Conference 2017 Day 4

Conference Day 4

Hi all, today two blog posts will follow quite quickly on each other’s heels – Day 4 was brilliant but exhausting and I didn’t have time to write it before the start of the last day’s session.

If we went into a blow-by-blow this blog post could easily take as long to read as it took to hear, so instead here’s a brief summary of the debates on day 4:

·         Equalities Section

o   Conference passed a motion to demand mandatory PSHE & SRE all-through school which promotes LGBT+

o   Conference passed a motion from the Black Teachers Conference to address structural racism within education both hidden and overt and reinstating a National Union Official with responsibility for Race.

o   Conference passed a motion supporting disabled teachers and encouraging the visibility of disabled teachers in schools.

Many delegates shared some of the experiences of discrimination which they had experienced or which members they helped had experienced, but Catherine Scarlett’s revelation that her school management told her that ‘if she were a horse she would have been taken out and shot by now’ was particularly sickening. The NUT needs to support all teachers facing oppression in their workplaces.

·         In the continuation of the Employment Rights and Conditions section:

o   Conference passed a motion on the excessive workload endemic in teaching which will support members to take action up to and including strike action over excessive workload

o   Conference passed motions to support the Welsh section to ensure that Wales continues to be academy and free school-free and to take action over workload.

Anti-Racism work has long been a crucial part of the NUT’s work. Before breaking for lunch conference showed support for Show Racism the Red Card with a solidarity selfie.

During lunchtime most of the Derby delegation attended an anti-racism fringe meeting that was chaired by former General Secretary Christine Blower and addressed by Laura Pidcock of Show Racism the Red Card; Daniel Kebede, this year’s winner of the Blair Peach award for anti-racist work; Weyman Bennett of Stand Up To Racism and Unite Against Fascism; Nahella Ashraf from Stand Up To Racism,  and Kevin Courtney, our general secretary. Louise Regan, our President, also popped in! It was a fantastic meeting that addressed ways to successfully organise against fascist groups like the EDL but also ways to build anti-racist climates in our schools, and discussion of the wider political situation in which racism is becoming a threat once again because it is coming from the top of society through measures like Prevent and anti-migrant rhetoric from the government and the press.

In the afternoon we moved to the Equality Section. We heard and passed a motion supporting free movement of people, that refutes the claims that schools are under pressure because of migrants and asserts the facts: that schools are under budget pressure because they are having funds cut, and that formally affiliated the union nationally to the Stand Up To Racism campaign. This is especially welcome in Derby where several of our activists have been involved in Stand Up to Racism from the beginning, especially Nicola Scope who went to Calais several times to help the people stranded there by our government. Another key demand of the motion was Dubs Now! Demanding the enactment of the Dubs amendment to allow unaccompanied minors to the UK, which the government closed down after just 200 children were allowed in. Although best line of this debate goes to Christopher Denson (speaking about President Trump, "I'd like to start with a quotation from Marx: 'he may look like an idiot, he may sound like an idiot, but don't let that fool you - he really is an idiot.'"); star speaker on this motion was undoubtedly Sally Kincaid of Leeds – irrepressible is one word that springs to mind!

We also heard a motion on supporting transgender members and students. Many thought that this would be a divisive motion, as there was an amendment proposed which would have removed the section of the motion calling for support for people to self-identify. In the end this amendment was easily defeated and the motion was passed unamended. Derby delegates were proud to have supported a motion which unambiguously supports trans members and students. Here is Chey Brown speaking on the Transgender amendment and one of the hundreds of rainbow flags that were waved when the motion passed!

The afternoon session also:

·         Passed a motion that seeks to strengthen our lay structures in an education landscape fractured by academies, free schools and MATs. The executive is instructed to help build the lay structures in schools so that more reps and school groups can be built; and encourage co-operation between union groups in the same MATs.

·         Passed a motion which called for fair pay for teachers both by lobbying government but also by calling for action up to and including national strike action to achieve this.

·         Passed a motion calling for a restoration of national pay scales for teachers.

The Blair Peach award was presented to the brilliant Daniel Kebende. He has, amongst many other things, helped to organise successful counter demonstrations against the EDL when they came to Newcastle Upon Tyne. The EDL has been on the mind of several of us in Derby since they threatened to come to our city too recently and NUT members were at the heart of the organisation of a counter-demonstration to resist them.

But wait! The day was not over yet! We still had another solidarity selfie – showing solidarity with the Kenyan NUT as teachers there face poverty wages (this photo was taken at the end of that – a bit slow on the camera as I was trying to make sure I was in the selfie!)

We also had the Officer and Rep of the Year Awards:

And finally, in the debate over supply teachers our very own Nicola Scope took to the podium!