Call to Action: First ever strike ballot of UK language teachers
Teachers at EC London are balloting for strike action to secure a return to pre-pandemic wages, admin pay, and union recognition. They need our solidarity!
Our friends from the IWW’s Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) Workers Union have put out a call for solidarity with teachers at EC English London who are currently moving towards strike action. On June 17, workers at the EC English London location initiated voting, with the results yet to be declared. If the workers vote to strike, it’ll be the first teachers’ strike in the TEFL industry in the UK.
This would be a big deal. These English language schools have become a significant sector within the nation’s education industry, generating over $2.7 billion per year. It’s also entirely privatized, leaving migrants seeking a better life fleeing countries ravaged by war and neocolonialism to be preyed upon by for-profit language schools. And it’s rife with scamming, too. You can find some specific accounts of these scams and of how workers can collectively fight back in Class Power on Zero-Hours by our friends in the AngryWorkers Collective.
The workers are bold, humble, and straight to the point with what they need.
Our demands are simple and fair:
Restoration of real-terms pay – our wages have fallen far behind inflation.
Paid admin time – standard in most of education, still denied to TEFL teachers.
Union recognition – EC management refuses to negotiate with our union, the TEFL Workers’ Union (part of the IWW), despite a formal request submitted on 30 May.
The London IWW also made a wise decision to help create the TEFL Workers Union, which has now taken on a life of its own, organizing across the entire UK in some of the sector’s largest employers. It is a strategic sector of the UK’s education industry with virtually no presence by the larger, mainstream unions. Ryan with the TEFL Workers Union details a brief history of the campaign so far. We included a few other quotes from his story throughout the remainder of this post.
The workers, who are members of the TEFL Workers’ Union (part of the Industrial Workers of the World), have been organising at EC for 18 months. Following a rally and a formal request for union recognition on 30 May, they are now balloting for industrial action, as the company is refusing to open negotiations.
Helen Jardine, an EC London teacher and IWW member, said: “All we want right now is for the company to recognise our union and open negotiations. We love our jobs and we love our students, and we have formed a union because we want to improve things for everyone. We have had some key wins through informal organising, but it’s clear that we need formal recognition if we are going to get to where we need to be.”
In an indicative ballot conducted last month, members voted overwhelmingly in favour of taking strike action should management fail to meet their demands.
We pledge our solidarity with our fellow workers at EC English London and the TEFL Workers Union who are making history within the industry. Our first act of solidarity was donating to their strike fund, and we strongly encourage you to do the same if you can afford it. We also signed up to receive updates about their collective struggle.
By raising their strike fund in advance, they’re demonstrating their readiness to fight, and that after the vote passes they can strike exactly when they want to.
Tom Liebewitz, lead organiser for the TEFL Workers’ Union (IWW), said: “The EC bosses need to understand that if they keep refusing to meet with their workers, those workers could walk out. There’s still time to avoid a strike, but only if EC stops stonewalling and starts negotiating seriously with the union.”
These workers have a strong vision for what the future of the sector should be. All of us can learn from their dedication to making it a dignified future for all, one where workers exercise democratic control in their workplaces. Building that future is going to be hard, but it’ll be much less harder if we each do our part.
Simon Francis, an EC London teacher and IWW member, said: “I love my job, but love doesn’t pay the bills. Now it’s time to stand up for ourselves, our students, and the future of the profession. We’re not just fighting for a few extra pounds – we’re fighting for dignity, sustainability and a voice at work. This ballot is a message to the whole sector: things need to improve.”
We’ll hopefully have more updates for you in the near future. A rapidly increasing number of education workers are now laboring in privatized workplaces and even whole sectors, including most of our collective members, so this is a story worth following closely as a class.
Who are the Angry Education Workers?
This is a project to gather a community of revolutionary education workers who want a socialist education system. We want to become a platform for educators of all backgrounds and job roles to share workers’ inquiries, stories of collective action, labor strategy, theoretical reflection, radical pedagogy, and art.
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