Martin for NEU Deputy General Secretary

 From this Week's "Socialist":

 

I am standing to be National Education Union (NEU) deputy general secretary because our union needs clear and determined leadership if we are going to withstand the serious challenges ahead of us. More than any other candidate, I have the experience, skills and campaigning record that can make us a stronger team.

Years of funding cuts, pressure from school inspectorates Ofsted and Estyn, and 'exam factory' conditions have already taken their toll. Now teachers and support staff face further attacks from a government hoping to make us pay for their failures.

Making a stand on safety has shown that we can succeed when we act decisively. I'll work to win more gains in future.

As deputy general secretary, I will work to build a union that has the confidence, strength and organisation to defend the pay, jobs, safety and working conditions of education staff and, in doing so, defend education as well.

Every candidate will propose changes that could improve our conditions, and pupils' learning conditions. But the key question is, how can they be won?

The NEU has not been slow to make demands. Our problem has been that they have too often been ignored by employers and ministers. Our 'five tests' for Covid safety were not met - putting our health and safety at risk. For years, we've complained about unreasonable workload, but it keeps getting worse and now we face a 'pay freeze' - are our demands for improved salaries going to be ignored too?

School safety

Throughout the pandemic I have consistently argued that to defend school safety we would need to use our collective strength. The New Year 'U-turn' showed what we could achieve. Now we need to make more gains.

I am standing to be a deputy general secretary who works to bring our union together - in our workplace groups, districts and branches, alongside the staff and other resources paid for by your subs - with a belief that we can, and must, succeed in winning our demands.

As a member of the National Union of Teachers (NUT) national executive from 2010-15 and then NEU London regional secretary from 2016-19, I have experience of working within the union at its highest levels.

I have been active within the NUT, and now the NEU, throughout my working life. I became a science teacher, and soon a local union officer, in London in the 1980s.

As Lewisham NUT Secretary for over 20 years, I doubled local membership and supported hundreds of colleagues. I have organised many successful campaigns, opposing cuts and academisation, defending pay and workload.

I am still a teacher and local NEU officer today, now in north west England, experiencing the pressures on members at first hand. I am regularly invited to put our case across to the press and media.

In short, my record shows that I can be a deputy general secretary that can be relied on to provide clear leadership.

What I stand for:

• A union that builds the workplace strength that ensures we are a force to be reckoned with. Launch union-wide training for NEU reps and officers on how to successfully win collectively
• Reverse the privatisation of education. Oppose academisation. Campaign for local authority supply pools. Return all schools to democratic local control, staffed under nationally agreed pay and conditions
• A union that supports NEU reps and officers to defend members, individually and collectively. Improve our strategies for organising, recruiting and training reps, and advising our caseworkers
• A union leading the battle against discrimination and inequality in schools and communities - end performance pay. Educate and organise against racism, sexism, disability discrimination and LGBT+ oppression
• Action to protect the health, safety and welfare of staff, and our communities, from Covid-19. Coordinate ballots for action short of strike action and strike action to win union demands
• A union that recruits and organises all education workers working in our schools and colleges. Win negotiating rights for support staff colleagues. Provide supply staff with the support they need
• No to a pay freeze, no to cuts - fund schools and colleges to fully meet needs. Bring the public sector unions together to defend members' incomes, conditions and jobs
• A genuinely democratic union - where members are 'listened to', not just 'talked at'. Build a vibrant inclusive union that values its staff but is led by its elected representatives, its national executive members, local officers and workplace reps
• End excessive workload - and end the high stakes testing that drives so much of it. Win a national contract that sets a limit on overall working hours, not just 'directed time'
• A deputy general secretary that stays in touch with the problems that members are facing. I will be listening to you. I will not accept more than a teacher's salary for carrying out my role

 

100,000 dead. Are the world-beating Tories to blame?

The first issue was the failure to provide PPE to front line workers. Ten years of Tory cuts meant the stockpiles of PPE were decimated. It was not possible that a health service which had been cut to shreds by the Tories could deal with the crisis. 

If the NHS collapsed under the weight of the pandemic, that is certainly something the Tories would have to be held to account over.

Perhaps one culprit is the government's lack of clarity and constant changing of the rules. A straightforward "Stay at Home" became "Stay Alert". Can you be arrested for not being alert? How do we know if we are being alert or not? 

"Eat out to help out" certainly helped out the virus.

