Local Associations for National Action

LANAC meeting 30 09 2012

http://nutlan.org.uk/

LANAC is the Local Associations for National Action Campaign. I attended this meeting on behalf of WSTA. 22 Associations were represented. Many were from urban areas but I did speak to a delegate from Leicestershire who clearly had many of the same issues as arise in spread-out areas like West Sussex.

There was a good businesslike discussion about the successes of the Action Short Of Strike Action. These successes are in advance of the actual date of the action and the result of discussions with sensible heads...and not-so-sensible ones.

Action has been taken in schools without a previous record of union activity and with bullying management styles in place. LANAC will share good practice and the union's action will educate heads into the notion that bullying is not necessary for school success.

Examples of the little victories will be posted onto the LANAC website – I was nominated to work on the website - and publicised on a facebook page and on twitter.

If there are cases of individual victimisation, it was thought that the ballot would enable schools to move straight to strike action, giving seven days' notice, without another ballot. It is likely that such action could be sustained so members are not out of pocket.

For the future, it is possible that such action could become generalised.

Meanwhile members of the NASUWT and the NUT are experiencing working together and improving the workload for teachers. This co-operation is despite the fact that some NASUWT members believe that they are forbidden to attend joint meetings with the NUT. An increasing number are turning a blind eye to this instruction.

The Action Short Of Strike Action is against the government and it was thought likely that it would be the prelude to national strike action.

LANAC will be seeking the widest possible support for the TUC demonstration on 20^th October. It is likely that co-ordinated strike action involving public sector workers will be necessary to turn the tide against austerity.

There will be a LANAC conference on 8^th December to review the state of the action.

Meanwhile here is a model resolution suggested by the vice-chair of the meeting, Sally Kincaid

Model resolution/petition on pensions/pay/workload

We welcome the overwhelming vote in the NUT ballot for action on workload and pay, to add to the existing NUT ballot for action in defence of our pensions, which mirrors the NASUWT votes over the same issues. Together these votes give both unions a clear mandate to defend teachers and education from the assault on all fronts we face from the Coalition government.

We welcome the joint statement by the NUT and NASUWT calling for non-strike action in all schools over workload as part of this battle, but we are worried that the statement contained no clear indication of a plan to move to national strike action.

We pledge ourselves to seek to coordinate the non strike sanctions and any local strikes with the widest layer of schools possible.

But we believe however that if we want to beat the government national strike action is by far our strongest weapon and is absolutely necessary.

We believe that there should be a move to a programme of such action as soon as possible, and certainly this term. We believe each union should do this alongside each other and/or other unions facing similar battles.

 We therefore call on both the NUT and NASUWT executives to pursue discussions with all these unions and agree dates for such national strike action starting this term at their next meetings in early October

NUT: Fax motions or completed petitions to 020 7387 8458 or email a scanned copy (for petitions) or motion with numbers attending the meeting to c.blower@nut.org.uk

NASUWT: Fax motions or completed petitions  to 0121 457 6208 or email a scanned copy (for petitions) or motion with numbers attending the meeting to chris.keates@mail.nasuwt.org.uk

We are all plebs as far as the ConDems are concerned

Mitchell has denied that he called the police officers plebs. Instead he has called them "liars". That is a charge for which they could lose their jobs. But of course he couldn't. Being a liar is more of a qualification for his job!

Lobby of the TUC by shop stewards network and socialists.

Action Against Austerity 

Statistics

Some odd statistics about this blog.

Pageviews
United States
5063
United Kingdom
1732
Russia
1192
Germany
615
Netherlands
595
Poland
203
South Korea
183
Ukraine
157
France
87
Canada
86

The number of people in the US reading this blog is very gratifying considering it is predominantly about British politics. The sales of Classroom Teacher Manual are higher in the US than in the UK too.

The 157 in the Ukraine is a surprise too!

