MINUTES OF GENERAL AND COMMITTEE MEETING JUNE 17th 2003
Apologies
D. Farrell, H Chapman
General meeting inquorate. Committee meeting opened. 17 members present.
Minutes of last meeting
Agreed
Matters Arising
K Greene proposed that Bradford NUT contributes £1500 to support the campaigns of five people standing for national officer elections. Seconded by S Davies. The five are Baljeet Ghale and Roger King (Vice Presidents), Ian Murch (Treasurer), Ken Cridland and Alyson Palmer (Examiners of Accounts).
Reports
SATs.
Hazel Danson, one of the National Executive members for West Yorkshire, said that she believed the Union's strategy would be an indicative ballot in the early autumn followed by a full ballot soon after.
There is to be a rally in Barnsley on June 23rd and a conference in London on June 28th. A campaign meeting in West Yorks was suggested, with John Illingworth as a speaker.
Paul Grist suggested a stall in the city centre before the end of term.
Redundancies.
Ian Murch reported. There will be no compulsory redundancies - re-deployment system to be used if any school has to lose staff. But there are other redundancies in the guise of unfair termination of fixed term contracts which we can only act on if we know about. We have successfully challenged several of these this year.
Working for SERCO.
John Howarth spoke about the difficulties of negotiation, SERCO's apparent attempts to ride roughshod over the staff, and staff demoralisation. In answer to a question, John explained how they charged for some of their services to schools because they were outside the "core package."
Re-modelling.
Ian Murch said there was no extra money so far in schools. It is the school's responsibility to cut out the 25 tasks from September, so we should refuse to do them. Some of these tasks are already covered by the Union's bureaucracy ballot.
PFI.
We are still waiting for the Government's Yes or No. It is an expected Yes for Buttershaw, Tong and Salts, with more following in the future.
Anti-racist conference.
I Murch and J Rendle had attended the one in Blackburn and said it had been successful. There was discussion about the possibility of holding a conference in Bradford, in conjunction with Kirklees, Calderdale and Leeds.
Special School Re-organisation.
The plan is for all to close except Thorn Park, and for 6 new ones to be built on the sites of existing schools. The funding for the plan, however, is not yet definitely available. The NUT is seeking a guarantee of no compulsory redundancies.
Kate Challis has agreed to be the NUT's nomination for the Special School Representative on the Scrutiny Committee.
Post-16.
The plan is for groups of schools to organise provision in their area.
A.O.B.
Agreed to affiliate to Schools Out, at a fee of £50. Also agreed to support local Schools Out groups.
Agreed a £25 donation towards a retirement present for Pauline Sturgess, who works at Regional Office.