Teachers’ Joint London Rally

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Teachers’ Joint London Rally

Editorial:
Uniting to Demand Change

Alan Milburn on Foundation Hospitals

Response to Plans for NHS Decentralisation

The Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL), the National Union of Teachers (NUT), together with the NASUWT, hosted a joint rally in Central Hall Westminster on Wednesday.

The event highlighted the teaching crisis hitting London. Teachers already suffering financial hardship are facing a situation where they are no longer able to come to or stay in the capital to work. It has been estimated, for example, that the London Borough of Greenwich could face a turnover of its entire teaching workforce in the next five years.

Gerald Imison, deputy general secretary of the ATL, said: "The Association of Teachers and Lecturers is extremely concerned by the state of the education service in London and fringe areas. It is time to demonstrate to the Government teachers' problems and frustrations."

Doug McAvoy, general secretary of the NUT, said: "Schools in London and the neighbouring areas continue to suffer from catastrophic teacher shortages and teacher turnover. Pupils and students continue to face uncertainty and disruption.

"The ability to buy or rent accommodation in London is a pipedream for teachers. Coupled with the high cost of living teachers are simply being prevented from staying and meeting the needs of London's children.

"Police have an allowance of £6,000 and free travel. If that is good enough for the police, it is certainly good enough for teachers. The allowances need to be increased by a substantial amount. Teachers have a maximum allowance of £3,000 and for many the allowance is as low as £792.

"Against high and ever increasing housing costs, the costs and difficulties of travel and the excessive workload of teachers, the low level of the allowances provide little encouragement to come and stay.

"The joint call for an interim increase should be accepted by the government. It would send a positive signal to teachers. It could persuade some teachers not to resign later this month, others to return and others to seek jobs here in September."

Eamonn O’Kane, General Secretary of NASUWT, said: "The result of this exodus from London will leave pupils without experienced teachers. Already one London Borough has 175 unqualified teachers taking classes. How can the needs of the Capital’s diverse range of students, with some 300 languages spoken among primary school pupils, be met when teachers cannot afford to live and work here?

"As well as joining in calling on Government to increase London allowance for teachers, NASUWT has called for an additional package of measures for the Capital’s teachers. This includes a deal on transport, like that given to the Police, and better housing options, currently under discussion with the Mayor."

This is not the first time the three TUC teacher unions have taken a united stand. Earlier this year their respective conferences unanimously carried the same motion threatening industrial action if steps were not taken by the government to reduce workload.

The motions called for a 35-hour week for teachers in England and Wales along the lines of the agreement that has been operating in Scotland since last September. They said that the government's Comprehensive Spending Review, due later this summer, must make the money available to improve the conditions of teachers and support staff from the coming September.

The motions included calls for specified limits to teachers' pupil contact time and professional duties, an allocation of time for preparation and pupil assessment, and more support staff.

Doug McAvoy said that from September 1, NUT members would refuse to carry out tasks which the DfES says they do not have to do. He said: "The government has published its poster listing the activities teachers should not be required to do. From September 1 the union will put the government's policies into effect."

The united stands of the teachers’ unions highlight the impossible load being placed on teachers, particularly on London. Teachers are increasingly uniting against the manifestations of the anti-social offensive, as are workers and professionals in other fields, particularly the public sector workers. While the government claims it is solving the problems in the sphere of social programmes, such as health and education, the experience is that the pressure of the crisis-ridden society is intensifying all the problems in this sphere. The workers’ and professionals’ actions are taking place in the context of the whole struggle to combat these problems.

Central to why these problems are not being solved but intensified by government action is that at all levels teachers, health workers and other sections are being excluded from decision-making. In addition, the intensifying stress on the social fabric is meaning that teachers and others, including local government workers, are not only finding their pay and working conditions severely eroded, but they are being made to bear the responsibility for society’s dysfunctionality.

Meanwhile, the government is stepping up paying the rich through delivering social programmes as a source of profits for private capital. The struggle for an increased London weighting is also being waged in this context, as London becomes a focus for these contradictions and the gap between rich and poor, the majority of working people, widens. In the country as a whole the disparity between regions is also growing as a result of the same mechanism.

Increasingly, teachers and others are speaking out and demanding change. Relying on their own strength, in unity with the majority of people in society, they are bound to give rise to this change and reverse the situation where the ruling elite is demanding that all members of society increasingly fend for themselves.

Alan Milburn has announced a loosening up central government power over what are termed the health service's top performers, saying that "the challenge is to free the best NHS hospitals from direct Whitehall control". He claimed that at present the NHS has "great structural weaknesses" which "inhibits local innovation". The reforms are being presented by Health Secretary as releasing the talents of clinicians, managers and other staff. This, he says, "is the key to better health care" – "people perform best when they have control".

It is notable that the Health Secretary does not extend this principle to central control, but only local control. This is a central flaw in his argument. What is the function of "Whitehall control" supposed to be and who are the decision-makers there, whom do they represent, for whom are their decisions made? In a situation where state NHS funding is being diverted into the pockets of private capital, these are crucial questions. Under the guise of "greater freedoms" and "diversity of choice", the government is absolving itself of the responsibility of meeting society’s needs for a national health service in which health care is a right.

Karen Jennings, UNISON's national secretary for health, said: "We are pleased to see that the government has dropped the idea of getting private companies in to run foundation hospitals and they are to remain firmly in the NHS family. However at the same time as creating 'foundation' hospitals, you run the risk of creating a poor relation in the surrounding trusts.

"Patients who are not treated in foundation hospitals will believe that they are getting a second rate service. The morale of hard working staff in hospitals that don't achieve this status will be badly undermined. And many nurses will be tempted to move to foundation hospitals and exacerbate recruitment and retention problems in the surrounding areas.

"The government needs to raise standards across the whole of the NHS. Instead of setting hospital against hospital, they need to foster a climate of co-operation, so that best practice is shared across the NHS for the benefit of all".

Dr Beverly Malone, general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, said: "The RCN believes that decentralisation of the NHS is an essential step in improving the health service. By devolving power to NHS Trusts and by involving the local community, we believe that standards of care will be raised. However today's proposals to free the Foundation Trusts from Whitehall control leave us with considerable concerns.

"Star ratings are given to hospitals which successfully meet government targets, such as reducing waiting lists, but these Trusts are not necessarily those achieving higher standards of patient care. The RCN is concerned that releasing Foundation Trusts, which have achieved three star rating, from government control is based on an inadequate system of assessment which may not benefit patients.

"These new proposals are in danger of fragmenting the delivery of care. We need an NHS which is working in partnership with all its components, as well as the independent and voluntary sector. These recommendations could undermine collaboration which is essential within the NHS and may lead to inequity of care on a national and regional basis. We could be creating a creating a multi-tiered system which will strike at the principles of the equality of access to treatment.

"Alan Milburn speaks of the Foundation Trusts using the flexibility of the new pay system in negotiation. The RCN has had assurances from the government that the pay modernisation system currently being developed will apply to all NHS organisations including Foundation Hospitals. Any suggestion of local flexibility in pay and rewards for staff must be within the national framework to prevent against greater inequity amongst staff.

"Although the RCN welcomes the government's move towards decentralisation, we are concerned that creating hospitals freed of governmental control could in the long-run undermine the basic principles of the NHS which we look to the government to safeguard."