wHat iS tHe biggest assetMichael Gove has? it is thatthe teachers are divided

into a multiplicity of unions. no soonerhad unity in action been achieved, as itlast was when all the main teacherunions atL, naSUwt and nUt tookstrike action together over pensions on30 november 2011, than it brokedown. that widest unity has still notbeen regained.

why? because the unions are separateorganisationally and not only that, theyare in competition. they can and domake tactical alliances and tacticalalliances are good but inevitably theybreak down. Separate organisations haveto have at least some separate policiesand separate lines to justify their ownexistence. if they had the same policiesand line what would there be to stopthem from uniting?

what has held us back? Self interestof those perceiving something to lose,wrongly in my view, historical baggageand clan loyalty. Loyalty to yourorganisation has much to commend it,but if you shouldn't form merged unions

or new united unions because of it we'dstill have many more unions than thepresent 54 tUC affiliates.

Historical baggage is to not changewhen circumstances change. the naSbroke away from the nUt because theyopposed equal pay for women andbelieved that boys should be taught bymen and girls by women. nigel deGruchy’s estimable history of thenaSUwt was subtitled it A history of abattling minority. but a minority issomething you don't want to be as aunion. it is true that nearing 100 yearssince they formed the naS in 1921 (itlater merged with the Uwt) they haveapproached the nUt in numbers. atthat rate, to unify the profession, all inthe naSUwt as is their present aim, itwould take another 100 years.

no, there is a better way. theFinnish example. it is clear to me thatthey have the best education system inthe world because they have thestrongest union.

at the nUt sponsored conferenceon Unity, Ritva Semi from the Finnishteachers union OaJ, told the

conference of the formation of theirunion in a series of mergers and whichnow organises 95% of Finnish teachers.'we haven't had to strike since 1984,'she said, 'the employers know howstrong we are. the OaJ is always therewhen education is being developed oreducation legislation being discussed.'

Opinion polls show that a majorityof union members, including ofnaSUwt, are in favour of unity.

we need to form a new union whichwould, like the Finnish union representthe overwhelming majority and havereal strength. nothing would be aworse nightmare for Gove. Let's give itto him. the atL has indicated that it isprepared to consider and discuss a newresponse to the new and mostdangerous situation we face. Here ishoping we can and will get ourcollective house in better order to faceand successfully overcome the trials andtribulations ahead. in education, let'slearn from the Finns.

Hank RobeRts is atL immediate Past

PResident and wRites HeRe in a PeRsonaL

caPacity

Unity! for teachers

Unity is strength

Communist Party

www.communist-party.org.uk

we KnOw that the threatthis government poses tochildren’s education

motivates many more teachers, parentsand others than do concerns over payand pensions.

the power of these issues to bringpeople together is easy to understand.Central to encouraging collective actionis an attributable injustice and theorganisation to challenge that injusticewith a reasonable prospect of having an

impact. with growing teacher unity it isclearly all there.

the importance of this campaigning isnot just its mobilising power but the wayin which it addresses the core of thegovernment’s programme in a way that acampaign around a single issue, such aspay or pensions, does not.

the dominant trend in education –referred to as the Global educationReform Movement or GeRM – istowards a deregulated, privatised, for-

profit, state funded education system.Schools operating as businesses,accountable to no one but theirshareholders, would hire whoever theywant, regardless of experience orqualification, to provide a commercialservice paid for by the state. the onlyregulator would be the market andconsumer choice. the sole purpose toattract consumers is so as to draw inincome, cut costs in order to maximiseprofits and to meet the narrow needs ofthe labour market by providing ‘humancapital’ for the economy.

this is not only a british enterprise.continued on page three

Unity!

Building a movement

Unity is strength

by Hank RobeRts

by Gawain LittLe

by RObeRt wiLKinSOn

OUR UniOnS need to take noteof the dangers posed by theeuropean Union/US

transatlantic trade and investmentPartnership and the threat it poses topublic services and education.

it is significant that the UCU has issued a warning of how thettiP is likely to impact upon the provision of Higher education,threatening wholesale privatisation of educational services andeven institutions. it is naïve in the extreme not to recognisethat all education provision faces a similar onslaught from for-profit enterprises waiting for the opportunity to securelucrative inroads into schools and colleges.