The browser statistics show an interesting trend

Internet Explorer
5005 (42%)
Chrome
3892 (33%)
Firefox
1866 (15%)
Safari
467 (3%)
Opera
327 (2%)
GranParadiso
59 Mobile Safari
23 Netscape
23 Mobile
19 Java
Putting IE firmly in the lead. However this week's statistics tell a changing story:

Chrome
383 (71%)
Firefox
94 (17%)
Internet Explorer
27 (5%)
Safari
26 (4%)
Opera
4 Mobile Safari
3 BingPreview
The triumph of the Chrome it would seem.

The audience statistics for this week are:

United States
369
United Kingdom
137
Switzerland
11
Russia
11
Germany
5
Malaysia
3
Belgium
2
Poland
1

And a big Dzien dobry to my Polish reader!

Unqualified Disaster - how do we fight back?

This (union branch) notes that the government has brought in the use of unqualified teachers against the opposition of all teachers and heads organisations and a majority of parents. This was brought in without any discussion or consultation.
The government claim that this will enable schools to bring in "brilliant people" instead of teachers to teach our children. We reject this argument as false. Brilliant people are already invited to visit schools to talk to children and to answer questions. If they wanted to teach they would have been brilliant enough to get a teaching qualification.
The government's aim would appear to be teaching on the cheap. Our children deserve better.
We therefore call on other education stakeholders including governors, head teachers, parents' organisations and local councillors to protest this move and to write to Michael Gove telling him that they support the use of qualified teachers to teach our children. They should also query why they were not consulted about this drastic and irresponsible move.
School letterheadings and notices could contain the words "Qualified teachers only" to differentiate schools who care for their pupils enough to insist on qualified teachers. This is as important as hospitals employing qualified surgeons.
Parents have a right to know whether their children are being taught by qualified teachers.

Click here

Blair has a new master

It is official. No less a person than Mr Tony Blair the 'legacy Czar' of the 2012 Olympics insists that McDonalds and Coca Cola are perfectly healthy.  It is unlikely millionaire Blair has ever had to eat in a McDonalds, smell the kitchens or attempt to digest the food.

In the groundbreaking film 'supersize me', Morgan Spurlock monitored the effects of a McDonalds diet. These included a 13 percent increase in body mass and a cholesterol level of 230. In the American system 200 is the maximum safe level!

Clearly this is regarded as ideal for youth sports by Blair.  Ever ready to grovel to the corporations, The man who started out as Bush's poodle is now McDonald's new chicken McNugget.

Gove behaves like a pickpocket using the distraction of the Olympic Games

The government has sneaked in a proposal to allow academies to use unqualified staff to teach children. This is overwhelmingly opposed by parents and teachers but people had their eyes on the Olympic Opening Ceremony while this measure was introduced without discussion or negotiation.

Commenting on the Department for Education’s decision to remove the requirement for academies to employ qualified teachers, Christine Blower, General Secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said:

“This is a perverse decision by the DfE and a clear dereliction of duty.

“The NUT believes all children deserve to be taught by qualified teachers, and it's not just the profession that thinks so. Our 2011 ComRes poll showed that 89% of parents want a qualified teacher to teach their child, with just 1% comfortable about those without Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) taking charge of a class.

“By his own admission, Michael Gove is relaxed about profit-making from schools. He takes his inspiration from Sweden where profits are being made by reducing the number of qualified teachers, and where educational standards have fallen. By contrast, the reason Finland scores so highly in international tables is because they value teachers, trust teachers and pay teachers well.

“Parents and teachers will see this as a cost-cutting measure that will cause irreparable damage to children’s education. Schools need a properly resourced team of qualified teachers and support staff, not lower investment dressed up as ‘freedoms’.

“The Government has no credible argument for removing the requirement for academies to employ qualified teachers, so chooses instead to bury this decision in the hours leading up to the Olympics opening ceremony.”

For Kindle For ipad
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And also there is a free reader for the PC Click here

Short story on alfiedog.com

Click here

 

Do you feel entirely safe when walking through the crowded streets of the old city in Tunis? Well if you had Omar with you nothing could possibly go wrong!

