Gawain Little - Lessons in Organising: What Trade Unionists Can Learn from the War on Teachers

An excellent review of the attack on teachers and their unions, by authors well placed to point to ways to improve the fight back and resistance.

Kevin Courtney, Joint General Secretary NEU, Formerly General Secretary NUT

Unions are not intrinsically powerful. Their strength and effectiveness only come from the extent to which the membership is engaged and active on a permanent basis. This text examines the elements needed to harness this potential: articulate nimble leadership at all levels, robust democratic practices, and strong local workplace structures. The authors have used their experiences as activists to examine the theory and practice of union organising in tangible ways using real-life case studies from the UK. However, because Lessons in Organising examines some fundamental truths about union campaigning, its messages are universal, highly relevant to other places and other unions including our own.

Maurie Mulheron, Immediate Past President, New South Wales
Teachers Federation (201220) and Angelo Gavrielatos, Current
President New South Wales Teachers Federation (2020present)

This book is an important contribution to the development of education unionism. Were reminded of the vital role of workplace organisation, failure of social partnership, and the need for an active rank and file in order to fight neoliberalism in education.

Henry Fowler & Robert Poole, Co-founders, Strike Map

The crisis of organised labour is not reserved to the United States. Through this book we are introduced to the crisis in Britain and the steps that have been taken to renew and transform trade unionism into a twenty-first-century movement! Welcome to an in depth look at the challenges and possibilities for a different approach to trade unionism.

Bill Fletcher Jr, co-author of Solidarity Divided and author of
Theyre Bankrupting Us And Twenty Other Myths about Unions

In the face of 40 years of neoliberal state policies, teachers forged professional unity and built workplace organisation in their schools through trade union struggles for improved pay, conditions, and to defend childrens education. The authors argue todays crisis-ridden capitalism demands new cross-union co-ordinations a new shop stewards movement on the scale of the original movement after 1917, or the Liaison Committee for Defence of Trade Unions in the 1960s to strengthen working-class solidarity and overcome employers entrenched power. This accessible book is for any worker seeking new ways to organise class struggle.

Alex Gordon, President, the National Union of Rail,
Maritime and Transport Workers

A cogent and passionate case for the continued renewal of teacher trade unionism. It is a renewal that is urgently needed not just to defend living standards and working conditions but to salvage and recreate the very purpose, and values, of education itself.

Melissa Benn, author of School Wars and Life Lessons:
The Case for a National Education Service

A devastating critique of the battle waged by the government over the purpose of education. The authors rightly argue that education is political and in that sense its a struggle between workers and the employers over what the future looks like. For this reason, teachers and their unions have been locked in a fight, not only over their own terms and conditions, but for school children not to be just fodder for a system of exploitation. The book is both a history lesson in struggle and a practical organising guide for the future. Its about building a form of trade unionism thats industrially militant with a political campaigning focus so that workers are equipped to renew and rebuild their unions for the struggles ahead.

Jane Holgate, author of Arise: Power, Strategy and Union Resurgence

Education workers are at the frontline of sustained attacks on a fully funded, publicly owned education service available free to all. These attacks are evident and experienced across all our sectors schools, further and adult education, and universities. Lessons in Organising provides critical insights into how trade unionists can understand and resist these attacks not only to defend the pay and conditions of education workers, but to also show how they should organise with ambition, around a much more hopeful and optimistic vision of what genuine lifelong education can and will mean for everyone.

Jo Grady, UCU General Secretary

An essential read for anyone who wants to understand the importance of collective resistance against the onslaught of neoliberal ideas in education.

Venda Premkumar, District Secretary, Redbridge NEU

Makes clear the reality of organising in a sector that has been systematically privatised by multiple governments and one where the word vocation is used as an excuse to exploit those working within it. This book also shows that even in difficult circumstances it is possible to resist constant attacks from the mainstream media, government cuts and corporate greed. A must read for those in unions seeking to renew and grow.

Sarah Woolley, General Secretary, BFAWU

This book is a fascinating and insightful contribution on the machinations of organising on the ground, straight from those on the frontline; agitating educators, successful in building density during a period of unprecedented anti-union attacks. A must-read for anyone serious about building worker confidence in education and beyond.

Shelly Asquith, TUC Health & Safety Officer and Chair of Stop the War

The continuing work of teachers across the UK to fight for their schools, demand respect and transform their union is rich with lessons for educators, unionists and organisers everywhere. Lessons in Organising understands teachers as workers, rightly placing worksite leaders of the union at the centre of the story. By naming the difficult questions we face with a clarity that comes from first hand experience, the authors provide real insights on strategy, union democracy, organisational structure, and the need to hold both radical vision and realistic assessments in our campaigns. This book does not just document the recent history of teachers in England, but provides important direction for all of us committed to strengthening the labour movement and winning the fight against corporate reform in education.

Matthew Luskin, Director Organising and Representation
Chicago Teachers Union

What Trade Unionists Can
Learn from the War on Teachers

Gawain Little, Ellie Sharp,
Howard Stevenson and David Wilson

First published 2023 by Pluto Press

New Wing, Somerset House, Strand, London WC2R 1LA
and Pluto Press Inc.

1930 Village Center Circle, 3-834, Las Vegas, NV 89134

www.plutobooks.com

Copyright Gawain Little, Ellie Sharp, Howard Stevenson and David Wilson 2023

The right of Gawain Little, Ellie Sharp, Howard Stevenson and David Wilson to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978 0 7453 4522 2 Paperback

ISBN 978 0 7453 4526 0 PDF

ISBN 978 0 7453 4524 6 EPUB

This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental standards of the country of origin.