| Thousand of teachers yesterday went on strike in the latest in a series of regional actions over government plans to change their pay, pensions and working conditions. Members of the NASUWT and NUT attended rallies in Birmingham, Cambridge and Sheffield as more than 2,500 schools were affected in the Eastern, West Midlands, East Midlands and Yorkshire and Humberside regions.An estimated 3,000 teachers from all over the Midlands took part in a march around Birmingham city centre before attending a rally to hear speakers, including NASUWT general secretary Chris Keates. John Gladstone, a secondary school teacher in Birmingham, and an NASUWT member told UnionNews: “I’ve had enough of being told to meet unobtainable targets and to have unreasonable working conditions while being lectured how to do my job by well-paid politicians who have no qualifications in education! “I’m sick of them telling me I’ve got to take less money when they’re all sticking their noses in the trough, asking for 10% rises, while everyone else is on pay freeze. “I’m sick of the cuts, degrading the standard of education and the privatisation. Being a teacher is hard work. They seem to assume we think it’s an easy ride but we’re working damn hard, probably as hard as we physically can work, so if they want us to do more hours we’re just going to collapse. “If they’re not careful,we’re going to have a mass walk-out and I don’t know where they’re going to find 200,000 teachers from – everything’s just fed up.” Primary school teacher Manjit Sohal, an NUT member who travelled from Coventry, said: “Michael Gove is being unfair to teachers: he’s not listening to us, not consulting with us and he’s diminishing education by not listening to teachers who know what they’re doing. “It’s not fair that he’s taking us for granted. We’re very loyal to our children and we just want the best education for them as possible but he won’t listen to us. We’ve got to the point where we are fed up!” Coventry secondary school teacher Chris Titmus (NASUWT) said: “Teachers feel very strongly about the situation we’ve been put in by the government. Michael Gove is suggesting a lot of changes to our pay, our working day, our pay, our pensions, and we’re very unhappy about it.” NUT executive member Linda Goodwin, a supply teacher from Staffordshire, said: “Morale is very poor because we’re being hit from all angles. “Ofsted comes into school and demoralises you completely and then pay’s deteriorating with this new policy where every school can have their own pay policy and if you don’t hit the performance targets, then you don’t go up to the next level. “Then there’s pensions – you’re having to pay more for your pension, you can’t take it until you’re 68, and you’ll get less out.” The next joint strike is in the North East, Cumbria, the South West and the South West on October 17th, and there are talks of a national strike taking place later in the autumn. Linda Goodwin said: “There is definitely the mood for a national strike unless Gove decides he’s going to talk to us. If he does that, then we won’t have to go on strike. Let’s see if he listens to us!” Speaking after the rallies, NUT general secretary Christine Blower said: “The strike rallies today have been a huge success. There can be no doubt left about the feeling of anger towards this government’s treatment of the teaching profession. “Strike action is never a step that teachers take lightly and we are very aware and concerned about the inconvenience it causes parents. Unfortunately we are faced with a Coalition government that is refusing to listen to the reasonable demands of the profession. Changes to pay, pensions and workload will make teaching a far less attractive profession, which is not in the long-term interests of teachers and children. ‘The Education Secretary should do as his counterparts in Wales have done and enter into meaningful dialogue with the NUT and NASUWT. No teacher takes strike action lightly but the intransigence of this Education Sectary has left teachers with no choice. We cannot stand by and watch our profession be systematically attacked and undermined. There needs to be a change in the government’s attitude to teachers and education.” - See more at: http://union-news.co.uk/2013/10/strike-report-thousands-teachers-send-strong-message-gove/#sthash.NQjV3Txg.dpuf |