UK teachers speak from picket lines during latest three days of strikes
About 200,000 teachers represented by the National Education Union (NEU) are on strike this week. The strikes have been organized on a regional basis, with the north of England absent on Tuesday, the Midlands and East region on Wednesday and London, the south and Wales on Thursday.
World Socialist Web Site Reporters took part in pickets and spoke to the striking school workers.
leicester
Shirish, of Folville Junior School, explained: “A lot of people will say it has to do with the pay and that we haven’t had a raise in years, which is part of that. But for me it has more to do with the level of education and its decline in recent years. There has really been a lack of money to enable the teachers to do the things that we hope will benefit the children.
“If we keep letting things deteriorate, it won’t get any better. We’re striking to make sure we see improvement in things we believe in.
“We have millions on the poverty line, pensioners are struggling to heat their homes, the cost of living is escalating by the day and it is appalling that the government is not aware of this or acting to make things better.
“As teachers, we can see that the number of people using food banks and things like that is constantly increasing. There are these kinds of systems to make things a little bit more bearable, but they don’t get to the root or solve the problem. The government relies on charities to solve the problems they caused.”
Minazat Shaftsbury Junior School, said: “We are striking because we want a fully funded education system.
“Unfortunately, the Secretary of State for Education wanted us to call off the strike before she spoke to us, when it should be the other way around: you speak to us and then we can give that back to our members – it doesn’t work the other way around.
“This dispute goes way back to before COVID. Our union has lobbied several governments who thought they could get away with underfunding our system. Well, they can’t, because last year only 59 percent of the target for new secondary school teachers was met. We have a real problem. So if we want a world-class education system, we have to act.”
Minaz was accompanied by a teaching assistant Emily and high school assistant jackie. Her union did not cross the electoral threshold for strike action, but it has refused to cross the picket line. “I love my job, but it’s not affordable,” Emily said. Jackie said they received “good parental support”.
ben, who works at Ellsmere College Special Education, explained: “Resources are constantly being cut, we are constantly running out of money, of textbooks. Education is consistently underfunded.
“Employee morale is down. People constantly see prices going up and their pay packages don’t match those prices.”
Tomasz, a secondary school teacher, said: “It’s disgusting how the government finds it acceptable to fobbe us off with a pay rise that comes from the school budget instead of increasing budgets. That makes our job more difficult when those budgets are cut. It becomes almost impossible to get our work done. I want to say no, enough is enough, you have to pay, you can’t steal from the school budget, and you have to find the money somewhere.”
When asked about splitting the strike between different regions, Tomasz said: “We have to unite. If we don’t all show solidarity, it will lose momentum. We have to force disruption: that’s the whole point of a strike.”
Sheffield
jane, a teacher at Tapton Secondary School, said the strike “is about our pay because it has been eroded for so long that people are not entering or staying in the profession. We lose a lot of experience at the older end and then young people just don’t choose to join us. So it has to be funded, but it doesn’t have to be funded out of the school budget either – it has to be funded by the government on top of the school budget.
“It is a political decision not to pay people. If we can pay energy company shareholders, we can redistribute some of that wealth. It is a fallacy to say that there is not enough money. We have to decide: “Do we want to invest in public services?” because we should. And I’m not just talking about education, I’m talking about the NHS and ambulance drivers – we’re all in the same boat and we should all work together. There’s that money. They must choose to spend it and invest in the future of the country.”
leeds
carol, a teacher at Swarthmoore Education Centre, explained: “We are striking in solidarity because our pay is not directly controlled by government; it is controlled by a board of trustees of a charity.
“We have been below the inflation rate of wage increases for years and we are all feeling the crisis. We are paid less than teachers in mainstream schools. But we are out here to support everyone else too.”
Cambridge
“We are paid so badly that I have difficulty paying my own bills and even making a living as a geography teacher in a secondary school Andrew told us.His colleague, computer teacher JamesShe added: “I’m an experienced teacher. I’m pretty much at the bottom of payroll and will be in fuel poverty next month.”
James provoked the government’s hypocrisy when it proposed the Minimum Service Levels Act, which will force workers to go to work even after a legal vote to strike. “I think a class should always have a qualified teacher in front of it. This is the minimum service we want. But talk to any parent and they will tell you that their children have been tutored for months – that is not true. Initial teacher education is declining, it’s at its lowest level in a decade, and you’re losing teachers like me because it’s just not economical to stay.”
Andrew said: “I am not happy that the government is saying ‘if you call off the strikes we will start talks’ as there should be no strings attached and we have a right to strike. He continued: “I think there should be a general strike. I’m not a fan of regional strikes as a national strike is more effective. Everyone should go on strike and support it.”
Rachel, an elementary school teacher in her first full year, explained: “The funding for the schools is absolutely unsustainable and the children are not getting enough. The working conditions have a very visible effect on the children every day. If a child needs additional instructional support, the school must decide which child will receive the year’s education, health and care plan to fund the support, as well as the distribution of teaching assistants. Only certain children will receive this support, which leaves it up to the class teacher to support all other children.”
Regarding the regional strike action organized by NEU, she said: “A national strike is more effective. Our voice is one. There is money, it’s a choice where that money goes. The government has chosen not to give it to children or their teachers.”
katy, an elementary school teacher, told our reporters, “The workload has increased every year that I’ve taught — for 23 years. I regularly work 55-60 hours a week. The younger teachers who come into the profession burn out.
“The government has chosen not to fund education fairly, just as it chooses not to fund local authorities fairly. The decisions that local authorities have to make about funding impact schools and special education and disability services and it’s just appalling. At the end there are children who suffer.
“I would support a general strike because when people work together you send a stronger signal to those in power. We teach our children to work together, to work together, because you achieve more as a team and the same goes for adults!”