Why People are Striking: An Interview with Parent Holly Tennock

To find out why so many people are striking at the moment we invited in parent Holly Tennock for an interview.

We: Natalie, Poppy and Alicia conducted an interview with Holly and this is what we found out.

Here’s a bit about Holly Tennock first:

• She is a parent.
• She has worked for the NHS.
• She wanted to be a journalist because she loves writing.
• She is a political journalist and an economics journalist for trade magazines.
• She has previously worked for the RCN trade union (The royal college of nurses)

 

Facts about Strikes:

• People have been striking for hundreds of years. The first recorded example is from Ancient Egypt.
• There was once a famous strike involving women- ‘The Matchgirl Strike’-  they were striking due to the poor working conditions involving toxic chemicals and because one of the matchgirls was unfairly fired. This strike was successful. The matchgirl was given her job back.

 

 

Facts about the strike action that Holly has told us:

• The first teacher strike was the 1st of February 2023.
• The next strike will be on the 2nd March 2023.
• Other professions are also striking.
• Nurses went on strike for five days following the teacher strikes.

 

Facts about teacher strikes

NEU

• The NEU (The National Education Union) has called a strike. 53% of the teachers in the NEU voted and 90% of the teachers who voted  voted in favour of the strike.

NASUWT

Another teaching union, NASUWT  has not called a strike. This is because they also had a vote but less than 50% of people voted. However ,the majority of those who did vote voted to strike. Unfortunately, those teachers will not be allowed to strike because, for them, not enough people voted and so they cannot call a strike .

 

How do strikes affect other people?

Strikes have a significant impact and can be disruptive for a lot of people. This is why they are only ever a last resort. For example, train strikes will impact on customers who need to travel to work and school strikes will impact on parents who may need to arrange childcare.

 

Why are teachers striking?

Holly told us that, in real terms , teachers’ salaries are worth 20% less than they were 10 years ago. This means that they can buy 20% less than they could have been able to buy with their salary 10 years ago. Imagine you could buy 20 eggs 10 years ago- now you can only afford to buy 16 eggs so that means that there is a major impact on peoples spending money. That 20% is a big chunk of teachers’ salaries!

It could be a large part of the cost of their mortgage or it could be the general cost of their monthly food bill.

 

Lots of teachers have chosen to leave their jobs and there is now a shortgae of teachers. In secondary schools there is a shortage of maths teachers and it is difficult for schools to supply qualified teachers for the children’s education.

 

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Joke: (Alicia’s Idea)

Why was there a shortage of maths teachers?

Because they did the calculations that they aren’t getting paid enough!😂🤣

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This is how the rest of our interview went:

Holly: What do you think about their options? Is it an easy decision or a tough decision?

Alicia: Tough. You don’t know if it will change anything or if you will just lose money.

 

Holly: How would you feel?

Natalie: Stressful. Under pressure.

 

Holly: Is striking a long term or short term answer?

Poppy: If it works your salary will go up, but if not, then you will just lose money.

 

Alicia: How does a union decide if it is going to call a strike?

Holly: 50% of all members must vote. They vote by post. 51% of the people who do vote must vote in favour of striking. If this happens a strike will be called.

 

Us: What would happen if a union went on strike for a long term?

Holly: The Conservative government have brought in a law saying that their must be a minimum service level. For example, trains to certain destinations must run and some teachers must keep working. In the past some strikes did last a very long time. The miners’ strike in 80s lasted for over a year. They went on strike in part because of their poor salary but also because the had to work in unsafe conditions (such as landslides near mines). The public had mixed feelings but many were very supportive of the miners and helped them to feed their children. There was a lot of tension between the two sides.

 

Us: Why would you vote not to strike if your salary is low?

Holly: It’s a personal decision. 9/10 teachers back the strike. Some may not simply because they can’t afford to lose pay by going on strike. Some people may not need the salary so may not be worried about their pay getting worse. Some may think that striking is a bad tactic and others may think that because of how bad the economy is that now is the wrong time to strike.

 

Us: What other options are there apart from striking?

Holly: Lots of action took place before the unions decided to call a strike. It is important to remember that pay has been decreasing for nurses and teachers in real terms for over ten years. For ten years the unions have been trying to convince the government to improve pay and conditions by:• Making Petitions
• Reaching out to the media to publicise their concerns
• Commissioning reports: you may have heard lots of reports about nurses having to use hospitals’ foodbanks to feed their families.
Trade unions have been telling the government about this- but they have not increased pay as a result of any of these actions. These have not worked to convince the government therefore these strikes are a last resort.

 

Us: Why do teachers and nurses not get enough pay?

Holly: It’s about the money that is available to pay the public sector. Taxes (income tax, VAT, bonds and more) raise money for the government. A proportion of this will be spent on different things like building roads, financing the army and a big proportion is given to the NHS. However, this amount of money has gotten smaller. The amount of money has shrunk due to: Coronavirus, Brexit and more. The government needs to make choices about how to spend their smaller pot of money. The NHS pay increase is the same size as their housing budget. The government don’t want lots of debt. We are in a lot of debt due to Corona virus already. The government can save some money by not giving pay rises to public sector workers.

 

Thanks for reading our article.

Thanks to Holly Tennock for giving up her time to be interviewed.