NEU setting the tone for 2021
It is a fitting start to 2021 that a trade union is setting records in meeting attendances. Following a 4,000-strong meeting of union reps and lay officers (report here), the National Education Union has held a meeting attended, they reckon, by 400,000 on all media platforms. The attendees may not have all been members, but it must still be a world record for a union meeting.
The NEU leadership has been advising members not to go into school this week, as the government is insisting – particularly primary teachers – but instead to offer their services for on-line teaching. Only the children of key workers and vulnerable children should be allowed face-to-face teaching, by teachers organised in a rota and even then, the union is advising that clinically vulnerable teachers should not go into school.
The Union is urging all of its primary school members who are due to go into work to quote Section 44 of the Health and Safety at Work Act on the grounds that schools are unsafe.
New Covid strain out of control
In a situation where the new strain of the Covid virus is out of control and where school-age children are the biggest single transmission group, the teachers are right. Throughout the entire Covid pandemic, the Tories have shown more concern about corruptly throwing lucrative contracts at their friends than following the Science or organising effective test and trace measures. It is likely that the shambolic organisation of its Covid policies to date will be replicated in an equally shambolic and stumbling ‘roll-out’ of mass vaccinations.
It is a huge step forward for a major trade union to be leading a fight for the welfare of its members in this way. The NEU has been supported by both the head teachers’ union, NAHT, and Unison, which organises support staff. The other main unions for teachers and support staff, the NASUWT and GMB, have advised their members to go into school and it will be no more than these two unions deserve when they lose thousands of members to the NEU and Unison.
With a few notable exceptions, the trade union leaders have in general been too quiet during ten months of pandemic. But they must now step up to the plate as the new strain of Covid rages out of control. Key workers were clapped by Tory leaders in April but kicked in the teeth in November, with the announcement of a new wage freeze. Many employers have laid off workers permanently during the pandemic. Others are going to come out of the crisis with a policy of ‘fire and re-hire’ to reduce workers’ wages and undermine their conditions. The trade unions must not allow that to happen.
Full pay for any workers unable to work
The unions must demand full pay for any workers unable to attend work because of the lockdown or pandemic arrangements. They must demand that workers are able to exercise their rights not to work in unsafe conditions. They should demand the suspensions of rents and mortgage payments where workers are unable to pay for the duration of the pandemic, and for welfare benefits to be topped up to a living wage.
Millions of workers have been unable to work from home, particularly gig workers, those on zero-hours contracts, on minimum wages, such as in hospitality and catering. Small businesses, employing a handful of workers, and self-employed workers have also suffered significantly by the pandemic lockdown. The meagre government financial support – even with Universal Income temporarily uprated slightly – has made no significant difference to the insecurity faced by millions. It is hardly surprising that for many this has been the Foodbank Christmas. It is the trade union movement that must put itself forward as the champion of all these working people.
As for the leadership of the Parliamentary Labour Party – always at great pains to emphasise that they are a ‘New Leadership’ – they have offered the most ineffectual opposition to a Tory government in living memory. Faced with a government as corrupt as it is incompetent, the Labour Party should be twenty points ahead in the polls. That it is still dragging along neck and neck with the Tories is a measure of how bad Keir Starmer and his shadow team are. He is more concerned with witch-hunting the left of his own party that taking a serious fight to the Tories.
Little opposition to Tories in Westminster
But if there is little opposition in Westminster, then Labour local authorities around the country need to take up the cudgels instead. All Labour authorities should support the stand of the NEU and the other unions in demanding that schools are genuinely safe before they are opened again.
Where the Labour Leadership have been completely ineffectual in defending the rights of working people, it will be the trade unions more than any other organisations that need to step up and that is exactly what the NEU is doing now. We hope it is a sign of what is to come in 2021.
*Support the NEU in keeping schools closed until they are safe
*Labour local authorities should support the NEU stand
*Trade unions must step up the fight to defend members’ wages and conditions
January 4, 2021
