Time to rethink our education system

Extract from on line bulletin from 8/4/20

Jo Grady, UCU general secretary

Time to rethink our education system 

While we act to protect against redundancies and other cuts in the shorter term, we also need to take a longer view of the role which education will play in any recovery and the steps that need to be taken to guard against similar shocks in the future.

Last week I wrote to the secretary of state for education, Gavin Williamson, outlining a seven-point plan for ensuring that tertiary education can survive and prosper, during this crisis and also beyond it.

In line with our existing policy, UCU is calling on the government to:

1.    Underwrite current levels of funding across all sectors

2.    Direct institutions to collaborate, rather than compete with one another

3.    Convene a group of representatives from trade unions, student organisations, examination bodies and employers to rethink examinations and admissions

4.    Ensure job security for visa holders and other precarious staff

5.    Intervene to protect further and higher education providers if they are at risk of insolvency

6.    Cancel the REF, TEF, Ofsted inspections and other unhelpful, bureaucratic, metrics-driven exercises

7.    Reverse cuts to adult learning provision

As ever, staff and student interests are aligned, and we were pleased to receive strong support from the NUS for our proposals. For the full text of my letter, please click here. Similar representations are being made to the relevant ministers in our devolved nations. 

Tributes pour in for Indro Sen - great CNWL lecturer and trade unionist

Former secondary maths teacher, primary school governor,  College of North West London lecturer,  and most importantly trade unionist, Indro Sen has died shortly before his 68th birthday.

In 2016-17 Indro was involved in a dispute at CNWL over his allegations of corruption in an apprenticeship scheme and I worked closely with him on publicising the issue here on Wembley Matters. (Links below) He was suspended from his job allegedly because of his support at an emeployment  tribunal for a sacked colleague and his opposition to the CNWL's merger with Westminster College.

At the time Peter Murry, Trade Union Liaison officer for the London Federation of Green Parties and for Brent Green Party  supported Sen and said,   'Both of these are actions are entirely proper for a University and College Union Branch Secretary to carry out. If Indro Sen’s suspension is a result of his performing the legitimate duties of a UCU Officer, then he himself seems to be threatened with unfair treatment and victimisation.'

His son Shenin said on Twitter:

On Wednesday we lost my father Indro Sen. Being unaware of his underlying health issues, this has been a complete shock for me & my family, which is where my full focus is right now.


His whole life was dedicated to helping others, I couldn’t have asked for a better role model.

Kevin Courtney, Joint General Secretary of the NEU said:

So sorry to hear of the loss this week of Indro Sen. Long time NUT and then UCU militant.
Long time school rep at Kingsland secondary school. Successful fights against victimisation.
Highly regarded Maths teacher.Brilliant ally in fights as a parent, and governor, at Benthal Primary school. Many condolences to all the family. Rage against the dying of the light. Rest in Peace Sen.
Bernard Regan, long time member of the NUT, Summed up Indro Sen, the person:
A great comrade and campaigner. At the centre of fighting many injustices. I will remember him for his strength of character and gentleness of being. I will remember his laugh with fondness. His hat which he wore all the time - his eye for detail and passionate commitment to fighting injustices including those inflicted on him..We will remember him.

Wembley Matters postings on Indro Sen and his struggle at the College of North West London:

https://wembleymatters.blogspot.com/2016/12/greens-call-for-immediate-and-full.html

https://wembleymatters.blogspot.com/2017/02/support-builds-for-indro-sen-in-cnwl.html

https://wembleymatters.blogspot.com/2017/06/support-cnwl-strikes-to-defend-sacked.html

https://wembleymatters.blogspot.com/2017/05/indro-sens-appeal-against-dismissal-to.html

https://wembleymatters.blogspot.com/2017/02/cnwl-lecturers-threaten-action-to.html

HOUSMANS NEWSLETTER – APRIL 2020

HOUSMANS NEWSLETTER – APRIL 2020
NEWS
1. Update from Housmans

ARTICLES OF INTEREST2. The Pandemic, the Working Class and the Left by Andrew Burgin
3. Freedom News: COVID-19 UK Mutual Aid groups: a list
4. Beautiful Trouble's irreverent guide to activism in the time of pandemic. 7 things to do instead of hoarding toilet paper5. Coronavirus: Workers demand construction sites are shut down – report from Reel News6. International Peace Bureau Petition: Invest in Healthcare Instead of Militarisation
7. Corporate Watch: Corona Capitalism: Some Of The Companies Cashing In On The Crisis
____________________________________________

NEWS 

1. Update from Housmans

Hello there, sincerely hope this newsletter is finding you as well as can be.

