discussion of this article

George B said…

As mentioned in the article, in addition to the strike action over redundancies at Haggerston, NUT members at St Paul's Way Community School in the neighbouring borough of Tower Hamlets will be walking out on Thursday the 9th and Wednesday the 15th of July in response to a package that could axe 20 teaching posts.

Forty-nine NUT members took part in the recent strike ballot - a turnout of 83% - with 43 voting in favour of a series of strikes.

On Wednesday (01 July) members of the NUT gained the support of NASUWT and UNISON at St Paul's Way in a motion of no confidence against headteacher, Graham Price, whose increasingly provocative attitude triggered a spontaneous protest outside his office the previous afternoon.

At a Wednesday evening meeting in Tower Hamlets, organised by activists at the local FE college where some 40 jobs are on the line and ESOL courses are under threat, East London NUT association secretary Alex Kenny, emphasised the need for united resistance across educational sectors and pledged himself to support co-ordinated action between Haggerston and St Paul's Way.

A case of better late than never, some might say.

Meanwhile, in a shocking development, the Greater London region of UNISON suspended a strike that had been due to take place today (Thursday 02 July) at London Metropolitan University, where some 550 full-time equivalent posts are due for the chop as the institution faces a funding crisis, created by a combination of corrupt and incompetent management and large-scale cuts by the Higher Education Funding Council for England. The local UNISON branch secretary received an instruction from the regional office late on Wednesday afternoon ordering him to email members with a repudiation of the strike, which was due to take place alongside action by the UCU lecturers' union.

The ostensible reason for the supsension of the strike? Apparently, UNISON full-time officials had failed to give the required seven days notice to the employer of the impending action despite the union nationally posted information on its website and the circulation of a press release. Ironically, the university's HR section had issued a statement earlier on Wednesday afternoon indicating that the strike was going ahead!

Thu 02, July 2009 @ 11:28

Kirstie said…

Sisters and Brothers,

You have our full support in your fight against redundancies. Haggerstone NUT and the Rep Kate Ford have a proud tradition of standing up to management and delivering solidarity action alongside other fellow workers. I suspect there is a more sinister reason behind the redundancies - an attempt to break up a strong union group so that the management can usher in a Trust. Trusts are academies by another name and it is clear from the goverment's White Paper on education announced this week that they intend to drive their neo-liberal privatisating agenda forward at an accelerated pace.

If there is anything else we can do in the meantime - please let us know

solidarity forever!

Kirstie Paton

Greenwich NUT president on behalf of the association.

Thu 02, July 2009 @ 23:07

George B said…

And evidently a Trust is exactly what Tower Hamlets senior management now envisage as the fate of St Paul's Way Community School from January of next year.

The creation of a Trust would pose a real threat to the terms and conditions of teachers and other school staff, while also leading in all probability to the introduction of new far more restrictive admissions criteria.

The decision to move to Trust status, revealed to union representatives late on Thursday afternoon (02 July), lends still greater impetus to the industrial action planned for Thursday of next week and Wednesday 15 July.

Fri 03, July 2009 @ 14:27