campaign would be the trade union movement, with our long tradition of internationalism. Alongside trade unionists from UNITE, RMT, PCS and UNISON, we jointly pledged to make sure  that the campaign to expose the war crimes of the Sri Lankan Government and to defend the rights of Tamils receives much greater exposure across our movement.

The particular focus of the campaign over the next few months is to highlight the disgraceful decision to hold the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Sri Lanka in November 2013 - an insult to the memory of the tens of thousands of Tamils who died, disappeared, or who were imprisoned at the end of the civil war.

To find out more, visit the Tamil Solidarity website on: http://www.tamilsolidarity.org/

NUT National Executive Report – June 2013

A pdf copy of this Report can be downloaded from: https://local.teachers.org.uk/templates/asset-relay.cfm?frmAssetFileID=10872

Notice served on employers for regional strike in North-West on June 27

The NUT and NASUWT’s calendar of joint strike action is firmly underway. Both unions have served notice to employers across twenty-two Local Authorities in the North-West of England - 2765 schools and colleges in total - that their members are being called upon to take region-wide strike action on 27 June. With Gove and the Coalition threatening pensions, pay and conditions – that’s both teachers’ working conditions and children’s learning conditions – then we have no choice but to take firm and ongoing strike action.

The rolling programme of regional strike action will continue after the summer in other parts of England and Wales and then build to a joint national strike in November. More action will need to follow in 2014 if Gove and Co. refuse to retreat.

Rallies will be taking place in Liverpool, Manchester, Preston and Chester on June 27.Messages of support will be coming in from across the country from other regions, many of whom are setting up twinning arrangements to help offer encouragement to members in the North-West.

A National Union leaflet has also been produced to explain our campaign in defence of education to parents and the public. A number of London NUT Associations are using this on campaign stalls on Saturday 8 June in the build-up to our own London NUT Regional march and rally on Tuesday 25 June.

Unions also battling to win acceptable School Pay Policies

Alongside our regional and national action to reverse Gove’s attacks, local officers and school reps also need to work hard to persuade Governors to adopt pay policies that protect teachers and education from the damage that performance-pay will inflict on schools.

The joint NUT / NASUWT model policy offers employers an opportunity to maintain a clear and supportive policy that avoids much of the demoralising and divisive threats that Gove wants schools to adopt. Some Local Authorities are already adopting policies in line with the NASUWT/NUT model.

Unfortunately, the model policy issued by the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) lacks some important protections. For example, it does not guarantee to honour the previous salary point of teachers moving from different schools and, worse of all, proposes significant barriers be put in the way of teachers hoping to progress up both the main and upper pay ranges. It is a pity that, at the same time as the NAHT have rightly criticised Gove and are also discussing affiliating to the TUC, this kind of advice has been issued, no doubt through fear of Ofsted being used to threaten Heads who dare to stand up to Gove’s dictats. The answer, however, is to make a united stand together against this kind of bullying. For more guidance on the NAHT policy, see the NUT national website on: http://www.teachers.org.uk/files/nut-commentary-on-naht-model-pay-policy.doc

If schools or Local Authorities seek to impose unacceptable policies then the NUT can escalate to school-based strike action, with strike pay, under our existing action ballot. That may need to include rolling action in schools across a Local Authority in order to make sure that Councils rethink damaging proposals.

Gove is after your holidays too

See more detailed report on: http://electmartin1.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/gove-is-after-your-holidays-too.html

Gove doesn’t just want to attack pay and pensions. He has also asked the School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB) to make recommendations on changing our working conditions too. These could include attacks on workload protections such as guaranteed PPA and limits on cover as well as threats to further increase working hours and shorten school holidays.

The STRB is due to make its Final Report by January 2014 - in time, if Gove thinks he can get away with it, to impose attacks on our conditions by September 2014. That’s yet another good reason for the NUT and NASUWT to continue our programme of strike action into 2013 – and onwards in 2014!

Towards a ‘Royal College of Teaching’?

See more detailed report on: http://electmartin1.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/a-college-of-teaching-dividing-not.html

In the last few weeks, a series of press articles have highlighted Government-backed moves towards setting up some kind of ‘Royal College of Teaching’. Having a professional body that, unlike this Government, supported teachers’ professional development and promoted genuine educational research, rather than ignoring it, could be useful. However, from the details we have seen, it seems likely that the plans that will be announced will recommend an exclusive College of Teaching only for a select few teachers - in line with this Government’s destructive agenda of denigrating the teaching profession as a whole.

