Socialist Party members were out across North Birmingham and Coventry to support the strike at the Arthur Terry Learning Partnership schools (ATLP), a multi-academy trust. The NEU members are striking across 20 of the 24 academy schools, against a proposed 10% cut to staffing as the trust attempts to address a £3 million deficit, following a £1 million bailout loan from the central government.
Echoing the situation with Birmingham City Council, it's the leadership at the top that has created a crisis, but both workers and its service users are going to pay the price and foot the bill. The trust admitted that no internal financial audit was carried out during the last financial year. The Trust now wants to cut staff numbers despite finding £1.8 million to pay just four executives.
This situation is just another example how academisation of local government schools means there is less democratic oversight of school spending via elected school governors. Academy trustees aren't elected and can't be held accountable. Trust CEOs can receive inflated salaries which are taken directly from school funding - reports can be anywhere between £250,000 - £500,000.
ATLP NEU members will be continuing their strike in escalated action. Further strike is planned for the 20th-22nd and the 26th-29th January. Ben, the NEU rep at Osborne Primary School in Erdington, spoke to Socialist Party members how they are ‘doing this to protect the children’s education’. It will be the pupils who will ultimately lose out from these proposed cuts. The resolve of the NEU strikers were determined and public support evident. Parents passing by stopped to say hello and there was consistent honking of cars as they drove past the picket lines.
Britain’s wealthy have never had to worry themselves about the pressures on state schools. For them, the existence of a separate system of elite private education has allowed them to buy schooling for their children, providing far smaller class sizes and a wider curriculum than the increasingly narrow diet enforced on working-class youth. We call for genuine democratic control of schools through the election of local community representatives, parents, trade unions, and school students.
Mass Rally Fills Victoria Square
"Hey, ho - Richard Gill has got to go!"
500 striking teachers and teaching assistants crammed into Victoria Square in Birmingham city centre for a rally last Wednesday. Schools in the Arther Terry Learning Partnership across the Midlands were closed down by the National Education Union strike action provoked by the trust bosses decision to slash 10% of the staff.
The rally heard speeches from NEU reps alongside solidarity speeches from other unions including the FBU and Unite bin workers. Matt Reid of the bin workers expressed his members' support for the teachers and thanked teachers for their ongoing support of the year-long bin workers strike.
NEU general secretary Daniel Kebede gave a rousing speech in which he savaged the ATLP leadership and called for the resignation of CEO Richard Gill along with the rest of the ATLP board provoking massive cheers from the crowd. He drew still bigger cheers when he rightly called for an end to the failed academies programme of privatisation, and a return of schools to local accountability
We found ATLP workers to be well up for the fight and our strike bulletin went down well.
