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GOVe Is THe WeAKesT lINK

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ducation secretary Michael Gove is in trouble. We sank his plans for more assaults on pay and conditions. He wanted to deregulate working hours, have longer school days and shorter holidays, and scrap cover restrictions. For three decades the STRB agreed with every education secretary. This time it rejected Goves demands. It wrote its report last autumn as we struck. The STRB feared more attacks would provoke more strikes. Goves humiliation must be a signal to step up the ght. The reason were striking was underlined when Gove nally published the governments teachers workload survey. It showed teachers average working hours have increased by around 10 percent up to 60 hours for primary and 56 for secondary since Gove became education secretary. We can now roll Gove back on pay, workload, on education and the curriculum.
Chicago teachers won after extended strike action

Strike action can win this ght

come much earlier. NUT general secretary Christine Blower rightly invokes the successful campaign and strike in 2012 by Chicago teachers in the US. They won by building towards an indenite strike that won after seven days.

Summer

Labour

But we cant wait for Labour. Shadow education secretary Tristram Hunt has no plans to undo Goves policies. We have to organise and ght ourselves. Thats why the NUT executive was absolutely right to go ahead with calling todays strike despite the NASUWT leadership refusing to honour their promise to join us. There will be thousands of NASUWT members today asking what on earth their union leaders are up to. Todays strike is a real step forward. So were the hundreds of campaigning Stand up For Education stalls that hit the high streets over the last few weeks and the Education Question Times around the country. But well need much more to win and many teachers believe national strikes should have

Many members may not feel condent enough to take that kind of action yet, but in Chicago an extended strike won with probably fewer total days out on strike than if teachers had taken a series of one day strikes. We need to build towards the action that can win by calling more national strikes next term. Gove has to know that we are in this ght to win it. A 48 hour strike in the summer,

coordinated with other unions if possible coupled with campaigning and demonstrations (NUT is backing the Peoples Assembly protest on 21 June) would be an important next step. With unions in health and local government moving towards a ght on pay our action can provide a focus for everyone who wants to ghtback. There is the potential to rebuild the kind of trade union coalition that led mass strikes of over 2.5 million people to defend pensions in November 2011. Back then some union leaders stepped back from action and let the momentum dissipate. That cant be allowed to happen again. Delegates at the NUT conference this Easter should back calls for hard hitting action and move towards a further escalation of strikes in the autumn. That would show the government just how determined we are and increase the pressure on Gove to go! Gove is the weakest link for this government. He is more unpopular than ever. If we strike hard, step up the action, and go out to win parental support and solidarity from other workers, we can roll him over. That would be a victory for us, the children we teach and everyone who has had enough of this Coalition of Austerity.

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Teachers 24/03/14

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