Industrial Workers of the World One Big Union

We've just seen the biggest set of education strikes in years. Lecturers striking over pay, teachers in the NUT striking over restructuring, clerical staff in UNISON striking for their pensions. And what has been the response of the unions? The lecturers have been sold down the river for a fraction of a percentage more, teachers have been forced to fight school by school, clerical and support staff ordered back to work on the promise of further talks.

The unions in education divide us and weaken us. They set one sector against another. They call one group out but order another to stay at work. How many of us had to stay in work while our support staff struck? How many were told not to cross picket lines?

We deserve better than this. The trade unions are no better than tools in the employers' hands. They are so keen to maintain their positions that they happily sell us down the river. They organise their unions in such a way that it is impossibleto make them work in the interests of their own members. It is futile setting up yet another campaign to create a 'democratic' trade union. The existing unions cannot be reformed or captured. The attempts that have been made to do so have only ever led to a new pile of bureaucrats in charge.

The trade unions divide us from each other. They work against solidarity at every level, in every type of workplace. At Gate Gourmet they insisted that workers stop support strikes. At Peugeot, trade union officials have allowed the situation to become so dismal that they can do no more than wring their hands.

We work towards the creation of one union for all woking people. We don't want divions by workplace or by job. We have a common interest in fighting for our working conditions. We want to create a network that unites all education workers, whether they are cleaners, cooks, students, teachers, lecturers, whatever.

In the IWW we have alreadystarted this. We have members who work in schools as teachers, librarians, teaching assistants, peer mentors. We have members in Higher Education working as lecturers and support staff. Our aim is simple, a fighting democratic organisation based on the simple maxim that "an injury to one is an injury to all."