The drive to increase military is leading to devastating spending cuts in education, but teachers at the Woodfield School are resisting and calling for a mass picket reports Pete Webster

Teaching Assistants at Woodfield School for Special Needs in north-west London have been given an ultimatum. Sign a revised contract or face dismissal. For many, it will result in fewer hours, increased workload and a pay cut of up to £4000 a year.

Compass Learning Trust runs the academy, alongside The Village School, a short distance away. It has reserves of £3.8 million and executive salaries are over £160k, yet it expects the assistants to swallow a pay cut that will leave them struggling to pay their rent or mortgages and other essentials as the cost-of-living crisis worsens.

The branch has called for a mega picket on Wednesday 17 June from 7.30 am. They are asking for local and regional support and the picket will be followed by a protest outside the Department of Education in central London at midday. Details below.

The strikers, all NEU members, are in good spirits and determined to win. At present, they will be on strike three days a week until July when it’s stepped up to four days of action a week until the end of term. However the gloves are off and strikers need to step up the action to win. Going in to work for two days a week allows management to isolate and intimidate individual workers in an attempt to undermine the action. Going all out will resolve that issue.

This dispute is just one of many across the secondary-education sector and they seem to be focussed (but not exclusively so) on schools, like Woodfield, that provide complex care packages for Send pupils who rely on consistent relationships, specialist support and individual attention to learn, communicate and thrive. When frontline staff are cut, it is the children who feel the impact.

The decimation of the education system being pushed by Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson, extends to FE and HE establishments with numerous universities and colleges undergoing massive restructuring (read mass redundancies, lower pay and reduced terms and conditions). And this is a political choice deliberately to cut capital funding, affecting not just education but wider sections of workers as departments have government-imposed cuts placed on them. Earlier this week, Rachel Reeves, Labour’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, announced a 1% cut across all departments – except the Ministry of Defence – to pay for the task of putting Britain on a ‘war-ready footing’. One percent doesn’t sound much but this equates to millions of pounds in cuts and ‘efficiency savings’ that will see further devastation of education, health and social-care services.

There is no secret that this will have a massive impact on everyone and the poorest sections of society will bear the heaviest cost.

This is all part of the government’s ongoing continuation of austerity measures that have been central to all governments since the financial crisis of 2008. It is set to continue unless we can start to link up the multitude of disputes both within sectors and beyond in order to build an effective opposition that can push back these attacks on workers’ living conditions. That is true here and across Europe, where military conscription has been introduced or enhanced. Starmer is keen to introduce something similar here too. There is no shortage of money for the drive to war but what kind of future does that offer us and our children?

The NEU have called a ballot over pay in the autumn and it is essential to return the biggest possible rejection of the 6.5% pay offer over three years that has been tabled by the employers. And with a miserly 2% this year – well below the real inflation level with rising gas and electricity costs and the inevitable inflation due to the impact of Trump and Netanyahu’s military adventurism in the Middle East.

There is an urgent need for the union to initiate a wider campaign, including industrial action, to halt the decimation that is taking place in schools across the country.