In the coming days lecturers from 61 universities across the country are going on strike. In Liverpool, the UoL and the School of Tropical Medicine will be affected.
The strike action, called out by UCU, is in response to the newest attack to their working conditions. This time is about the pensions.
I work in admin at one of the universities in the city. Recently, one of my colleagues left the department for a new job. It was expected that I would take on some of their workload. This was not something I could really do, and when I started to be asked, I found it stressful. I talked about it at the drop-in, and a number of useful suggestions were made.
The NUT and NASUWT unions in the East Midlands, West Midlands, Yorkshire and Humberside and the Eastern regions are on strike on Tuesday October 1.
The strikes are over pay, pensions, workload and conditions. If you live or work near a primary or secondary school do your best to show your solidarity.
PAY
The tenth issue of Education Worker, the bulletin of the Education Workers Network of SolFed focuses on victimisation in education, including articles on victimisation of NUT reps, the Halesowen Four and London Met.
Our latest bulletin, covering London Met, SAUL pensions and UCU work to rule.
(Un)Qualified teachers wanted.
While the eyes of most people, both critical and uncritical, are drawn to the Olympics, secretary of state for Education, Michael Gove, has introduced possibly his most significant and destructive piece of reform.
Academies no longer need to employ qualified teachers to teach lessons. Gove heralds this as 'freedom' for academies to employ 'the best for the job'. So while trying to raise the profile of teaching, he's doing the exact opposite. But this is a smokescreen. This is nothing to do with profile, or improving education, or getting 'the best for the job'. It has everything to do with driving down pay and conditions.
Bournville School on strike next week. Worthing High out this week. Noel Park School, Haringey out.
Bournville School Strike
Bournville School in south Birmingham is set to face two days of strike action next week over plans to convert the school to 'foundation' school status. Workers at the school had successfully defeated plans to force an academy conversion less than a year ago after threats of joint strike action and a community campaign.
The latest action is set for Wednesday 18th and Thursday 19th July in "protest at the failure of the school to enter into meaningful consultation regarding proposed conversion to Foundation status and in protest at the change of employer with resultant threat to terms and conditions."
In Jan 2011 my school became an academy, as set out by the government that outstanding schools could become academies. As a staff we were duped into this. There was some consultation with unions, but as previous headships broke the unions in the school with their “divide and rule” regime, consultation was limited. We were sold the lie that we were now free of the thrall of the LEA, HMI inspections and, due to an outstanding status, free from OFTSED inspections for at least 5 years. This has not been the case , in fact being taken from LEA control now subjects us to far more stringent work practices, where union guidelines are not applicable or at the very least are bent to suit the requirements of management. Also being out of LEA control means if the school hits any financial difficulties, it will be teaching staff who suffer.
Oasis Community Learning, a christian educational trust currently running 14 academies in England, is typical of the theological style of industrial relations promoted by the cheerleaders of the Academy sector. Back in November, in the middle of the school year, 13 teachers at its Media City (Salford) Academy were sacked, sparking 5 days of strikes as well as a walk out by year 10 and 11 pupils in the run up to christmas. Ultimately, the campaign to defend the teachers did not win.
Some thoughts of an academy school worker in England.
I’ve recently taught in an academy school for over two years, and in that time I saw a lot of things that have angered me as a worker and as someone who values education, and made even more apparent to me the need for a radical overhaul in education that can only be achieved by revolutionary change in society as a whole.