All-out Strike at Tower Hamlets College

On Wednesday (2nd September), students from the London School Students Union (LSSU) visited the UCU picket line at the Arbour Square campus of Tower Hamlets College in east London. 300 teaching staff are taking indefinite strike action against management plans to force through 13 compulsory redundancies, as part of a £200k savings effort.

These redundancies would slash the number of places for English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) and have a devasting impact on one of London's poorest areas.

Strikers see the cuts as part of a wider attack on a militant union and the entire ethos and culture of the college.

These first ever compulsory redundancies at Tower Hamlets college are the symptom of the conflict between a business-oriented management and a staff committed to maintaining an invaluable service, integral to the local community.

While management quibble about the £200k savings, the college has £6million in funds. Strikers accept that savings, and cuts are always necessary in an economic crisis, but inist that it is unnacceptable that the management should try and raise the money through cuts to jobs and the quality of education.

They point to the fact that Tower Hamlets has one of the country's highest-paid principals - on £160k a year. One of the governers is sitting on a personal fortune of £150 million. If savings are absolutely necessary, then there is clearly enough money in the managements' excessive wages to fund a shortfall.

Strikers are confident and say that their resolve has stregthened over 2 weeks of action, in the face of managerial instransigence and hypocrisy, with around 50 more teachers joining the union. Thanks to decisive action in anticipation of cuts at the end of last term by the local branch, the strike has hit enrolment at the college this autumn. With admin staff refusing to do extra work while they go through the lengthy proces of ballotting for action, the management is running out of time as lessons begin in the next few days.

Strikers say support from the local community and students has been extremely positive, with money donated to the strike fund from local businesses, teaching unions and the firefighters.

In the recession it seems the government is determined to repeat the disastrous Tory educations cuts of the Thatcher years; which consigned an entire generation of unqualified young people to the vicious circle of long-term unemployment, with no hope of increasing their prospects through vocational or academic training.

However, the first indefinite strike in education for 12 years is an inspiration to dozens of schools across london, and thousands up and down the country which are facing crippling cuts by an unaccountable and profit-driven management.

The LSSU will be going to the picket lines again today, to demonstrate the solidarity of London students. The teachers' struggle against cuts at Tower Hamlets is our struggle too.