06.07.2011

Plymouth: Bigger picture

Daniel Trevenna saw a newly discovered radicalism and workers' solidarity

The strike made a big impact in Plymouth.  The vast majority of schools were fully or partially closed and there was standing room only at the joint meeting of the three teachers’ unions at the Plymouth Albion Rugby Club.

ATL members’ representatives were at pains to point out that this was the first day of strike action in their organisation’s 120-year history: their mode of address to their fellow workers as “colleagues” jarred not a little, but was forgivable, given their newly discovered radicalism and unfamiliarity with the practice of workers’ solidarity. While representatives of the teacher unions kept to the parochial and anecdotal, it was left to a guest speaker from Plymouth’s PCS to sketch in the bigger picture of the influence of global capital that lies behind this cynical raid on workers’ pensions.

Teachers then went on to join up with the PCS. The march, which wound its way from the Guildhall around the city centre, was well attended, with several hundred in good spirits. Passing motorists indicated their support, as did the vast majority of people we encountered en route. So much for Michael Gove’s rubbish about strikers forfeiting the respect of their communities.