Don't want to join the teaching strike

[SweetRascal]

I'm a primary school teacher of 12 years and with the NEU. For my own reasons, I don't want to vote yes to striking but will this be judged negatively by other teachers? I just don't feel comfortable with the disruption it causes.

No, because it is actively opposing the values we stand for and conditions we want to improve (unless OP likes gigantic workload and wants to work even more for less, cool then).

The strike is not about workload though; it’s about pay.

Crap pay feeds into workload. If we can't hire qualified teachers to fill all the vacancies, who picks up the slack?

I don't know if the strike will lead to a pay increase.
I do know that without the strike there will definitely be no increase.

It does but I’m not sure pay is the only way to address that.

Even the government agreed that teacher pay needed to be addressed, hence their manifesto pledge to increase NQT pay to £30k (not yet met).

Of course now that increase to £30k will be wiped out by inflation so they’re back where they started.

And we can’t strike about funding, or the increasing list that is decided to be the responsibility of schools due to the defunding of other services like SEN, social services and CAMHS, so striking about pay it is.

If we get extra pay as a result of the strike then that’s good, giraffe. I just personally don’t think that we will and I don’t think now is the right time for strikes.

I realise that might be seen as a controversial view but it is a sincerely held one. I am not arguing against more pay but I don’t think we’ve any chance of actually getting it. All we will do is alienate the public, who we do need on side.

I just personally don’t think that we will and I don’t think now is the right time for strikes.

Why do I suspect you don’t think any time would be right for strikes if you don’t think now is it?

If the strike achieves what we want it to then I will come back and eat humble pie

But I don’t think it will.

Like I said, it depends on whether you think the point of the strike is only to get a pay rise.

I don't think many teachers who vote yes are voting purely because they want more money.

If the public are alienated the government are responsible.

They're making it clear that they will do nothing to negotiate with different employees and are actively encouraging a hostile response from the public.

But that is what it’s about.

I realise that’s because it has to be, because we’re only allowed to strike about pay, but it’s unlikely the government will turn around and say ‘well yes, you’re not having a pay rise but actually, your working conditions are ridiculous, we’ll sort them.’

If it’s a protest generally then fair enough but I don’t think that in itself will achieve anything. Unfortunately, I really don’t think the unions have much - if any - power or sway.

Worth remembering that inflation is going to drop, and we will then get offered another paltry pay rise but then it would seem 'not the right time' to have a national strike about being offered say 3% if inflation is 4%. That would be forgetting that the hideous inflation we are facing now and the massively below inflation pay rise we are being offered now, would then be baked in.

If it’s a protest generally then fair enough

I think a lot of it is about protest generally. Look at the state of the country and tell me you don't want to stick your middle finger to the government in some way.

I get that but in terms of what it actually achieves i don’t think they care.

What it does do is get parents muttering about covid closures and closing for QEs funeral and ‘now this again’ - obviously unfair but that’s how it’s perceived in some parts.

I think you’re missing the point of strikes. They’re not convenient, though usually extremely difficult - they’re done because the majority believe conditions are so bad that the pain and expense is worth it. And making up for work you’ve missed during a strike is effectively strike breaking.

Morally, I feel that the point of being in a union is to work together, so you have to go with the views of the majority. I would never work through a strike my union had voted for. If I really felt I couldn’t support it, I would leave the union.

What it does do is get parents muttering about covid closures

I imagine the mutterings of primary parents will be very different to those of secondary where I work, who don’t need childcare.

What we learned from covid closures is that both parents and the media only really care about what’s happening in schools when there’s closures looming. Look how silent they have been on the shitshow that has been going on since they reopened.

We couldn’t buy the publicity for educational issues that potential school closures would bring.

And yes, the Daily Mail will slate us, but they slate us anyway. Others may have their eyes opened, particularly if teachers talk openly about it.

If teachers don’t strike when the ambulance workers, the nurses, the doctors and so on are willing to refuse to work when they are responsible for patient healthcare and teachers back off because Johnny will miss a few lessons, then a) that’s pretty weak given the impact on Johnny of the shit state of education and b) people will assume that education can’t be in that bad a state then if teachers aren’t willing to make a stand when others are.

This is what worries me. And the fact that is we give in here, we may as well give in to everything. I've been teaching over 20 years, so maybe i was influenced by thosewho had fought for proper break times and less adminetc when I was still in school, but I honestly can't understand any teacher who wouldn't do anything they could to get the point across. But then, I don't think teachers tend to be as militant as other professions, sadly.

Wonder if some subjects are more inclined to strike than others. Must be some data on that somewhere.

I’m not too concerned with the lessons Johnny will miss. I genuinely don’t think the strike will achieve what you/we want it to and I don’t believe the unions have the clout to bring change about. Remember the headteacher who was struck off just before Christmas (you were on the thread IIRC) - the one who had been breaking every law about maternity discrimination over several women over several years? (Citing that because maternity is one area HTs normally tiptoe around) - the unions couldn’t help, and in two years that woman will be back.

It’s shit, but losing a days pay won’t make it any less shit.

I’m a member of NEU. I wasn’t originally. I was with a union that did not strike but then they went and “merged” with NEU.

im sick of them stalking me. I blocked the number that texts me often, sometimes 2/3 a day and they actually called me from a different number!!! Leave. Me. Alone.

I see it as I pay them, not the other way around.

What do you think will force change?

On the other hand during my PGCE I saw a very effective use of collective action to force change against a HT who was doing nothing to protect teachers from repeated pupil assaults. It was quite heartening, too, to see colleagues standing in solidarity with each other to say enough was enough.

If you’re sick of the NEU phoning you, join a different union, I can recommend the NASUWT who also helped me out individually with an issue related to being part time.

I don't think strike action is a perfect way of dealing with things, but:

PPA (yes it is too little and ignored in some schools) - won by strike action
Not having to do duties during lunchtime - won by strike action

I am sure there are more.