People persist in illusions about the eU and a generalweakness is the assumption that the institutions of the eU cansomehow be convinced to exempt public educational provisionfrom the requirements of ‘open competition’ from privatesector service providers. but it is the eU itself that is theinstrument by which public services are being opened up tothese international profit-seeking enterprises.

the Single european act (signed in 1986 by Margaretthatcher) enshrined the intention to eliminate all obstacles tothe ‘free movement’ of capital, labour, goods and services. anessential element of the act was the european ServicesDirective that included the elimination of ‘public monopolies’ inthe provision of services and the removal of any ‘obstacles tothe free flow of labour’ that were created by ‘exclusive nationalsystems of occupational qualification’. the significance of thisfor the removal of the requirement of Qualified teacher Statusfrom Free Schools and academies is only one example of howthis Directive is being implemented.

the european Services Directive (or the bolkesteinDirective) has gradually infected all aspects of public serviceprovision. Our concern for education and the nHS should notblind us to the impact of this Directive on the privatisation ofpublic services such as energy, railways and postal services.everything is to be opened up to international competition.

the international significance of the Services Directive is in itscreation of a ‘brain drain’ from eastern europe and increasinglyfrom the ‘less developed’ countries. eU Commission Presidentbarroso has declared that he wants to ‘lure talent’ fromoutside the eU and to ‘capitalise on the lucrative internationaleducation market’ by offering top students instant eUcitizenship. a South african MP condemned these plans as ‘aform of discreet colonialism….this is not just a brain drain buta destruction of the intellectual capital of the South’.

we ignore this at our peril.RobeRt wiLkinson is a teacHeR and a membeR oF tHe

commUnist PaRty’s eU & PoPULaR soVeReiGnty commission

21st Century Marxism 2014A weekend of debate, culture, music and food «26 July 12pm through 27 July 4pm marx memorial

Library clerkenwell Green London ec1R 0dU

http://communist-party.org.uk/events/21cm.html

by anita HaLPin

a GeneRationaGo Jacquesdelors told tUcdelegates that the‘european project’would guarantee

jobs and workers rights and safeguard thepost-war ‘welfare state’ settlement.

it was a con trick. the maastrichttreaty jammed open the door to bigbusiness to capture public services andutilities in a privatisation scramble that hasleft millions of europeans with mountingenergy bills, failing public services andsoaraway fares.

the free fire zone for big business andthe banks has given us an unemploymentcrisis, youth unemployment tops 60 percent while millions of women are drivenout of the jobs market or suffer forcedpart time working.

Places like spain, Portugal, ireland andGreece suffer huge spending cuts to payfor ‘bail-outs’ by the ‘troika’ of the imF,the european Union and the europeancentral bank.

the european court of Justice – in theViking, Laval, Ruffert and Luxemburg ecJcases – reverses decades of hard wonemployment and union rights.

as european tUc general secretarybernadette ségol says, eU policies “areattacking industrial relations system, areputting pressure on wages, are weakeningpublic services and weakening socialprotection...the core aspects of the socialmodel”.

elections to the european parliamentmean little. in the ‘real politik’ of the eU itis the council of ministers and theshadowy world of corporate lobbyistswhere real decisions are taken.

but these elections have a politicalimportance. it is vitally important thatanger at condem government policies

and disappointment at Labour'scomplicity in privatisation does not endup in a blind alley of apathy or electoralsupport for racism and chauvinism.

Real opposition to a big business-dominated anti-democratic eU cannotcome from UkiP which supportsprivatisation and attacks on workersrights alongside a raft of policies whichworking people decisively reject.