The inequality to which the Tories are wedded has meant the rich have done well out of the pandemic while the poor have suffered. Racial minorities have suffered disproportionately. An Oxfam Report highlights this

Then there was the farce over opening schools for a single day then closing them again. Williamson was more intent on playing macho man than actually listening to what the education unions were saying.

As for Christmas, that was a bit of a pantomime. The yes/no/don't know relaxation of the rules can only have led to the rise in cases of Covid -19. Thanks again Uncle Boris.

I am glad that the current messaging is coming from Chief Medical Officer for England, Chris Whitty rather than witless politicians.But the Tories do need to be put on public trial for what they have done and failed to do.

 Socialist Reviews

Capitalism is a virus Socialism is a vaccine.

 It will not come as a surprise to Socialists that the rich have done very nicely out of the pandemic while the conditions of the poor have deteriorated. It is nice to have the facts confirmed by Oxfam.

The report "The Inequality Virus" states

"The coronavirus pandemic has the potential to lead to an increase in inequality in almost every country at once, the first time this has happened since records began. The virus has exposed, fed off and increased existing inequalities of wealth, gender and race. Over two million people have died, and hundreds of millions of people are being forced into poverty while many of the richest – individuals and corporations – are thriving. Billionaire fortunes returned to their pre-pandemic highs in just nine months, while recovery for the world’s poorest people could take over a decade."

The report contrasts the poverty experienced by many front-line workers combatting the pandemic with the way the rich avoided feeling the pinch. It highlights with facts and figures the unequal consequences for the rich and the poor.

The world's 10 richest men have seen their combined wealth increase by half a trillion dollars since the pandemic began — more than enough to pay for a COVID-19 vaccine for everyone and to ensure no-one is pushed into poverty by the pandemic.

Misogyny and racism are not separate issues of inequality, they are organically linked to the rule of capital.

https://www.oxfam.org/en/research/inequality-virus for the full text.

Capitalism is a virus. Socialism is a vaccine. 

 

 

 Socialist Reviews

Williamson for crying out loud!

 Williamson continues to make a complete fool of himself. He blunders from one disaster to the next.

The exam fiasco showed a bone-headed attitude towards the serious business of education. He really couldn't run a piss-up in a brewery.

The farce over keeping schools open for a day then closing them as the education unions have been telling him left him with egg on his face.

Speaking of eggs, the scandal of Tory cronies short changing parents over food parcels is only the latest. 

 

If the monkey won't resign perhaps we should consider the organ grinder?

Silenced - The Hidden Story of Disabled Britain

 Cerrie Burnell and her team have produced a landmark documentary on the subject of disability.

She herself faced horrific discrimination when she first became a CBeebes presenter and was confronted with the reality of prejudice against disabled people.

The documentary traces the development of prejudice from the Eugenics movement so beloved of Dominic Cummings and Adolf Hitler. The clear objective of segregation was to prevent "inferior humans" from breeding. 

This lived on beyond the Nazi era with special schools for special students, exclusion of disabled people from public transport and the organised patronising of disabled people by charities.

The movement against this led to access to mainstream education for a number of disabled students. One campaigner recalled pupils who had no disabilities chanting "we want to be with our friends." Unanswerable.

Access to public transport for people in wheelchairs is now the norm but that access is patchy at best and the poor provision is a denial of civil rights - actually no different from the Alabama bus company refusing a seat to Rosa Parks.

It is ludicrous and insulting that people with disabilities are expected to rely on charities - Chris Tarrant was shown making a self-righteous defence of his patronising attitude.

Disabled people have suffered disproportionately from cuts in public spending and from the impact of the pandemic. Attitudes need to change and this first class documentary will help.

The prejudice against people with disabilities is a first-class alibi for the Tories to justify refusing them basic civil rights and refusing to spend public money on improving facilities and improving access. It is also a means to 'divide and rule'

 

 Socialist Reviews

Fire and Rehire

 Fire and rehire is the latest bad practice being shared by employers. It is a cynical exploitation of the pandemic to worsen workers' conditions. What are the politicians doing about it?

Congratulations to the GMB for standing up against British Gas who are trying to make a bonfire of workers' basic rights.

Their video is here

Socialist Reviews  

A clue that the TUC need to get off their knees?

A clue that the TUC need to get off their knees? The union leaders often need a nudge from the rank and file members. NSSN are good nudgers.

 

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I ask you, what have the unions ever done for us?

 

The Tories promote a 1970s "union bashing" mentality exemplified by the failiure of Williamson to listen to the teachers' unions over school safety.

The only people who benefit from union bashing are lousy employers like Amazon or McDonalds who want to keep their staff overworked and underpaid while the bosses are raking in the cash and paying peanuts in tax. 