Much has been happening here behind the scenes at Housmans as we've been trying to adapt to the changing situation. Plans made one week became irrelevant the week after, but I think things are settling down now, not least because we can't do all that much!

We had planned to keep some mail order going, but in solidarity with warehouse and delivery workers we've suspended that plan for now.  You can still support Housmans by creating a wishlist on our website – there'll be more news on that in a following newsletter. We're still looking to increase the number of books on our online shop, and will be running a competition once it's a bit better stocked.

As you no doubt know by now, Housmans is closed, and all events are cancelled for the forseeable. This has had to include our 60^th anniversary of Peace House campaigning conference Our Power Is Real, and also the London Radical Bookfair 2020. Both of those events will hopefully still go ahead in 2021.

The decentralised Anarchist Festival scheduled for May, which we help organise, is also being postponed. The current plan is to possibly have that alongside the Anarchist Bookfair in October 2020, though possibly it too will have to wait till May 2021 - we shall see.

In the meantime we'll be keeping in touch as best we can, especially via our social media accounts.
Sending much love from everyone involved in the bookshop.

ARTICLES OF INTEREST
In place of our usual events listings, here are some links to a selection of recommended articles relating to the current crisis from a range of comrades:

2. The Pandemic, the Working Class and the Left by Andrew Burgin

Andrew Burgin looks at the revolutionary potential of the crisis and asks What Next?, as published on the Public Reading Rooms website:
https://prruk.org/the-pandemic-the-working-class-and-the-left/
3. Freedom News: COVID-19 UK Mutual Aid groups: a list
A number of mutual aid groups have started forming across the country.  The groups aim at providing community support to those who are more at risk from the virus: be it help with running errands or cooking. Find the nearest one to you here:
https://freedomnews.org.uk/covid-19-uk-mutual-aid-groups-a-list/

4. Beautiful Trouble's irreverent guide to activism in the time of pandemic. 7 things to do instead of hoarding toilet paper
A roundup of the most creative and effective social movement responses to COVID-19, filtered through seven of the most relevant tools from the Beautiful Trouble toolbox, with links to resources compiled especially for this moment:https://wagingnonviolence.org/2020/03/beautiful-trouble-guide-activism-coronavirus/
5. Coronavirus: Workers demand construction sites are shut down – report from Reel News
Reel News have been inundated with messages from construction workers all over the UK, demanding their sites are shut down during the coronavirus crisis. Anyone who's worked on a building site knows that social distancing is impossible due to the nature of the work -and this is being exarcerbated by further unsafe and dangerous practises.

Now sites are being forced to shut down through action inside and outside sites. Here's a round up of some of the stuff that's been happening; follow @ShutThesites on Twitter and Reel News on Facebook or Twitter (@ReelNewsLondon) to keep up to date and get involved.https://reelnews.co.uk/2020/04/02/all-reelnews-campaigns/workplace-struggles/construction-blacklisting/coronavirus-workers-demand-construction-sites-are-shut-down/
6. International Peace Bureau Petition: Invest in Healthcare Instead of Militarisation

We, the signatories, call on the world leaders meeting at the General Assembly of the United Nations, to dramatically reduce military spending in favor of healthcare and all social and environmental needs. Sign and share here:
http://www.ipb.org/news/petition-invest-in-healthcare-instead-of-militarization/
7. Corporate Watch: 'Corona Capitalism: Some Of The Companies Cashing In On The Crisis'
How are corporations and capitalism responding to the corona crisis? How have they contributed to it? How are they affected by it? And how are people supporting each other and fighting for a different future as it continues? Excellent analysis from Corporate Watch.