John Terry BNP poster boy

The judgement that John Terry was using racial abuse "ironically" will
give a green light to every racist thug to claim "ooh it was all
irony. I was just quoting what this ******* **** said to me". The fact
that the language used on the pitch is traditionally disgusting is not
much of an excuse. If nobody ever has to face the consequences it will
go on being disgusting.

Pity the poor tax-dodger

Anyone who thinks the Conservatives lack compassion has only to look
at Philip Circus's column in the County Times "Cutting Tax is the best
way to reduce avoidance." Tories may have to take hard decisions to
cut money going to the old, the sick and the disabled but they are
genuinely fond of the tax dodger. And obviously the way to stop the
poor things dodging tax is to cut the tax. Thus a government hell-bent
on "deficit reduction" still spares a thought for the rich and
generously gives them tax cuts.

But does Circus's idea go far enough? Surely by his logic we should
leave our homes unlocked so there is less housebreaking, perhaps give
goods away from shops to discourage shoplifters, and abolish speed
limits so there is no more speeding.

Mr Circus is a bit of an anarchist on the quiet isn't he.

Euthanasia - don't let them put a red peg on you!

The House of Lords are debating "assisted suicide" soon.

Consequently the issue of assisted suicide (which might otherwise be
called murder
or manslaughter) is prominent in the media. What sticks in my mind is
listening to a young man in a wheelchair at a disabled teachers'
conference. What he said was "Whenever you see stories in the papers
on the lines of 'will I go to prison for helping my husband to die.'
you should ask why the newspapers are never interested in disabled
people who want to live but only in the people who want to kill us?"

Making euthanasia legal would make old and disabled people not fully
human and therefore not entitled to human rights. I understand the
courts may treat each case on its merits and temper justice with mercy
but we cannot write into law an absolute right to dispose of old and
disabled people.

And as they said in "Torchwood" if they put a red peg on you it means
the incinerator for you!

...says an old and disabled person!

Uppity Downs

At the National Disabled Teachers' Conference, Richard Rieser gave a
presentation on the views about disabled people typified by the
eugenicist movement supported by Darwin, Galton, Churchill and of
course ultimately by Hitler and the Third Reich.

He ended with a poem by Micheline Mason called Uppity Downs which puts
an alternative view.

I am glad to be able to report
To Messrs Darwin, Galton, Churchhill and Down
Hitler and the Third Reich
That your mission was a failure

Though you tried so hard to persuade us
With your learned accomplices
To believe in you nightmare
Requiring the extermination of the flawed,
The flawed have nonetheless flowered

Protected from your twisted plan
By unstoppable love,
Now released from the ghettos
People with Down Syndrome
And other endangered treasures
Are rising up all over the world
Getting uppity and visible

Artists and poets,
Actors and dancers
Some quiet and thoughtful,
Some noisy and fun,
A teacher, every one

You could say in fact
That your horrible experiment
Has not simply failed
But gloriously backfired!

Parents all fired up
With fierce and defensive love
For their targeted children
Have joined arms with the Flawed
And other progressive forces
To insist on inclusion for all
Replacing your elitist ideals
Of empire and Might –

Britain forever Ruling the Waves-
With a different dream
Taking hold in many places
Of a slower, more gentle world
In which being born human is enough
To evoke awe, wonder and respect
From each to all

The end of competition
The start of collaboration
A bottom-up revolution
Heralding a new world
In which it is safe for all of us
To be our selves

2007

Trade Unionists resist attack on disabled "scroungers"

There is - quite rightly - outrage when BNP and other far-right thugs
attack disabled people. Cameron and the media are doing just the same
thing, using their wealth and power rather than their fists.

Disabled people are among the hardest hit in the cuts and the
ideological assault echoes the eugenicist argument that disabled
people are "useless mouths." Cameron really ought to be careful
talking in these terms. For the general public there seem to be plenty
of "useless mouths" around the cabinet table, in the banks and in the
boardrooms.

The Disabled Teachers' Conference took place on the weekend of 30th
June to 1st July. Significantly the conference involved speakers from
UCU and PCS who are also involved in opposing the attack on disabled
people which is taking place. And the attack is ferocious.

