Unite at the NEU

The NEU is a thriving, a booming trade union and we are a strong part of the reason for that. We deserve better than this.

Send messages of solidarity to:
neuUniteBranch@gmail.com

Does this sound like how a trade union employer should act? Or does it sound like something from Benny Hill?

We want to resolve this dispute but we can’t do that with ‘we’ll have a look at that’ and ‘people will get pay protection for x number of years’…

Last week, we remained available for in-person talks. They didn’t happen. We were actively disinvited from usual talks. And, late last Friday at 6pm, we were invited for talks at 9am on Monday….

But for some reason our employer thinks we wouldn’t strike for that. And that’s just one aspect of our strike which includes a demand for the number of field staff to be restored to pre-structure levels (which was already not enough)…

But let’s get back to basics. if co-workers were being downgraded in any school we are organised in we would expect, failing negotiations, that strike action would be inevitable…

We also want to stress that we have not ‘leaked’ or provided the transphobic newspaper, the Times, with any details of our dispute and question why the NEU have commented when our Unite press office wouldn’t…

We want to thank our NEU members for their support with our dispute and trusting us enough to know this isn’t a decision we’ve made lightly…

Day two on the picket outside NEU offices — a 🧵

So many messages of solidarity have poured in from NEU and multiple union districts and branches across the UK. Thank you so much…

Formal messages of solidarity can be sent to neuUnitebranch@gmail.com

So we ask you this: please support our right to being treated fairly, please support our right to demand dignity through strike action and please continue to love our NEU — because we do.

Our negotiators have sat round more tables than you could count. We have consistently been given false promises and we have been disinvited from meetings because we balloted our members.

Those taking voluntary severance are being required to sign NDA’s — a practice that no longer has any place in our movement.

Just less than a dozen co-workers being downgraded for no good reason, less field staff in several regional offices than the start of the consultation and a national organising team being disbanded into regions — which is a strategic no-no as any published trade union academic would tell you….

But here we are, at the end of a chaotic restructure with little or no democratic oversight.

NEU staff are on strike today and tomorrow.

We can’t beleive it’s come to this. Striking as a trade union worker requires an absurd amount of things to go wrong — because you spend everyday making the union you love the kind of organisation people want to join - you only ever want to see it win.