Understanding CoronaCapitalism:https://corporatewatch.org/understanding-coronacapitalism/

Some of the companies cashing in Part 1:https://corporatewatch.org/corona-capitalism-some-of-the-companies-cashing-in-on-the-crisis-from-bezos-to-big-pharma/

Some of the companies cashing in Part 2:https://corporatewatch.org/coronacapitalism-companies-cashing-in-part-2-airline-bailouts-travelodge-blackstone-goldman-sachs-wren-kitchens/
__________________________________________________
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#Resist2020.

Another Europe

@Another_Europe

Two days to go until our virtual conference #Resist2020. Join us on Zoom to discuss:

Internationalist left responses to #COVID19

Right to Stay for EU nationals

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Thy Kindom Come: Rev Paul Nicolson (10 May 1932-5 March 2020) Lived Adventurously, Building Compassion & Dialogue

14 March 2020 acknowledgements to https://wembleymatters.blogspot.com/

Thy Kindom Come: Rev Paul Nicolson (10 May 1932-5 March 2020) Lived Adventurously, Building Compassion & Dialogue

“Compassion in politics has to transcend and override all party political allegiances.” — Paul Nicolson Source LINK

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Paul Nicolson demonstrating outside Church House “in the role of a homeless person for five hours from 9am to 2pm,” 13 Feb 2020. Placard states: “86,130 families in temporary accommodation in England, with 127,000 children. “4600 people sleep rough every night.” “With & for Street & Family Homeless.”

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I am grateful to Alan Wheatley formerly of Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group for this guest post

Retired Revd and Taxpayers Against Poverty (TAP) founder Paul Nicolson wrote on 14 February 2020:

Yesterday, Thursday 13th February 2020, I was begging on the doorstep of Church House, Westminster in the role of a homeless person for five hours from 9am to 2pm. It was the last day of the February meeting of the General Synod, which is the governing body of the Church of England comprising a House of Bishops, a House of Clergy and a House of Laity all meeting together. I was supporting from the street two excellent motions to be voted on that day. One was promoting a better friendship between church members and impoverished people in line with the priority given to it by Jesus. The other was opposing the shredding of legal aid which is blocking access to justice for many Both motions were passed unanimously. 

 By demonstrating for the homeless I wanted to draw the attention of Synod members to the concerns I hear so often from TAP’s supporters about the Church of England’s commercial use of very valuable land in ways that do not contribute to ending homelessness. 

I was wonderfully cared for by the door keepers of Church House who brought me coffee and checked I was OK from time to time. Two friends came to be with me for about an hour and another brought me lunch and hand warmers. “I did not feel the cold until after I had finished the vigil. Then my body felt chilled until it warmed up in the early hours of the next morning. Charities, shelters and cold weather policies of local authorities simply do not meet the need for or the right to a home in all weathers….” LINK 

Core values and compassionate listening leading to rapport with poor people

Yes, Paul was a great and compassionate listener despite being very hard of hearing. It was through such compassionate listening that he became a devout campaigner and, I’d say, “early warning system” for what has only made it to the mainstream with the pandemic of Universal Credit injustices.

A key example of that was illustrated by his sending me a Guardian Society cartoon from July 2003 in response to my 2016 reflection that saying, “Telephone calls [to the Universal Credit helpline] can cost up to 55p a minute from pay-as-you-go mobile phones, which are commonly used by people with lower incomes,” is less illuminating than saying that the call charge is £33 per hour.

Paul responded to my observation: “Dear Alan – I wrote a similar letter to Guardian Society in 2003. It was published with the following cartoon. - good wished – Paul”  

I first met Paul in about February 2012 at a street demonstration outside Parliament, a few months before his 80th birthday. The backdrop to our meeting was parliamentary debate about the Welfare Reform Bill 2012, spearheaded by investment banker David Freud who had been Blair and Brown’s ‘welfare reform guru’ before accepting a life peerage on the Tory benches. 

Had Paul Nicolson been recognised as a government ‘welfare reform guru’, things would have been very different than they are now. Whereas New Labour had talked about getting Incapacity Benefit claimants into jobcentres since at least as early as 2000/2001, I had been a disabled jobseeker since 1977 witnessing inadequate governmental support for disabled jobseekers. 

Paul had been an anti-Poll Tax campaigner in the early 1990s while I was more intent on “slugging it out in the hope of making it instead of fighting the forces that exploited [me]” and that David Freud represents. (Social mobility quotation by Dinyar Godrej, New Internationalist, March-April 2020.) He thus set up anti-poverty charity Zacchaeus 2000 (Z2K) and attended court hearings of debtors as a McKenzie Friend and would have interacted with people not readily considered “core Green Party voters.” 