Sasha Callaghan of UCU described a "reign of terror" by the
undeserving rich against the poor. "The government's attitude to the
poor harks back to the Poor Law of the 19th Century. Our past is in
front of us." The language used about disabled people; "scroungers,"
"shiftless" and "undeserving" echoes fascist rhetoric.

The NUT's Allan Grey added that in the light of Cameron's vicious
attacks on disabled people "it would believe the Labour Party would
represent us but I hardly need to say we can't."

The PCS representative, Austin Harney, revealed that PCS has balloted
on its political fund with the consequence that they will be able to
stand trade union candidates against pro-cuts candidates from any of
the political parties.

PCS members are being disciplined for merely telling claimants that
they have a right to "access to work" support. They have to accede to
requests but they can be in trouble for telling claimants their
rights.

The government attacks disabled people because they think they are
weak and have no allies. Certainly many of the charities on which
disabled people depend have folded in the face of the government
onslaught. Downing Street should be in the middle of a perfect storm
of recrimination from the charities but they are not. The butcher has
his big knife, but the lamb to be slaughtered has an open mind!

Only the trade union movement can provide the strong allies that
disabled people need. There was overwhelming enthusiasm for the TUC
anti-cuts demonstration in October but nobody wants to wait until
October before taking action against the government's disgraceful
attack on disabled people.

A R K spells ARK

The Ark charity is supported by churches all over Horsham and has been
generously supported by St Johns Church. Ark is there to help people who are
held back by homelessness, drug abuse, alcohol abuse or poverty. It
provides food and companionship, advice and understanding.

Ark is now offering free adult literacy classes with the support of
Kip McGrath. We have three qualified teachers offering their services
to anyone who wants to come. One of our students is even writing a
novel. The work in progress is available on
http://storiesfromhorshamark.blogspot.co.uk/

I have nothing but admiration for our students. Nobody feels
embarrassed if they cannot handle Maths but to admit "I can't read" is
very difficult. It takes courage to accept help.

Another project which has been discussed is setting up a night shelter
in winter. We have been inspired by the churches in Brighton who set
one up last February. Think back to the awful weather and imagine
trying to sleep rough in it.

Ark can always use enthusiastic volunteers and will make the best use
of your skills to help others. This is straightforward Christianity:
"Love one another as I have loved you".

http://thearkhorsham.org.uk/

20 October - advance warning

London

Saturday, 20 October 2012 - 12:00pm

The TUC has called a mass demonstration on 20 October against the cuts..

It will set off in London and march to Hyde Park for a rally.

For more details: http://www.tuc.org.uk/economy/tuc-21056-f0.cfm

Can we assume co-operation from the police since they are also
demonstrating against public sector cuts?

The Apprentice – or who wants to work for a bully?

When I could drag myself away from the Royal Circus on the Thames, I
watched the final of The Apprentice. For those of you unfamiliar with
this theatre of cruelty the main character is a pantomime villain,
Lord Sugar, who gets to set tasks of varying degrees of daftness and
then humiliate the participants.

Sugar is a Labour Peer and acts like a less charming version of Lord
Vader. He urges his apprentices to give in to the dark side. After a
day of teamwork they are all forced to humiliate and denigrate each
other in the boardroom.

And what great ideas did these finalists come up with? One was yet
another bloody call centre – even one of Lord Vader's stormtroopers
thought this was a tawdry idea! Then there was a website to enable
people to buy ingredients for recipes. Lord Vader derided the whole
idea that people plan their meals before they cook them. One assumes
his Lordship has someone else to do that for him. A recruitment agency
proposed by someone who already runs a recruitment agency was the
winning idea.

And that leaves one. A fine wine hedge fund. If you want a symbol for
the degeneracy of capitalism this will do fine. This is not for people
who actually drink wine. No. It is for people who want to invest in
fine wine as a hedge against the economic crisis. You can see how this
is an idea to set the nation alight and improve the lives of millions
of ordinary people. Or perhaps you can't.

The apprentice is undemanding entertainment but if it is an exhibition
of the best in British entrepreneurs, heaven help us all.