Rather than allow the UkiP nationalistsand the dwindling but still toxic bnPfascists to monopolise anti-eU sentimentfrom the right, Labour and the tradeunions should be educating and mobilisingit from the left.

where communist parties and tradeunion confederations do this with gusto,as in Portugal and increasingly in spainand italy, so the right-wing parties makeless headway. where social-democratic,left and trade union bodies swallow themyth that a ‘social europe’ is possiblethrough reforming the eU, then the farright have a field day. 

with this lesson in mind, communistswill be joining other socialists andworkers – not least those in the Rmt –to fight the eU elections as part of a left-wing, internationalist and anti-eU alliance,no2eU - yes to workers’ Rights.  

but this universal sentiment means littleunless we reject eU treaties that curtaildemocracy and demand privatisation andsay no to eU policies that privatise ourtransport and postal services.

the proposed eU-Us tradeagreement threatens the existence ofour nHs.

a vote for no2eU is a yes to apublicly-owned, socialised health careservice free at the point of use and aresounding no to racism and fascism.

http://tinyurl.com/qdm2yhb

anita HaLPin is tHe commUnist PaRty

tRade Union oRGaniseR

No2EUVote yes to

workersrights

Unity! for teachers

PrivatisationEU\US style

Unity! for teachers

by RobeRt

GRiFFitHs

eDUCatiOnaLaDvanCe iscruciallydependent on aclear sighted

alliance of education professionals,parents – the overwhelming majority ofwhom are working class – progressivesections of the middle class and thelabour movement.

Reassembling this alliance, which in thepost-war period widened the scope ofstate education drove the advance to acomprehensive education system – nowunder assault – is a key political task forthe education unions.

the successes and failings of recentcampaigns have depended on winningunity, not only between teacher unionsbut between teachers and parents.

However, it is difficult to see howprogress can be made in education, orother areas, without a clear resolution ofbritain's crisis of working class politicalrepresentation. this crisis – despite thechangeinf Labour’s leader – is deeper.

while Labour has rejected some of theworst tory-LibDem policies such as thebedroom tax, it continues to sidefundamentally with the ruling classoffensive against public services, thewelfare state, working class livingstandards and trade union rights. toryeducation policies that fragment theschools system and open it up to marketforces were pioneered under Labour – asministers constantly remind us.

we still need to defeat the tory-

LibDem coalition at the General electionand replace it with the only realisticalternative – a Labour government – butworkers, families and the labourmovement will still not have their mostbasic interests adequately represented inparliament or government withoutprofound changes.

that is why the Communist Party isrenewing its appeal to the labourmovement to discuss the necessary stepsto secure such representation.

Labour's special spring conferenceweakened even further the collectivebasis of trade union involvement in theparty while big-business funded lobbygroups now provide staffing and policy‘advice’ deep in the party machine.

not surprisingly Labour’s response toausterity policies has been feeble andcowardly. instead of challenging theausterity and privatisation drive, theyplead for it to proceed more slowly. theysupport the freeze on public sectorwages. they support the tory cap onwelfare spending. they even agree thatupwards of £80bn can be found to renewbritain’s nuclear weapons system, while£375bn has been lavished on the City ofLondon's banks and markets in the formof ‘quantitative easing’.

Labour needs policies that would inspireand energise millions of electors.Comprehensive child care; a massivecouncil house building programme andrent, fare and selective price controlswould bring relief to hard-pressed lowpaid workers, the millions subsisting onstate benefits and pensions and the‘precarious middle’. How could suchmeasures be financed? abolishing useless

nuclear weapons and reducing militaryspending, closing tax lop holes in aprogressive taxation system to ensure therich and big business pay their fair sharealong with a levy on City financialtransactions would raise billions.

a Labour pledge to take rail, gas,electricity and water back into publicownership would be a vote-winner.

a Labour victory on such a programmewould hugely boost people's morale andopen up the opportunity to exertpressure on a Labour governmentthrough action by the trade unions andother campaigning movements.

without a radical change in the Labour'sdirection, the fragmentation of the labourmovement's political unity will continueand even accelerate. Unite's LenMcClusky warned earlier that LabourParty has reached a crossroads and willrisk losing union support unless it isspeaks for working people.

For as long as the labour movementrefuses or fails to reclaim the LabourParty, this will only call into greaterquestion that party's future as a vehiclefor progress and fundamental change.

the Communist Party warns in itsOpen Letter: ‘should the Labour Partycontinue on a right-wing course, its futurewill be at risk and the trade unionmovement will have to re-establish a massparty of labour, one capable of winning aGeneral election, enacting far-reachingreforms which challenge capitalist wealthand power and thereby help to open theroad to socialism.’