There have been successful drives to tax Amazon in Seattle and to unionise McDonalds. Say not the struggle nought availeth.

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Trump supporter or satire?

 

This may be a Trump supporter. It may be satire. 

 

I had someone on the "i" newspaper page telling me the Trump rabble were all antifa activists in disguise and I am still not sure if they were taking the p*ss or not.

 

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Brev feedback

 These are the figures for Brev from eBay.

I am glad people found the postage cost "reasonable" since it is free to UK buyers.

Democrats dilemma

 

The Democrats are trying to make the strongest statement they can about the behaviour of the President. They cannot do nothing. To put Mike Pence on the spot shows what his rhetoric is worth. He cannot put his money where his mouth is. 

If it comes to impeachment and the Senate Republicans continue to support Trump's lawless behaviour it could do them no favours in any future elections. They can hardly pose as the party of "law and order" without being a laughing-stock

 

The next thing would be if the Democrats could come up with radically different policies from those pursued by the Republicans but they are too wedded to capitalism for that to be likely.

America needs a party of the working class. So do we!

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These are genuine comments about Trump by Republicans
 

Responses to the riot in Washington

 “Like all of you, I watched as a gang—organized, violent and mad they’d lost an election—laid siege to the United States Capitol,” Michelle Obama said about the chaos she observed on social media and TV like everyone else around the world who watched in horror. “They set up gallows. They proudly waved the traitorous flag of the Confederacy through the halls. They desecrated the center of American government. And once authorities finally gained control of the situation, these rioters and gang members were led out of the building not in handcuffs, but free to carry on with their days.”

Even the BBC managed the notice the contrast between the 'let them get on with it' attitude of the police towards a largely white-supremicist mob to their violent response to 'Black Lives Matter'. The Confederate Flag says 'black lives don't matter' loud and clear and the police respect that.

Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, in a speech broadcast on state television on Thursday. mocked the whole idea of democracy and pointed to the riots as an example of the sort of things which democracy leads to.

Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying  compared the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong with the anti-democracy riot in Washington. Specifically the Stalinist regime said the riot was a 'beautiful sight to see' echoing the words of Nancy Pelosi about the Hong Kong pro-democracy movement.

China does hold elections with the small difference that there is only one candidate in most cases.

Most people are horrified by the riots. For the dictatorships however they are a bit of a laugh.

The rioters were wrongly reported as anarchists when in fact they were a rag bag of racists and authoritarians with anti-semitic slogans prominent on their clothing. The details are here.

Trump could face the implementation of the 25th Amendment which allows for the removal of a president or impeachment if Mike Pence prefers not to take that route. Republicans are distancing themselves from Trump at the speed of light.

A Socialist perspective on these events is here.

It does not spare the Democrats from criticism for allowing matters to come to this pass. However, it does say:

"The Democrats now will have the Presidency and control of the House and the Senate, following the winning of both Senate seats in Georgia. Despite the capitalist character of the Democratic Party, the defeat of the Republicans in Georgia and the election of a black Senator from there, Raphael Warnock, is an indication of the changes taking place and the blacklash against the Republicans."

An independent party of the working class will not be an easy task either in the US or in the UK but it would be a robust response to the far right which is something the Democrats do not seem to be able to produce. 

 

 

Pay Rise for Heroes

#clapforheroes is a nice thought. #payriseforheroes is an even nicer one. People feel powerless in the face of the pandemic. Showing  support for the heroes of the pandemic demonstrates solidarity.

If Boris joins in, well that's the sort of thing that gives hypocrisy a bad name.

 

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The party of law and order

 Trump tweeted to his mob of insurrectionists in Washington, "Remember we are the party of law and order." They look like it!

The police reacted violently against Black Lives Matter protests and they have a track record of attacking black Americans without provocation.

When a group of predominantly white protestors held an anti-democracy protest in Washington, the boys in blue were incapable of stopping them.

So far Trump's antics have cost the Republicans Georgia. Now Republicans are praying that Trump will be boarding a midnight train out of their lives.

The public have seen the ugly and unacceptable face of the Republican Party so why on earth should anyone want to vote for them?

One reason is that the Repubicans have billions of dollars to conduct political campaigning.

Another is that the Democrats are seen as weak because of their failure to present a political alternative to the Republicans. They can be portrayed as a "metropolitan elite" remote from the concerns of working class Americans.

America could use a party of the working class. So could the UK.

Socialist Reviews

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