Thousands joined Oxford protest on Feb 14 £500m school cuts LABOUR's David Blunkett has focused his timid protests at the education cuts on the relatively marginal issue of the under-funding of the teachers' pay award.
Of course full funding of the pay awards must be demanded. But in most schools the biggest problem is caused by cuts in central ge!. ernment funding and rigid capping of the amount councils are allowed to spend from local council tax.
National figures show that local authority spending will be cut this year from £17.5 billion to just £17 billion - a cut of £486 million.
Since most costs are on employing staff, thousands of teachers' jobs are at risk. with the implication of rising class sizes and plunging standards of education. DAY speaks to ROY LEACH, the Secretary of Oxfordshire NUT and candidate for the national executive, about the protests. SO: What started off the protests? VARIOUS budgets are on the table at the moment. The Labour Party are proposing setting a budget £7.5million above cap - that is, the limit set by the government.
The Liberals are offering a far lesser spending level, but, and this is important, one that still exceeds the government limit. They suggest going £1.7 million or £1.8 million over cap. This is the amount necessary to fund the teachers pay award.
To this they add a proviso however: whatever they go for will only be with Tory support. Not suprisingly the Tories have been less keen to set a budget beyond central government wishes. The Liberals have handed an effective veto to tne 1 ones.
Oxfordshire county council is well known for its political horsetrading. Things are rarely simple on the council. This is because no single party is in a position to run it alone.
There is a three way split between Tories, Liberal Democrats and Labour. Each has a third of the places.
This makes for a political process of constant negotiation - deals have to be struck between the parties to get anything done. sure the obedience of health Draws alist Worker NUT and Labour Party. The uniqueness of this combination is in itself an indication of the broadness of the campaign. It decided to launch a countywide all Oxfordshire Stop the Cuts Campaign. This body has been meeting every Friday since.
The NUT, UNISON, UCW, Labour Party, Green Party and SWP are all regular attenders. Supporters of Socialist Outlook have an important input. Within three weeks we had gathered 14,000 signatures on our petition. The campaign has been active all over the county — in Banbury, Witney, Henley, Abingdon and all over Oxfordshire.
We organised a demonstration on January 21. It was the largest march I've ever seen in Oxford. There were at least 2,000 protesters in the city centre. SO: And what about the teachers themselves? The major development has been the strike ballots by the NUT, NAS/UWT and UNISON.
The NUT has voted 5:2 in favour of strike action; the NAS/UWT by an even bigger margin - 3:1 in favour. UNISON however came out 3:2 against. This defeat reflects the union's weak organisation and its increasingly dispersed workforce.
The Oxfordshire NUT strike ballot is now being reproduced all over the country - Newcastle, Leicestershire, with ballots to come in Nottinghamshire, Islington, Ealing and all over.
There has been a big national response - but it lacks a powerful unifying national leadership.
The new campaign, FACE, has established a national steering committee which will help Another action has been whole neous protests and parents' groups that are springing up all SO: What are the prospects in Oxfordshire? There was a full lobby of the council on February 14. At least three thousand people turned up. Many of them were teachers, but also in evidence were governors, parents and school students.
It is significant that school students are coming of their own accord - they're not brought along by parents, but demonstrate because they can see what the attack on education will mean for them.
The mobilisation of governors is particularly interesting. Refusing to set cuts budgets is. a big step. Unlike councillors they cannot be surcharged. The only recourse of the local education authorities would be to take over the running of the budgets themselves, but they're in no position to take on the huge extra workload.
The council made no decision on February 14, but it looks like they will meet again this coming week and eventually cobble together a joint Tory/Lib Dem budget. paign remains clear - we are opposed to all budget cuts. It is important however that the council challenges the cap ceiling, because if it exceeds the limit then the case goes in to a review process.
This will mean that the teachers jobs could be secured for another three months - not much in itself, but important if it's your job on the line.
It will also give us more time to build the campaign.
It is crucial now to build for the national demo against education cuts in London on March 25.
be more effective.
Socialist Outlook's AIDAN