Today is the 11th
day of the teachers’ strike at Tower Hamlets College. It is the
first continuous teachers’ strike, with picket lines every day,
that has been seen in the UK for 12 years and it seems to be picking
up a great momentum. The strike is taking place at all four sites of
the College, that is, at: Arbour Square, Bethnal Green, Whitechapel
and Poplar.
The dispute erupted at the
College after new Principal Michael Farley, arriving on a salary of
£160,000 a year, decided to take an axe to the staff teaching
budget. Farley and the governors claimed that 40 teachers would need
to be sacked despite a College reserve fund of £6 million! To
save all these jobs outright would only have cost £150,000 from
the College coffers, less than 5% of resources. The teachers at Tower
Hamlets have gone on to make him question the value of this
decision!
Places for the hugely
beneficial ESOL (English for speakers of other languages) courses
have also been hit badly by the new Principal and his cost-cutting
agenda. This programme provides vital learning support for London’s
poorest peoples, and acts as an important facility to integrate
ethnically diverse communities. This is why there was outrage when
the College announced it was to strip 1,000 places for students.
The teachers at Tower
Hamlets have stopped the slicing and dicing of management in its
tracks after 13 of the originally planned 40 workers were given
compulsory redundancies. Their union UCU has taken the position that
all 13 jobs will have to be re-instated before any agreement is
discussed or the first murmuring is heard of picket lines to be
coming down. This shows the unity and solidarity present at the
strike. Teacher and UCU joint branch Secretary Mark Winter stated
‘There will be no drift back to work. We are rock solid, we’re
here to win’. He added, ‘we reject the ‘Ryanair’ approach
from management. We are here to defend the community, education and
the students. We believe we are winning.’
Indeed the community has
itself has responded to the rallying cry of the teachers and is
playing a terrific role in the dispute. Over nine days a delegation of
strikers has managed to raise £10,000 from the local area.
Contributions have been made from local businesses, partners of
staff, FBU branches and branches of the CWU. Other UCU branches
indirectly involved in the dispute have also given generously to the
fighting fund. The networking done by members of the UCU involved in
the strike has been of an admirably high standard and other unions
are displaying the kind of solidarity that gives great encouragement
to working class unity. Postal workers are even refusing to deliver
to mail to any of sites at Tower Hamlets College. Local individuals
are also supporting the teachers financially and wherever they can.
One corner shop is storing signs and placards whenever the strikers
are off duty.
Students too have been
playing their part in the dispute, refusing to enrol at the College
and standing shoulder to shoulder with workers on the picket line.
One pupil at Tower Hamlets told me how he viewed the dispute and what
he thought of his teacher’s involvement:
‘The new Principal needs
to fix his act and get our teachers back and stop sacking people and
pay the teachers that are here more money! Cutting people’s wages
is wrong and sacking people is wrong. 2-3 thousand students are
losing on education because of the Principal’. Asked if people
should join in the strike he said ‘I think the whole College should
be on strike. Whether it’s raining, snowy or cold these guys would
be out on strike and we are going to get more and more people
involved! We need to raise awareness. Everyone needs to come
together…everyone is together.’
Talking of escalation in
the dispute, the administration staff at the College are balloting
for strike action themselves. Mark Winter said ‘If this carries on
and the (admin staff’s) union come out on strike they will have
nobody left in the College.’ With students due back into the class
next week (a week later than expected due to the strike) and teaching
about to begin, the Principal is now ‘backed into a corner’ and
strikers are in a strong position.
It is due to the swift
action of UCU members that the strike has been such a success. UCU
branch members immediately began preparing for strike action after
learning of the Principal’s intentions at the end of the last
academic year, a year in which certain branches of the College have
seen union membership increase by 75%. It is this kind of
organisational skill that is invaluable in the struggle for better
pay, better working conditions and the retention of workers’ jobs.
The rewards being reaped by the union are a welcome reminder to
people in unions everywhere that, when class struggle is on the
agenda, a correct programme and strategy will see previously empty
meeting rooms fill up. Democratically centralised organisation such
as this provides the working class with the kind of fortress it needs
to defend itself from redundancies and counter-reforms and from there
to attack the self same initiatives of the bosses and their
managerial stooges. The actions of UCU members have given teachers
the upper hand and taken senior managers by ‘surprise’.
There are even rumblings
of discontent amongst Labour M.P.s with local M.P. for Poplar and
Canning Town Jim Fitzpatrick questioning the need for the cuts that
have taken place within the College. It shows how militancy can force
the hand of politicians who are reformist or even right-wing. In this
way, just like union branch meetings, the Labour Party ward meetings
will be awoken from membership drought by waves of militant unionists
calling for reforms from the tops of the political system. The
possible affiliation of the UCU to the Labour Party, alongside some
of the other best and most militant trade unions in Britain, suggests
the likelihood of this happening. The organisational channels from
union to Party are still very much in place to receive the
revitalising affect of new members such as those teachers from Tower
Hamlets. Class unity demonstrates that there is plenty of room to
influence the Labour Party once people are on the march and
politicians feel the burn of accountability. The local Labour Party
Parliamentary candidate for Bethnal Green and Bow, Rushanara Ali, has
also registered her support for the strikers. On her web page is the
message ‘My achievements are the achievements of teachers and youth
workers at Mulberry School and Tower Hamlets College’. The best
M.P.s will get better, whilst even the worst will have to keep pace.
Returning to the fiscal
matters at the heart of the dispute, the question has been posed as
to whether or not the funds are available to keep these teachers in
their jobs and, without a shadow of a doubt, there is more than
enough money. The FE sector is sitting on a £1.04 bn reserve!
Added to this is the information that one of the governors at Tower
Hamlets has a personal fortune of £150 million. Once again the
chorus amongst workers and youth should be ‘Make the bosses pay for
the crisis.’
The UCU has organised a
rally for this Saturday the 12th
of September at Altab Ali Park, which is opposite Aldgate East tube
station. The rally begins at 2pm and anyone who supports the teachers
in their fight for both education and the community is recommended to
go down. Collections for the fighting fund will be going around and
warmly received. It is a great chance for trade-unionists, activists
and youth to discuss and exchange insight into the great work being
done and the struggles already underway in the Labour movement.
Socialist Appeal supports
the teachers at Tower Hamlets!
WE DEMAND:
Re-instatement of the
13 sacked workersNo to job cuts
No to wage cuts