Rob GRiFFitHs is GeneRaL secRetaRy oF tHe

commUnist PaRty

Labour at the crossroads

Building aneconomy for thepeopleAn alternativeeconomic andpolitical strategy for 21st CenturyBritainedited by Jonathanwhite.Contributions from: MarkBaimbridge; BrianBurkitt; Mary Davis; JohnFoster; Marjorie Mayo;Jonathan Michie; SeumasMilne; Andrew Murray;Roger Seifert; PremSikka; Jonathan Whiteand Philip Whyman£6.95 (+£1 p&p) isbn978-1-907464-08-9

The educationrevolutionCuba’salternative toneoliberalismby théodore H.macdonald £14.95 (£2 p&p)265pp illustrated isbn 978-1-907464-02-7

nmanifestopress.org.uk

On 24 May, an international conferencewith academics and activists from fivecontinents will discuss how to developresistance to GeRM.

the key moves towards marketisationgo back to thatcher’s 1988 educationReform act. in 1996, the Dfe referred toschooling as being the creation of humancapital. the academies programme wascreated by new Labour.

this is why a focus on the quality ofeducation, and its purpose is such apowerful argument – because it is thecore of the question. if we are able tobuild our campaigns against pension cuts,pay deregulation and excessive workloadin this context – with an understanding ofwhat the end product of these processeslooks like – we are much better equippedto win.

and this means campaigning on otherkey issues, like accountability, which areused to force change and around whichwe can begin to build wide support both

amongst teacher unions and teachers, andamongst parents and policy-makers.

there is the potential for many of theseideas to be drawn together into anational conference on education in thenext Parliament to be held before the2015 General election. this coulddevelop wider support for our vision ofeducation and pressure political partiesto adopt, or respond to, our proposals.

an important aspect of mobilisationtheory is the development of localleadership – people who can givecohesion to a group and begin to build amovement. these people are present inall our unions and conditions will neverbe better for drawing them together.

Last month’s national teachers’ strikewas a huge display of strength. not onlywas there a fantastic response fromteachers but a huge proportion ofparents and the public were won over.

the arguments were won in schools, atschool gates and in the media.

Government intransigence was exposed.the link between the quality of educationand pay, pensions and conditions is clear.

For nUt members the Stand Up foreducation campaign, launched in the runup to the strike, was an important factor.Obviously, the campaign was separatefrom the industrial action as, due tobritain’s restrictive anti-trade unionlegislation, unions cannot take actionover questions like a child’s right to betaught by a qualified teacher.

Under anti-union laws neither couldmembers of other unions join the strikebut this action was strengthened by thesupport given accross the board.

Over the coming months, we need todevelop a coherence and deeper roots inlocal communities and we can all play apart in this.

Gawain LittLe iS a MeMbeR OF tHe

nUt natiOnaL exeCUtive.

Education forthe people

£2 fromwww.communist-party.org.uk

Unity! for teachers

by biLL GReensHieLds

teaCHeRtRaDeunionists can

play a unique role inthe People’sassembly, the fast

growing unified anti-austerity movement.Our aim is to go far beyond the usualcampaign politics of protest, building amovement deeply rooted incommunities and trade unionmemberships, drawing thousands of‘ordinary people’ into sustained activity –many of whom have not previouslyconsidered themselves ‘political’ – into amovement capable of defeating theausterity programme and reshapingbritish politics from the bottom up.

we teachers can play a huge role.Despite the damage inflicted on theeducation system, schools remain at theheart of their communities teachers arewell respected, teacher unionmembership remains at the highest levelsand we are well represented on localtrades union councils.

bring these factors together, and wehave a model for a People’s assemblymovement capable of taking on thegovernment – and winning. Communitiesin action, with the trade unions at theheart and head of the movement.

austerity policies have nothing to dowith ‘deficit reduction’, but are intendedto ‘rebalance the economy’ by imposing‘flexible working’, increasing workloadand driving down wages, workingconditions and social provision in orderto increase profits – and lay thefoundations for full scale privatisation.that’s what they mean by ‘economicrecovery’! the recent assemblyConference unanimously endorsed thePeople’s Charter – alternative economic,social and political policies aimed at afundamental and irreversible shift ofwealth and power in favour of theoverwhelming majority of people, and

away from the tiny millionaire ruling classand those who serve them.