The masthead text of the Z2K: Fighting Poverty website currently reads: “We believe the social security system should be a tool to help people move out of poverty and into a stable, dignified life. “We work with people in London to solve their housing and welfare issues. We campaign to change policy that is causing the most harm to our clients.” LINK  

Opposing ‘poverty porn’ and the taxing of incomes too low to tax

Under New Labour the public perception of benefit claimants was largely skewed by a blitz of Department for Work & Pensions (DWP) ‘Targeting Benefit Fraud’ adverts toward the manufacture of consent for harsher treatment of benefit claimants while claimants were already hard hit below the mainstream radar. Eg LINK  Whereas Z2K stands with and for poor people, Citizens Advice England now kowtows to a DWP gagging clause. LINK   

 That does not surprise me. On 20 January 2005 I got a phone call from prospective employer telling me that my pre-Christmas 2004 job interview had been successful, pending references and police check, but I also got a call from the DWP telling me that my Jobseekers Allowance was suspended because I had not attended my first signing-on session after the Christmas break. As I explained to the CAB worker who later handled my case, as a very long term disabled jobseeker I had experienced emotional turmoil since the 22 December 2004 job interview. I had been out of full-time waged employment for over a decade and really wanted the job. I had felt like a prisoner facing “all the joy and fear of leaving such incarceration” and the date stamp for my 14 January signing-on date had been a blur. 

So the CAB worker got on the phone to DWP: “This is Elizabeth from Kentish Town CAB and I’ve got one of your claimants, a Mr Wheatley here and he’s got himself into a right mess...” leaving me feeling humiliated and deeply ashamed more than wronged by a heartless system in which I had heard of myself at the jobcentre as “an overstayer on New Deal” in 2003! (Yes, I did get my Jobseekers Allowance reinstated, but….) 

Though Paul Nicolson stood down from his directorship of Z2K when he set up the more outspoken Taxpayers Against Poverty, I doubt very much that I would have got such ‘just deserts’ handling from Z2K! 

Yet the gulf between claimant realities and government spin widened cataclysmically with the emergence of ‘poverty porn’ tv documentaries such as ‘Benefits Street’ and ‘Can’t Pay, We’ll Take It Away’ that Paul opposed. 

When Tory Government brought in the reduction of Council Tax support for benefit claimants, Paul decided on civil disobedience, by refusing to pay his Council Tax, and being taken to court until the London Borough Haringey reinstated full Council Tax Reduction for benefit claimants. LINK His stance later helped lead to a revolution within the Labour Party in Haringey, deselecting right wing Labour councillors who would engage in ‘social cleansing’ of council housing stock to the benefit of Australian company ‘Lend Lease’. LINK 

Paul’s legacy

The above is just a sampling of what Paul Nicolson undertook, and this is already a long article. I shall just close here by emphasising that he had been working on the Elimination of Homelessness Bill with support from Debbie Abrahams MP (Labour) and Compassion in Politics at the time of his death, and supply the following ‘further reading’ links. And the best way that I can pay tribute to his work is for me to carry on with the benefits justice campaigning we had in common. 

Further Reading

 http://taxpayersagainstpoverty.org.uk/
http://taxpayersagainstpoverty.org.uk/news/the-secretary-of-state-shall-each-yearc-publish-a-scoial-housing-plan-seeti
http://taxpayersagainstpoverty.org.uk/news/reverend-paul-nicolsons-fight-on-behalf-of-the-most-vulnerable-continues-on
http://taxpayersagainstpoverty.org.uk/news/building-on-the-legacy-of-martin-luther-king-tap-e-petition-published-in-th
https://policypress.wordpress.com/2016/12/07/danny-dorling-on-the-housing-crisis-and-hope-for-the-future/
https://kilburnunemployed.blogspot.com/search?q=nicolson

Posted by Martin Francis at 22:17:00  

Labels: Citizens Advice Bureau, Haringey, Landlease, Paul Nicholson, poll tax, Taxpayers Against Povery, welfare reform. Council Tax, Z2K