Since 2010, one in five firefighter jobs has disappeared alongside 30% funding cuts — all while climate breakdown brings record blazes and flooding. It’s time to fund our fire service properly, writes FBU general secretary STEVE WRIGHT
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The problems facing young school workers
MATT FLAMENCO warns of precarity of work, teacher shortages, demoralisation and curriculums filled with ‘corporate-speak’ as among the issues of concern to the education workforce today
Pupils in a classroom
In the current climate, it is vital to bust the myths and put forward the case for a humane and decent social security system that supports people, argues FRAN HEATHCOTE
CWU leader DAVE WARD tells Ben Chacko a strategy to unite workers on class lines is needed – and sectoral collective bargaining must be at its heart
Labour must not allow unelected members of the upper house to erode a single provision of the Employment Rights Bill, argues ANDY MCDONALD MP
With 121,000 vacancies and 44.8% of staff feeling unwell from work stress, the NHS 10-year plan will not succeed unless the government takes immediate action to retain existing staff, writes ANNETTE MANSELL-GREEN
With 90 courses from health and safety to neurodiversity, AI and political economy, we are helping workers understand the political context of their struggles, writes general secretary of the General Federation of Trade Unions GAWAIN LITTLE
WITH TUC young workers’ conference ahead of us, it is important to recognise the significance of the education workforce’s representation in the TUC.
NASUWT, NEU, GMB, UCU and Unison are all unions that represent education workers in the primary and secondary sectors. Young members of these unions have a difficult task ahead of us. We face problems from the material conditions of our work environment and from within our own unions — both of which I will address.
Precarity of jobs and the transformation of teaching
You may have seen advertisements from the British government asking for citizens to join the teaching workforce — or reports of a teacher shortage.
More from this author
Cardiff teacher MATT FLAMENCO pledges solidarity to the Port Talbot strikers, warning that losing vital industries will blight already struggling communities and shatter the futures of the classroom’s most vulnerable children
Sending solidarity to sister teaching union the NEU, MATT FLAMENCO sums up his union’s conference and its choices on campaigning activity and industrial action
MATT FLAMENCO warns his fellow young teachers that a potential Labour government will not solve all the problems facing the education sector — and there is evidence to show, once in power, they can be just as bad as the Tories
