TEACHERS CONTINUE INDUSTRIAL ACTION

Since the beginning of the year the four main teachers’ unions in the north, the National Association of Schoolmasters and Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT), the Irish National Teachers Organisation (INTO), the Ulster Teachers Union (UTU) and the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) have been involved in a pay dispute after the refusal of government and employers to backdate performance related pay (involving an increase of £1,000 a year) to September 2002 as has been done in England and Wales. The unions described the refusal as a breach of faith and a departure from the longstanding policy of pay parity. Industrial action by my union, the INTO, has taken the form of non-participation in directed time and Baker day activities and the boycotting of e-learning strategies and Statutory Assessment arrangements at Key stages 1, 2 and 3.

However, the inevitable problem of having a workforce divided into several unions had already surfaced with different directives being sent to different teachers in different unions. NASUWT members in my school have been asked not to “undertake any duties which other union members have stopped – this would undermine the action” (NASUWT website). All well and good. But why have the teachers’ unions failed to agree a common strategy on industrial action? INTO teachers refusing to cover absences of NASUWT teachers, and vice versa, only fuels divisions amongst staff. As a consequence the onus has been put on teachers to interpret vague directives and implement them almost as a matter of personal whim! INTO teachers must decide, for example, whether to participate in Open Night activities, and as some will and others won’t the chance of increasing friction amongst staff will increase. Add to this the common practise of holding separate union meetings (even at times of increased struggle) and we must ask ourselves how well we are being served by our unions.

As yet of course there has no even been a hint of a walk-out. On the contrary, the four unions have agreed to consider conciliation with the Labour Relations Agency while the “Department of Education and employing authorities have been contacted so that urgent meetings can be organised to agree terms of reference for the conciliation and hopefully an end to the dispute” (INTO website). An end to the dispute yes. But on whose terms?

Al

The Role of Teachers?

Teachers are viewed by some as the ‘soft cops’ of the state; a junior wing of the police force whose objective is to atomise individual creativity, to accustom young people to their role as submissive industrial fodder, and to indoctrinate against subversion and unorthodoxy of any kind. In Ireland the role of meting out the Christian faith in form assemblies and classrooms across the country is hand in glove with statist control.

Others remember their own experiences of over-aggressive teachers, using positions of seniority and power to allow them to vent their own emotional insecurities.

However, in the vast majority of cases it is the system not the individual teacher who is at fault. We all deserve an education, we also deserve the right kind of education. This doesn’t mean learning by rote useless information to be recycled only once in coursework or examination, but the provision of a holistic learning system centred on the individuals needs. One which can
be applied practically throughout our lives.

It may be true that, used to roles of authority and the myth of ‘professionalism’ that teachers are perhaps less inclined to rock the industrial relations boat. It does not help that education is viewed by many as a bastion of middle-class norms and values, with the implication being that all teachers share in these values. Nor does it help that performance related pay and other sliding pay scales have helped weaken solidarity in schools, have promoted individualist ideas where Jacks and Jills everywhere are kidding themselves that they’re alright. But where better to arrest these individualist concerns than in a collective gathering of teachers sharing grievances and developing their own solutions – together. For some this is the role of the trade union, but the current unions limit us and restrain us at every turn.

Trade Unionism in Education

There can be no doubt that the current state of trade unionism in Ireland falls pitifully short of anything approaching the revolutionary impetus required to inspire and maintain resistance in the workplace. Instead, in education, as elsewhere, trade union bureaucracy acts as the watchdog of capitalism, creating a bridgehead between workers and the bosses who exploit them. Rank-and-filism behaves, in its turn, as the recruiting sergeant for the various groups on the authoritarian left, and while a genuine practise of this strategy is one which Organise! supports we recognise the need to put into practise other methods of organisation, that used today, will prepare us for the types of organisation we will need in the future.

This is required as much in education as in other industries. A genuine need exists to build a new culture of resistance. But there are specific problems.

First of all, trade unionism, north of the border, is weakened by divisions along ‘traditional’ religious lines. Somehow, what religion a person is, is of paramount importance to the struggles teachers face, whether these struggles are for higher pay (or simply parity with teachers in Britain), greater lesson time, less coursework, less administrative responsibilities and so on. Depending on what side their bread is buttered teachers find themselves in such unions as the UTU (Ulster Teachers Union) if they work in the ’controlled’ sector or in the INTO (Irish National Teachers Organisation) if they teach in ‘maintained’ schools. None of this should be seen as in any way bizarre, of course, it merely reflects how different interests in the north have demanded our children be taught.

In education natural divisions along class lines are fudged while the risk remains that teachers in dispute may back their own claims for ‘orange’ or ‘green’ pay-rises without having to concern themselves about their counterparts facing similar problems. Add to this that teachers are further split into unions north and south of the border because of differing education systems and we are left with a more diluted workforce with less solidarity, less opportunity for solidarity and a greatly weakened culture of resistance.

On top of this teachers are not the only people who work in education. Classroom assistants, cleaners, ground staff, secretaries, kitchen staff, cooks are all part of the daily life of a school. Pupils themselves should be given the opportunity to play a role in the running of our schools. Dividing the school’s workforce according to skills, differing aptitudes, academic qualifications etc., is destructive of solidarity amongst workers with a common goal.

An Educational Workers Network

The creation of an Educational Workers Network (EWN) in Ireland will bring together all workers currently divided either because of religion, educational system or job description. It will cut through the red tape that over and over again is used to gag the voices of the working class. School workers in local areas will have a means to get in touch with one another and join with others in their local communities, to fight more effectively and with greater confidence for the things most important to them. Such groups can form and federate with others at local, regional and eventually national level.

However a workers’ network without workers won’t get us very far. Members of Organise! are involved already in education as teachers, students and in administration, but without the sheer weight of workers getting involved we will not be able to move forward. That is why the network must and will be open to everyone, and will be run equally by all those involved.

If you are interested in helping develop an Educational Workers Network contact us at :

organiseireland@yahoo.ie

Al