Derek McMillan
Mid-Sussex Socialist Party

Thank you for the opportunity Lord Vader

Documentary highlights state of public services

The BBC "56 up" program follows the lives of individuals in an
unprecedented documentary narrative spanning the time since the
participants were seven. This week it highlighted the plight of public
services. Lifelong library service worker Lynn Johnson said "for the
last thirty years I have been banging my head against a brick wall but
now nobody is listening. They say that the work I do, anybody could do
it."

It is worth emphasising she lost her job as a result of "nice Labour
cuts" not "nasty Tory cuts."

Now, rather than being able to take early retirement her husband has
had to take on full time work to make ends meet. "the goalposts keep
getting higher" for retirement. "People who started work assuming they
could retire at sixty, find the situation has now totally changed."

She regrets the fact there "is no party of the left" although she says
she is not political... and adds "they haven't got a clue what they
are doing. Some people are never ever going to recover from it and
unfortunately they will be quite devastated. We have no more left-wing
Labour Party any more. Tony Blair saw to that. They all veer to the
right. "

You can still see it on Youtube if you type in "56 up documentary" and
it is well worth a look. On the same program a wealthy Tory barrister
boasts that there is no class society in Britain :) Lynn felt her work
promoting literacy and love of literature with children had been
worthwhile. How many rich Tory parasites can say the same?

Putin gets a new rottweiler?

Dog owners were reportedly outraged when Spin Doctor Alistair
Campbell, was described as Blair's rottweiler.

Campbell has been in the news recently in relation to the Leveson
Inquiry where he revealed for the first time that Blair's entourage
thought there was a problem with the relationship between the Murdoch
media and politicians - although there is no evidence they ever did
anything about this "problem".

He has now turned his talents elsewhere and will be a spin-doctor for
a firm whose clients include McDonalds, (who notoriously hired
million-dollar lawyers to attack two individuals for handing out
leaflets) Vodafone (whose tax affairs are regarded as a public
scandal) and Google (who have scant regard for the privacy of anyone
who uses their search engine). He will also be working for Tesco's
because every little helps.

Another client is Vladimir Putin. It is hard to tell whether this is a
step up or down after working for Blair. We can at least be sure he
wont be mocking Mr Putin for going to a "bog standard comprehensive".

If anyone wanted yet more evidence of the moral and political
bankruptcy of New Labour - well you couldn't make it up, could you?

Derek McMillan
Mid-Sussex Socialist Party

Merchants of Death grow fat - cuts for everyone else

Tough times... for some of us. For soldiers who have lost limbs the
government is going to cut their disability payments. For the weapon
manufacturers, the merchants of death, the government obsession with
playing soldiers has earned them a pretty penny.

The government was determined to buy the F38C joint strike fighter
plane but has now opted to buy the F38B. The cost of this blunder has
been variously estimated as 40 million pounds down the toilet or 100
million pounds down the toilet. That money could have provided some of
the "help for heroes" we all hear about.

It is good to know that this is what the government calls "fiscal
responsibility." No squandering money on health, welfare and pensions.
The cost of the F38C has actually doubled to two billion pounds.

Batting on a sticky wicket, Defence Secretary Philip Hammond claimed
that the decision to buy the F38C "was right at the time" but the
decision to buy the F38B was right now. Well for the time being
anyway.

It sounded on the BBC news as if he were saying they needed to fit
catflaps on the aircraft carriers but in fact they needed to fit
"catapults" and "traps". These public school boys know how to have fun
don't they? And it is with billions of pounds of our money they they
are having fun.

In addition to which the RAF air-to-air refuelling planes are alleged
to be costing the taxpayer a good 100 million pounds over the odds.

The question nobody asked, the "elephant in the room" was why on earth
the country can afford this profligate expenditure when everything
else needs to be cut. New Labour were silent on this because – you
guessed it – they suggested the F38B in the first place.

A real political opposition will not come from the hopelessly
out-of-touch political elite.

Rundown on the rich b*stards in the government

Who says the Daily Mail is good for nothing? Actually I do but this is a useful fact list