Education workers meeting at the anarchist bookfair

For a variety of reasons I got to the Bookfair rather late this year but did manage to squeeze into this meeting with my partner - I work in (NHS) education policy so I just about count as an EW and Anne is a schools VI advisor - Anyway we both thought it was a good positive meeting with lots of participation and ideas.

Very good to see SF, AF and IWW working together. JDMF I agree with your comments re students. Good to hear that a number of anarchist groups are springing up in universities (I was part of a great one at Bradford University in early 80s)

One challenge might be the fact that people working in education cover a lot of different areas and some different issues although, of course, a lot unites people like fighting privatisation, wage disputes, the ineffectiveness of reformist unions etc., If enough people get involved then I guess there can be networks for HE, FE, schools and so on.

I think your suggestions are good. The one I wanted to pick up on is the local meetings - it would be good to see if people would be willing to start meeting locally. Speaking to Iain M we'd be happy to meet up with people in London and I don't think either of us will be able to get up to Manchester.

Finally its worth remembering that not everyone has access to the internet or if they do subscribe to libcom - so Freedom, Resistance, Schnews et al., should be used to communicate.

Ey up,

to echo Alan, I was also somewhat frustrated with the attitude towards students, which much of the time seemed quite dismissive - relegating the role of students to backing up workers during struggle, essentially as passive consumers making use of a service, rather than people and groups with struggles of our own, intersecting with those of lecturers/admin/etc. much of the time.

While not accusing people of holding this belief explicitly, that was the impression I got during parts of the meeting.

Some of us (well, me and some mates...) had been discussing setting up an autonomous student network to bring together groups and individual students to struggle collectively on shared issues, e.g. accomodation, departmental closures, etc. - which would also provide a platform for supporting struggles in educational workplaces. Whether this should be a separate network, or to make use of the education workers network, is up for debate - my own feeling is that it should be autonomous but co-operate whenever possible/useful.

A few of us met afterwards to discuss having an autonomous bloc on the anti-fees demo next Sunday; hopefully things like this will aid in communication between different student groups.

As a whole I felt the meeting was quite positive, particularly given the number of people involved and the ideas being shared. It was also good to see IWW, SolFed and AFed working together this well, particularly on the heels of the Manchester autonomous bloc.

- Jonathan

I thought people made postive remarks about the need to involve students as equals. Iain pointed out that students are future workers and Sally that ultimately education workers aim is to provide the best education to students. Ed workers oppose privatisation and poor working conditions on the basis that they undermine good quality education. I don't though think it unreasonable for a group of workers to want to network together particularly in the inclusive way described.

yep over all it was generally very positive. there's definitely a lot of potential for this to really get off the ground.

alan the reason people might have been making a separation between students and 'proper' workers was most likely due to the fact that at the moment they just don't co-operate. that is where the real separation lies, and that is where the network will hopefully work its magic

The email list has been created for the Edu Workers:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/education-workers/

I have sent an invite to people who wrote down their emails - there are few which i cant decipher, but i am relying on .fluxs investigative skills to crack them.

Then to the conference: since we are anarchists and all, i hope the work in organising this conference will be spread thin and its not always the same loudmouths talking

I have to point out to those saying others were dismissive of students, the network was intially suggested from people working in the industry. I think this was the audience both JDMF and knightrose had geared themselves towards, but it was bigger than that and I hope none of the enthuiasm disipates. But as pointed out students are central to what we do, both as consumers but also future workers.

I thought generally it was positive, people wanted to work together and there was a diverse input into the session. People had experiences and wanted to work towards solutions and the turnout was very good.

The problems I saw was that firstly things are a bit in the air with this leading to yet another conference/email list, and this could diffuse what was a good meeting (law of returning figures and all that), but hopefully Im wrong, but nothing concrete was formulated. But it was an hours session.

The other thing was there was two much input from SF/AF axis, there was too much indication of each others work, when really we should be hearing of each others experiences regardless of what group people belong to. I know obviously were only just starting to work together on this issue, but we need people outside ourselves to get fully onboard.

where is this debate mate? Maybe people are reading too much to couple not so refined comments in the session.

One no doubt was mine: my point was that some workers in the industry are not there because of a career choice or a calling. Most of the Solfeds Edu Workers Network folk are admin staff or IT support or manual workers who just happen to work in the education industry and thus the education issues may not be as close to heart as they are to those who have chosed education sector consciously.

I dont see this being an issue, but at the same time i dont want to brush aside anyones genuine concern that there was some kind of value propositions being made about this group or that group of people involved. To be honest, I often feel the same being a support staff, rather than an academic or a lecturer. For instance the recent strikes AUT (now UCU) published material which only talked about academics, not a single word about support staff even if we were striking as well. This pissed off me and my colleaques no end.

This is where that idea of three strands of discussions came about:
- one for student issues
- one for general workplace issues facing education such as casualisation and the industrial organising bit
- one for libertarian education issues

and then of course some shared sessions for all as well to bring it all together to a coherent positions, analysis and cross group solidarity.

actually have to refine the term "most", i think many of the new members are students, so actually students may take over the admin/support staff numerically soon.

alright mate, you mean that the list would be only accessible to moderators? Maybe people should just join with safe email address if they are concerned?

By the way, could use couple more moderators rather than just me on it.

At the moment all new members have to be accepted by the moderators. This is mainly to stop spammers getting in (and there would be loads).

totally cool and to be encouraged

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/education-workers/

I've just got back from my foray south and like others was completely blown away by the meeting. Personally, I see no issue with students in the network. How can there be? In fact, one of the most positive aspects of the meeting was a group of students networking at the end and plotting how to turn the upcoming fees demo into something useful! Like JDMF, I like the idea of a conference with a number of strands - but I'd like the work of each strand to be integral to the whole.

I'd suggest that a group of us here in Manchester organise the actual mechancis of the conference - spaces, accomodation etc, but like the idea that the rest is done by all the participants. It would also be sensible if those in London got together and discussed what was going on down there, plus of course, others in areas where they can.

Equally importantly, this discussion should really take place on the new discussion list!

May I suggest an acronym? NEWS -= network of education workers and students?

comrades!

The yahoo groups idea was a shit one because about half of the people haven't asnered the invitations and they are probably going to a spam folder or something.

Anyways, we could reopen the list on riseup? Riseup allows "silent adds" which means i could just add everyone to the list, instead of "inviting" people. I've requested the list on riseup already just in case.

Opinions?

i love giving opinions, i've got loads.

but seriously, go for it.

we'll have no Ramones references here young man. save it for karaoke...

oh er missus!