Opposing Racism

In the full Executive, I was able to report on the united response from the communities of Woolwich and Lewisham to the attempts by the BNP and EDL to try and divide us after the horrific murder of soldier Lee Rigby. However, in light of the suspected arson attack on the Islamic Centre in Muswell Hill, the dangers of racist division are still clearly very present. The materials produced by Show Racism the Red Card were recommended for use by teachers in schools: see: http://www.srtrc.org/

Of course, one of the best ways to show young people why it is in all of our interests to unite together to defend jobs, services and conditions is for the trade union movement to show that through united co-ordinated strike action we can force the Government to think again about its attacks.

NUT Declaration for Education in London

This declaration, previously discussed at the London Working Group at the May meeting of the Executive, was agreed as National NUT policy. As well as setting out ways to support teaching and schools in London, the declaration also stresses the urgent need for Government to provide the funding required to meet the critical shortage of school places in the capital. A separate paper on the School Places crisis points out that “free schools represent an ineffective way to respond to pupil number growth, which should instead be addressed by means of rational planning involving local authorities”.

Figures for predicted pupil place shortfalls in London Authorities by 2016-17 show the staggering extent of the problem, a gathering scandal that Gove, Cameron and Mayor Boris Johnson are failing to address. Newham faces a shortfall of over 23% of pupil places (primary and secondary combined). The next worst-hit boroughs are Waltham Forest (20%), Croydon (20%), Redbridge (19%) and Barking & Dagenham (19%).

The paper also points out that the pupil place shortfall must not be met by simply increasing class sizes. During the Executive, the welcome news came through that the planned Government changes to the maximum ratio of children to carers in Nursery and Early Years settings was being reversed. This is a welcome retreat from Government, hopefully to be followed by many more!

Curriculum Issues

The National Executive agreed a response that sets out the NUT’s opposition to the removal of the speaking and listening assessment from GCSE English, a move that will have the effect of downgrading the importance of speaking and listening in comparison to reading and writing.

NUT support for a further statement calling on the Government to listen to teachers and academics and delay the proposed statutory implementation of the new National Curriculum was also agreed.

New Children’s Laureate Malorie Blackman’s criticism of Michael Gove’s ‘snobby’ views on children’s literature was also welcomed. A Daily Mail article quotes her as believing that “Mr. Gove was in danger of reducing teachers to a ‘delivery mechanism’ to get children through tests rather than teaching them to think for themselves” and quotes her stating on Radio 4 that “I do not know whether he trusts teachers or not but the perception is that he does not listen. If we are not careful we are in danger of losing our very best teachers”.

Support for Turkish Trade Unionists

I also spoke at the Executive to thank Christine Blower for confirming that a message of support has been sent to Turkish trade unions KESK and Egitim-Sen, who have been taking strike action in protest at Government repression of protests in Istanbul, Ankara and many other cities, repression that, regrettably, imprisoned trade unionists in Turkey are only too well aware of.

School Direct

From September, the Government are rolling out their next ‘train-on-the-job’ training scheme, ‘School Direct’, replacing the previous GTP scheme. Graduates will be employed to teach classes while they supposedly receive in-school training at the same time. Some will receive payment for their work, but there is also a non-salaried School Direct programme as well.

Unfortunately, some School Direct trainees will struggle under the pressure of working in the stressful environment of a school without proper support and training. If they are not careful, schools will be happy to ‘fail’ them at the end of the year, then replace them with another cohort of cheap labour. The NUT will be asking school reps to make a particular effort to recruit School Direct staff both to give them the support of a trade union and to involve them in our campaigns to ensure teachers are properly trained and paid for the work that we do.

Nominations for NUT National Vice-President

A number of other National Executive colleagues wished me well for my campaign, as agreed by LANAC, the Local Associations National Action Campaign, to seek nominations to stand in next term’s election for National NUT Vice-President. Barnsley NUT have already agreed my nomination and I was able to confirm invitations to speak at meetings of a number of other NUT Associations , including visits to both Cheshire West & Chester and Bolton later this term.