Educators in east London defeat strike-breaking agency

News

Tradewind Recruitment will no longer supply agency workers as scab labour at Connaught School for Girls in Waltham Forest

NEU union members lobbied the offices on Thursday morning (Photo: Guy Smallman)

Education workers in east London have scored a victory against a strike-breaking recruitment agency.

Tradewind Recruitment will no longer supply agency workers as scab labour at Connaught School for Girls in Waltham Forest.

The news came as NEU union members lobbied the offices on Thursday morning. “At Connaught School this week, we’ve had a victory,” NEU general secretary Daniel Kebede said.

This victory is down to the pressure put on Tradewind by the striking workers who walked out on 21 April.

The Strike Map solidarity group, which campaigned against the scabbing, says they’re “facing huge cuts and redundancies”. This includes “redundancy for their rep, who is also the joint branch secretary for Waltham Forest NEU”.

The striking workers and their supporters, including trade unionists who’d come from as far away as Coventry, were loud and militant.

Chants of “What’s disgusting? Union busting!” rang out as the Tradewind executives refused to speak with them.

Strikers’ supporters inundated the agency with over three hundred complaints.

Earlier that morning the general secretaries of 11 trade unions, including Bfawu, FBU and Unite, demanded Tradewind stop sending agency workers across the picket line.

This pressure will need to be kept up, because the threat of companies such as Tradewind using agency staff to cover for striking workers still remains.

“We do have concerns that they are being used in the dispute around the country,” Kebede emphasised.

The battle at Connaught is still on with strikes set to continue until 8 May. “Our dispute is still on going and we’re going to keep on taking action until we win,” Pablo, joint branch secretary of Waltham Forest NEU made clear.

Meanwhile, around 100 people gathered for a public meeting in Leytonstone on Wednesday night.

Ed Harlow, president of the NEU, spoke about the struggle at Connaught. “I’m local to Waltham Forest and there are particular local issues in Waltham Forest that have led to this point,” he said.

“Neighboring boroughs like Haringey and Newham pay their teachers more.

But he put this local dispute in its larger, national context.

“We‘ve got a major issue, the way in which government, including local government, understands school funding,”

This has meant a drop in funding for education from over 5 percent to now less than 4 percent.

Mallainee Martin, joint branch secretary of Waltham Forest NEU, announced to applause that the union would soon begin to ballot for action across the borough.

When workers in Waltham Forest schools walk out, they’ll be able to rely on a broad base of support.

“We are absolutely in support of all the schools across Waltham Forest, because what’s being done to them is not ok,” a parent told the meeting.

Join the picket lines every day from 7am at the Connaught School for Girls, Dyers Hall Road, E11 4AE