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Page 14 26 Sept, 1992 No. 28 ....in words) ... infigures)
Six per cent, plus a £1,000 flat rate increase for all teachers - this is the National Union of Teachers' headline grabbing pay claim.
Itwas announced just after a government's declarati a two per cent public sec ay limit and two days before ne pound fell through th floor of the ERN It is hardly an auspiciou time to submit such a sub- contact. stantial claim, and no doubt this will once again provide the right-wing leadership of the NUT with an excuse not to mobilise the membership in an effective campaign with a real prospect of success.
General secretary Doug McAvoy and his cabal will limit themselves to presenting the review body -chaired by arch-Thatcherite Rover chief Graham Day - with their glossy 80 page submission.
It will be left to association and division activists to make the case with the membership. This will be no easy task, with widespread demoralisation among teachers.
Many NUT members regard the claim as unrealis ing point. tic, although thoroughly deserved in the light of masively increased workloads Yet the union's submissior left to defend. does contain some elements which could be used to mobilise teachers and unite them in a campaign.
These include: limitinc parents' meetings to six; a 50 hour limit on activities connected with the wider educational needs of the school (curriculum development, in-service training, preparation of teaching materials, etc); no more than one after school meeting a week; at least 20 per cent of time without pupil All are capable of drawing the membership into activity in a way that a pay campaign alone can never do. The NUT is also calling for a national maximum class size, an issue shares between them. which could be used to build alliances with parents.
This could open up the debate about educational standards and the funding mechanism for school, and break the stifling consensus of Labour and the Tories.
Faced with local authority budget cuts, a curriculum and assessment procedures which are both unworkable, and creeping privatisation, much of state education and instant fine. many of the teachers who work for it are close to breakThe NUT should campaign not just for pay but in defence of state education -now, while there is something
Outlook goes to press), where Home News Many MPs only did so to