the naSUwt, atL and nUt are allsupporters of the People’s Charter, andwe all need to build on this.

tUC general secretary FrancesO’Grady characterises the currentsituation as ‘class war’, a political step upfrom the ceaseless everyday strugglethat we think of as normal.

the ruling class and their governmentneed, as a result of their economic crisis,to inflict a decisive defeat on us torestore their profits at our expense. inorder to prevent this we need to inflict adecisive defeat on them. there is noother way. the more we build ourmovement, the more successes we have,the more determined and ruthless theywill become. that’s the nature of classwar. So if we are going to fight – we haveto fight to win.

the stakes are very high. thegovernment has its well-planned‘permanent austerity’ strategy behindeach individual attack. Our unions havetended to fight each such attack inisolation as if it were a traditional tradedispute. now we urgently need to put aunified strategy together in which allunions and community organisations canparticipate to the full. as bob Crow putit: ‘... uniting and igniting the people.then, we’ll be unstoppable.” the June 21assembly mass demonstration againstausterity and privatisation is animmediate priority – but we mustachieve the much more difficult task ofbuilding sustained, day-in, day-out anti-austerity activity at local level? is thePeople’s assembly up to the task? theanswer to that depends on the scale ofparticipation and commitment – andthat depends on each and every one ofus. the teacher union conferences willbe a strong indicator of our readiness.

biLL GReensHieLds is a membeR oF tHe

PeoPLe’s assembLy steeRinG GRoUP and

cHaiR oF tHe commUnist PaRty

The People’sAssembly and us

Morning StarDaily paper of the left £1 from your newsagent

Women vthe Coalition

by anita wRiGHt

tHe COaLitiOn governmentknows it will have to quicken thepace of its pillage of the welfare

state, education service and nHSbecause the clock is ticking. in 12 monthstime Parliament will be dissolved prior to

the general election. they need to finish their wreckingoperation in time, so that they can both irreparably damagethese structures and pass the profitable elements over to thegreedy corporate capitalist marauders.

we knew that women were going to be hit hard byCameron’s austerity policies, because the majority of women’sjobs are in health, care services, education and the publicsector, all of which have been brutally cut.

bogus claims by George Osborne that we are in economicrecovery simply do not match the reality of most women’slives. women’s unemployment has fallen by less that 4% since2011 and is still the highest it’s been for 25 years. thousandsof women are seeking full time jobs, many are parked on zerohours contracts and the gender pay gap has started toincrease for the first time in five years.

Cuts to services and benefits have also impacteddisproportionally on women as they are the majority ofservice users and benefit claimants. with an additional £3billion in cuts planned over the next period women will facean even harder battle to make ends meet.

we already have the shame of seeing food banks emergingacross the country, but now Oxfam has said that some familiesare returning food because they can’t afford to cook it.

Some police forces are also reporting an increase in shop-lifting, not of luxury items but of basic food supplies. verabaird, Crime Commissioner for northumbria and nationalassembly of women vice-president drew attention to therising numbers of women, who had never previously offended,who were stealing food. Meat, poultry and fish in 2012 madeup 6% of items stolen in the northumbria area, whereas in2013 this figure had risen to 11%.

we were told by Cameron and Clegg that these austeritypolicies were necessary because money is limited. yet we canafford an estimated £100 billion for new nuclear weapons andallow tax dodgers to walk off with £120 billion in lost, unpaid,evaded or avoided taxes.

they are making us pay for the financial crisis caused byinternational capitalism’s ongoing greed and will continueunless we stop them.

the women’s assembly against austerity conference inFebruary brought together over 250 women activists so thatwe could share our experiences, learn from and inspire eachother. it was not the intention to set up a separate women’sorganisation from the People’s assembly against austeritybut to strengthen our resolve and confidence so that ourvoices get heard in our trades unions and local campaigns.

women’s unique experience of fighting austerity must betaken into account and we should be fully involved in theformulation of any alternative progressive social and economicpolicies as we begin the process of developing an alternativevision of society free from oppression and exploitation.

anita wRiGHt is secRetaRy oF tHe

nationaL assembLy oF women

www.sisters.org.uk naw@sisters.org.uk «

http://education4thepeople.blogspot.co.uk