Teachers’ union put ideology above a fair election

Back when I was a teacher, the requirement to teach a mock lesson to a bunch of children you had never met before was always the most gruelling part of any job interview. But it served a purpose. People incapable of standing up and stringing together a few coherent sentences were unlikely to be successful in the classroom.

I would like to propose a new test. If you want to run a school, you must show you can follow rules and organise a small election. Events this week suggest those currently leading the UK’s second largest teaching union, the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT), would fail at the first hurdle. 

Earlier this year, union bigwigs nominated Matt Wrack, the former head of the Fire Brigade’s Union, as their new general secretary. Wrack is an experienced trade unionist and a proven tough negotiator. But he has zero professional experience in schools. As such, his nomination was an astonishing insult to rank and file members. Was there really no teacher capable of taking on the role of general secretary? 

Wrack’s nomination suggests NASUWT insiders think first-hand experience of teaching and a deep commitment to education is less important than being a left-wing ally with a reputation for militancy. The case of the university lecturers’ union, UCU, reveals the folly of this approach. So determined were UCU’s leaders to support transgender activism, they failed to protect academic freedom for erstwhile members such as Sussex’s Professor Kathleen Stock. While identity politics has been given free rein, UCU appears helpless in the face of widespread redundancies across the higher education sector. 

The cack-handedness with which NASUWT’s executive committee sought to appoint Wrack further reveals the contempt it has for union members. Wrack was the leadership’s ‘preferred candidate’, meaning he would automatically become general secretary unless another candidate secured enough votes to mount a formal challenge. When a music teacher from Wales met this criteria, he was told he could not stand as he was not a member of the union. Yet Wrack himself did not comply with such technicalities. Following a legal challenge, the union took a last-minute decision to reverse course and re-open the ballot. 

Such incompetence is not just embarrassing, it wastes time and money. People who cannot run an election should not be trusted to run schools. But it also shows total disregard for democratic procedures. To NASUWT’s elite, children and teachers are just collateral damage in the struggle to impose their own ideological view on the world. 

Originally published in The Times: https://www.thetimes.com/article/43e80958-8cbb-4fdf-bb10-3fdafdfeee0a?shareToken=8c5555703aae9ade1c738ecbc85d3e38