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.

Yes I would massively judge you if you chose to cross the picket line and yet still happily accept any payrise or benefits that arise from striking.

I understand you didn't vote for the strike but majority rules and you have an obligation to stand by your union if you would like your union to stand by you.

Cancel your membership and go elsewhere if you can't do that.

I left the NEU and joined edapt, as many others have said. You have options.

What does this look like in reality? In all honesty, it takes me 40 hours to do the basics of my 4 day a week primary job (teach more than one year group, no shared planning, no bought schemes, subject lead for 4 subjects etc). What are the things we can drop? And surely we're just shooting ourselves in the foot for Ofsted in the future anyway? Our little primary was devastated by a bloody fire and did Ofsted make any allowance for the fact we spent the rest of the year teaching in temp accommodation and dealing with the aftermath (working Saturdays to take things in and out of storage for example)? No, we were Ofsteded exactly as if this catastrophic event never happened.

I'm an adult, I make my own decisions.

Then don’t join a union where the point is collective decisions

I'll be striking but to reassure you OP I didn't in 2013 or whenever it was because I'd only just started teaching so felt like I'd joined knowing what the current conditions were when I chose to join the profession. The majority of my colleagues did strike, I didn't and if it effected relationships at all I was completely unaware of it! We were a very tight knit staff and all got on great for the rest of the year.

Sorry but scabbing is vile

OP what have your colleagues actually said? I only see these sorts of comments on socially media.

It is a secret ballot.
People judge each other all the time for lots of things. You have to do what you think is right.

Don't be in a striking union then. I imagine you'll happily decide to accept any payrise/ benefits that colleagues made sacrifices for.

Thatcher branded it as individuality: in essence it's a twisted selfishness.

How would her colleagues even know she's a 'scab'? She could have switched unions as recommended here

Good for you. But if your decision is in disagreement with your union, your union is no longer the right union for you.

I've never voted to strike before but I did this time.

Disruption? That's something I'm supposed to feel guilty about or responsible for is it? Not the government for shafting us for 12 years and running the profession I still love into the current desperate state it is in?

Maybe they wouldn’t but it’s wrong to be a scab, whether people know or not

Do you honestly think this strike will work? I've been on previous teacher strikes. They don't work, all they do is turn the public and media against us. For it to have any chance of working it needs to be prolonged,which it won't be.

We all know who's in which union, it's openly discussed in staff-rooms and SLT know so they can plan whether to open schools or not. We've had strike days, with more planned, and we all know who's not in a union/ going against union advice. It is noted and won't be forgotten. We and our children deserve better.

Wouldn't the reps know?
I suspect it would get around, particularly if there's a picket line to cross. Unless the OP is actually going to lie about what union she's in!

I have never worked with anyone with such a view.

Leave the NEU then.

I’m a member and if the vote is to strike then I will do so because that’s what being part of a union means. We stand together.

It will be prolonged. In Scotland we've already rejected 2 pay offers, had 2 strike days and have 3 coming in the next 2 weeks. The dates are already planned until Easter. We'll hold out. This has been too long in the making.

Edapt isn’t a union but a subscription legal services that gives you a lot of the same benefits of being in a union.

Community (used to be voice) was a non striking union. It was just a teacher union (as Voice) but has merged with others and still has an educational arm. I am not sure since the name change but I haven’t been balloted so I don’t think they do but not sure.

I'm not convinced strikes will work either. So, if you are in a union, you vote against strike action when balloted. And then abide by the outcome of the ballot. Or, you leave the union and join Edapt.

That's not prolonged. The miners were prolonged. Continued striking, daily for months is prolonged. That won't happen.

There are a few of these threads recently. OP says bad things about striking and unions then fucks off.

Weird.

Suspicious even.

Solidarity to the union brothers and sisters.

Some people have no choice.

I grew in the north east and the miners strike broke families apart. The damage remains to this day.

But some families were literally starving. Its a priviledged position to not be forced to cross a picket.