Day of Action

283 members attended the rally in Worthing on 24th April and it was a great start to the Fair Pay for Teachers campaign.

Veronica Peppiatt gave a moving tribute to Steve Sinnott and emphasised that he could always see the good in people – even those who bitterly opposed him and how he had sought to use all the talents of union members and pull the union together. It is up to us to make use of that unity and take the union forward.

There was a minute’s silence in memory of Steve.

Regional Secretary Marian Darke struck a different note entirely when she sang about Ed Balls seeing the light and deciding to stop the Academy Program and abolish SATS and OFSTED and ended up with the idea that the strike would show the determination of teachers to bring about these changes and achieve fair pay for teachers.

Veronica then spoke about the thinking of the National Executive on how to take the campaign forward after the strike. No serious economist supports the government’s view that public sector pay causes inflation and she wondered aloud how an increase in teacher’s pay could retrospectively increase oil prices!

The government uses one measure of inflation to calculate the debts of young teachers and a different, much lower measure when it comes to calculating teacher’s pay. The National Executive meets next week to decide what action we can take on pay and workload.

The mood of the meeting was electric and speakers were cheered to the echo. The biggest applause was reserved for Marian Darke.

There was a mood of enthusiasm and a feeling that the campaign should be taken forward. Members were keen to take petition forms. The key task now is to strengthen the union organisation – it has been shown that reps were the key to the success of the strike in individual schools – and create email groups of reps to share ideas and to use the union’s facebook group and this blog to keep in touch with each other.

The people at the meeting are the key to the future of West Sussex Teachers’ Association.

If you have experiences of the strike to share with us you can join our facebook group or email WSTAlearn(at)yahoo.co.uk

Meanwhile anybody who did not get the petition can download it by clicking

here