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North - Classroom Assistants, Postal Workers
 Strike against low pay!
Gary Mulcahy

The honeymoon period for Gordon Brown and the Northern Ireland Assembly is over. In a explosion of anger, classroom assistants and postal workers have decided to take strike action against attacks on their pay and conditions.

The announcement that postal workers are to resume strike action in September and the magnificent 93% vote by classroom assistants across Northern Ireland to take all-out strike action against low pay are indicators that a new phase of workers struggle is underway which will challenge the neo-liberal agenda of bosses and the Assembly.

Classroom assistants have been criminally mistreated and exploited for years by employers (including all the local parties on the education boards) and central Government due to their refusal to increase pay.

Now Education Minister Catriona Ruane has chosen to continue with the policy of denying classroom assistants the right to a just pay increase and has insisted that classroom assistants accept further attacks on their pay and working conditions.

Classroom assistants have now been left with no choice but to begin strike action in September. The huge vote in favour of strike action is a result of classroom assistants own experience over 13 years of employers using “job evaluation” to keep wages down. It is also because classroom assistants have learnt through bitter experience that taking strike action is the most effective way to defend their living standards and the services they provide for children.

Likewise, postal workers are now forced to consider taking militant action over the coming weeks. Weeks of rolling strike action involving the entire Royal Mail workforce and unofficial walk-outs which spread across Scotland forced Royal Mail to agree to enter negotiations. Now that talks have broke down, management have begun to impose new working practices and attacks on postal workers. Postal workers must now organise national strike action leading to all-out action if necessary to force Royal Mail back.

These groups of workers are not on their own in their determination to defend their pay and conditions. Local government workers across Northern Ireland, England & Wales since voting 81% in favour of rejecting a 2% pay ‘increase’ are currently being balloted whether to accept a revised offer of just 2.475%. With inflation running at close to 6%, these pay offers in reality amount to pay cuts!

Postal workers and classroom assistants will find massive support from other workers in the public sector who are faced with similar attacks on pay and conditions. This support must be galvanised by the unions co-ordinating united strike action involving all public sector workers. If postal workers and classroom assistants are defeated, it will be a defeat for all workers. That is why all trade union members should build support amongst workmates, through their branches and union structures for a one-day public sector strike.

Brown’s speech at the TUC Congress in Brighton was a message to millions of low paid workers to get used to poverty pay and poor conditions. He lectured “no loss of discipline, no resort to the easy options, no unaffordable promises, no taking risks with inflation” to low-paid workers. But he has no problem with company directors receiving a 37% pay increase amounting to £14 billion last year alone! This is because New Labour is a party of big business and the rich. It is a scandal that the unions continue to donate money to Labour so they can attack workers living standards.

The unions should break from the Labour Party and begin the process of building a new party which represents working class people. The parties in the Assembly are no different to New Labour when it comes to attacking workers like the classroom assistants and privatising public services. A socialist alternative which represents the common interest of working class people could challenge the right-wing sectarian parties in the Assembly and offer a real solution to capitalist exploitation and sectarian division.
North
 Classroom Assistants vote 93% for strike action
Brian Booth, NIPSA Branch Secretary & Classroom Workers Strike Committee South Eastern Education & Library Board

The deep underlying anger felt by all public sector workers across Northern Ireland has exploded to the surface with a massive 93.37% vote for all out strike action by classroom workers in schools.

The strike is in response to a vicious campaign of cuts instigated by the Direct Rule Ministers and continued by local politicians in the Assembly.  Many had expected a change in policy when local politicians took charge.  Now there is a sense of shock that they have continued where New Labour left off.  In the last few months the Assembly parties have made clear that they intend privatising, cutting and selling off the public sector.  But already their cuts policy has taken them a step too far.  Classroom workers are rebelling.  They unanimously rejected an attempt by the Education Minister, Catriona Ruane, to impose a new contract in June that would have seen a vicious slashing of pay, deskilling of jobs, and many workers forced to seek alternative work leaving children without the support they need. 

The classroom assistants have given Minister Ruane their answer to her attack in the form of the magnificent vote for strike action. 

The strike which is due to begin on 26 September and then escalate to all out strike action at the beginning of October will have a massive impact across Northern Ireland.  Up to 1,000 schools could be affected, picket lines will appear in every city, town and village and an army of angry workers is ready to take on all comers. 

The anger of the classroom assistants reflects a wider resentment against their employers amongst all education workers, teaching and non teaching. At some point the leaders of this dispute may have to bring that anger into play and to call all education workers out on strike in solidarity with the classroom assistants. 

 The scene will then be set for a united fight back against the miserable working conditions and further attacks on the right to education that the Assembly has planned. After all, a defeat for the classroom assistants would be a defeat for everyone but a victory will be a victory for all workers.

 For school staff, parents and the wider trade union and socialist movement there is a challenge ahead.  If a broad campaign, with a democratically accountable leadership that matches the determination of the classroom assistant, is built an historic victory can be achieved.

Why I voted for strike action

NIPSA Classroom Workers Strike Committee Representative Janette Murdock spoke to The Socialist:

 “Every single day of our working lives is dedicated to doing our best to provide an education for children. Now our employers want to abuse the job evaluation process to strip that education from the children we care for.   

 “If we can no longer ensure, through our work in the classroom, that children receive their right to a decent education then we will fight to defend their rights on the picket lines.

“The Minister for Education decided to avoid meaningful talks all summer.  Through her actions she has placed education in a crisis. Children are at risk and we can no longer stand aside from this fight.  We have worked too hard and sacrificed too much to allow a short term penny pinching administration to ruin the lives of this generation of children. 

“We will not allow ourselves to be driven out of our jobs without a fight and we will not walk away from our responsibility to children.”

Janette Murdock is a classroom assistant in Tor Bank Special.
North - Postal talks break down
 Escalate Strike Action to win!
Gary Mulcahy

Five weeks of secret talks between Communication Workers Union leaders representing postal workers and Royal Mail broke down on 10 September after no agreement was reached over pay and working conditions.

Weeks of rolling strikes over June and July by different sections of postal workers and unofficial walk-outs by postal workers across Scotland in response to victimisation of union reps forced Royal Mail to enter into negotiations in an effort to cut across possible escalation of industrial action. It is now clear that Royal Mail had no intention of entering the negotiations to genuinely resolve the issues.

Postal workers have been forced to take strike action to secure a decent pay rise, stop post office closures, defeat plans to sack 40,000 workers and protect working conditions and pensions. Royal Mail was only prepared to give various options that would amount to a 6.7% increase over two years but with strings attached which would have seriously undermined postal workers conditions. Because workers are not prepared to accept these attacks management have started to impose changes to shift starts and other attacks on postal workers. As a result the CWU has announced it’s intention to call more strikes in September.

The strength of the strikes earlier this summer shows that postal workers are prepared to fight Royal Mail’s attacks. But without a significant escalation of action this fighting mood may not last. Royal Mail management and the government must be sent a clear message of defiance by announcing a series of escalating national strike action involving all postal workers starting with a 48 hour strike and leading to all-out action if necessary.