NUT's approach.
NUT activists need to reach out to rank and file members of the galco Teachers are massively disillusioned with the education poliMSF conference in May will take place under unusual circumstances, reports VERONICA FAGAN.
Assistant General Secretary John Chowcatt has been suspended - for making allegations of serious financial malpractice against General Secretary Roger Lyons and Head of Finance Nelson Mendez - who have themselves suffered no sanction.
This is hardly the treatment one should expect from a union which has set itself up as the champion of whistle blowers.
Union President Dave Cook has issued circulars stating that the allegations were unfounded, but this is after a supposedly independent investigation" - by part of the firm that is the union's auditors. They would say this, wouldn't they - given the fact that they have already signed the accounts?
Worse, Cook is now telling branch and regional activists that the matter cannot be discussed at all within the union.
Apparently it is OK for the General Secretary to be quoted in a Sunday paper, but not for members to ask what is going on!
Politically it would be difficult to get a cigarette paper between the two main protagonists, Lyons and Chowcatt -and the same can be said on the level of personal integrity.
But while there is no basis to decide whether the allegations are correct, there is every basis to demand a full, independent enquiry and equal treatment of both sides in the meantime.
This, and the conclusion that both bureaucrats cannot survive will be the basis of the left's campaign in the run up to