February 2002: The Spirit Of Unity

Dear Colleague,

The work of Professional Unity 2000 has been the driving force that has brought the teacher unions closer together and now the prospect of unity and one union is very close. The new NASUWT General Secretary Eamonn O’Kane has recently produced a paper arguing for unity, which will go to all NASUWT members for debate.

The building of unity is key if teachers are to win the national struggle on pay and conditions as in Scotland. In London we face a crucial battle after the latest derisory offer on the London Allowance. The chronic teacher shortage and crisis in London school will not be alleviated one jot by an ‘award’ that amounts to £2.01 a week for inner London, £1.32 a week for outer London and 51p a week for the fringe – and that’s before tax!

So we urge you to consider calling a meeting in your school, preferably a joint unions meeting if there is more than one union, to discuss the way forward.

Professional Unity 2000 would be delighted to provide a speaker to speak briefly at any school meeting on

a) the progress so far towards and the merits of a single union for all teachers and how to progress it further. And

b) ensuring that in London the unions work together and come together in the London Allowance campaign of action to win a proper increase. If £6000 per year is good enough for the police, it’s good enough for us. Unity is strength and will enable us to win through.

Best wishes,

Hank Roberts

Organising Secretary PU 2000
February 2002

Sent to all London Schools, Spring 2000

Read a Tribute to Eamonn O’Kane here

Spring 2006: Major Advance for PU2000 – AUT & NATFHE to Unite!

Paul Mackney, NATFHE General Secretary, and Sally Hunt, AUT General Secretary

Members of NATFHE and the AUT have voted overwhelmingly for their unions to merge and create the world’s largest union for post-school academic and academic-related staff.

The merger was supported by 95.7% of those NATFHE members who voted, and 79.2% of AUT members who voted.
 
Paul Mackney, NATFHE general secretary, and Sally Hunt, AUT general secretary With more than 116,000 members, the new union, to be named the University and College Union (UCU), will represent further and higher education lecturers, managers, researchers and many academic-related staff such as librarians, administrators and computing professionals across the UK.

The two unions will amalgamate on 1 June 2006, and then enter a transitional year until full operational unity is achieved in June 2007.