Fellow trade unionists please add your name, position and use statement
as a petition and send numbers of members who have signed by replying to
prmcgarr@yahoo.co.uk
Amid all the excitement of N30 the dispute at Langdon School in Newham,
East London is now one for the whole trade union movement. The dispute
began over workload and oppressive management and around 70 NUT members
at the school have staged a number of strikes. Suddenly, the management
brouught in 46 scab supply teachers during last week's one day strike
and worse still the Labour local authority has backed this by putting
them on temporary local authority contracts when they scab. The same
happened again this week (Tuesday). The strikers are out 3 days each
week from now til Xmas.
This week (Tuesday 29th) a 90 strong Newham NUT association meeting
voted by 90-0 to ask for a ballot on borough wide strike action in
response to the local authority's Wapping style tactics. This move by
the council is certainly reminscent of Murdoch or Wall- Mart US style
union busting.
Please add your name and any position to the following statement, and
ask anyone you know to sign too. Mail names, position and numbers of
signatures to me at prmcgarr@yahoo.co.uk, include any position and
numbers of people signing. Please forward statement and reply email to
any lists you may be on, as widely as possible.
Best and many thanks
Paul McGarr NUT rep, Langdon Park School, Tower Hamlets, 07903 810044
STATEMENT:
SOLIDARITY WITH LANGDON SCHOOL STRIKERS - STOP THE UNION BUSTING
"We are appalled at developments in the dispute at Langdon School in Newham, east London, which started over issues of workload and oppressive management.
The head has employed up to 46 scab supply teachers and brought them in to try to break a lawful, balloted strike by NUT members at the school. Worse still the local authority, and a Labour one at that, has put this strikebreaking force on temporary local authority contracts when they scab.
This shocking move is unprecedented in education disputes and the employment of a strike breaking force has shades of Rupert Murdoch's union busting tactics under Thatcher's government in the mid 1980s.
We totally condemn this move and see it as a threat to every trade unionist.
We call upon all our unions and organisations to ensure the widest possible condemnation of the head and Newham local authority and to work for the fullest possible solidarity with the Langdon School NUT to beat this attack on the basic trade union right to take legal industrial action."
