National Elections - the following were nominated for the shown Officer election posts

Louise Regan and Philipa Harvey (Senior and Junior Vice President)

Ian Murch (Treasurer)

Alyson Palmer (Examiner of Accounts)

Emergency Motion

 Defend Education  Fight Gove’s Attack on our Pay, Pensions and Conditions

We congratulate the leaders of the  NASUWT and NUT for calling the series of rallies around the country and the two regional strikes on1 October and 17 October. These are a vital part of taking the fight to education secretary Michael Gove and defeating his attacks on education, and on our pay, pensions and conditions.

We welcome the planned national strike this term as part of that campaign, and call on the leaders of our unions to name the day for that strike as soon as possible so members are clear and confident that we are embarking on a serious fight with the aim of beating Gove.

We also believe that a national strike this term must be a precursor to an escalating campaign of strike action next term if we are to succeed in our battle.

The attacks we face are only one part of this government's wider assault and austerity drive. That is why we think that the TUC should also act on its recent vote to call a midweek day of action, and that our unions should back such a coordinated protest.

 

Motion on Cuban solidarity

ITA notes that it is now 51 years since the United States imposed its vindictive blockade on Cuba – a vicious policy which has cost the Cuban economy at least $105 billion and caused the Cuban people immense suffering and hardship.

 

In particular we note that

·         The blockade denies access to food, educational and medical equipment including drugs for kidney transplants, prostheses for children with bone tumours, and antibiotics for babies

·         The US government grants millions of dollars every year for groups in and outside Cuba working to overthrow the Cuban government

·         3,478 Cubans have died in terrorist attacks from US backed right-wing exile groups

·         The Miami Five have been unjustly imprisoned in the US for more than 13 years for trying to stop attacks against their country

·         British banks and companies have been fined or stopped from trading with Cuba under the extraterritorial blockade laws

·         187 – 2 countries voted against the blockade at the United Nations in 2010, but still the Obama administration says it has no plans to end it.

In spite of the blockade we note the following educational successes that the UK would do well to follow:

· School meals and uniforms are free.

· There is a strict maximum of 25 children per primary-school class, many of which have as few as 20. Secondary schools are striving towards only 15 pupils per class.  

· "Mobile teachers" are deployed to homes if children are unable to come to school.

· Over half of Cuba's 150,000 teachers have a minimum of 5 years of higher education; which is about half a master's degree.

· There are now 23 medical schools in Cuba, up from only 3 in 1959 before the Cuban Revolution.

 

We believe that the Cuban peoples' have a right to self determination and sovereignty. We therefore agree to affiliate to the Cuban Solidarity Campaign in their fight to get the blockade ended.

 

 Islington NUT welcomes the DGB’s ‘Marshall Plan for Europe’.

This is a first attempt by one of the leading bodies of the European labour movement to provide a viable pan-European response to the crisis.

This is crucial to challenge the twin dead ends of a consolidated bankers Europe on the one hand and a reversion to national insularity that will otherwise be the dominant poles of debate in the 2014 European elections.

This plan

• rejects division of the peoples of Europe along national, ethnic or religious lines,

 

·         calls for a 10-year pan-European investment programme focussed on sustainability at an annual level of €260bn, to include all 27 EU economies,

·         to invest in renewable energy production to cut CO2 emissions by 20% by 2020 and by 80% to 95% from the 1990 level by 2050.

·         to develop of major cities, transport, infrastructure, broadband and education,

·         to  create 9 to 11 million new jobs,

·         recognises that countries in crisis cannot do this alone.

• rejects  any notion that new investment must be ‘paid for’ by further austerity measures,

 

·         proposes a 3% wealth tax to start a European Future Fund, with new bonds paid for by the imposition of a Financial Transactions Tax.

·         recognises that European companies are sitting on enormous cash balances (held in the banks) which they refuse to invest.

We welcome the call by the DGB for a debate across Europe on its proposals,

·         we call on our executive to discuss this plan and raise it with the TUC and in the broader labour movement.

·         We will take this resolution to the Trades Council and appeal for Labour affiliated unions to take it up in the Labour Party.

 

 Unite the Resistance

ITA notes

1)     The Tory spending review in June continued the austerity drive with huge cuts to public spending, attacks on wages and more job cuts.
2)     The People’s Assembly met on 22 June and saw 4,000 activists debate the way to build the anti-austerity movement.
3)     That Unite, Unison, GMB, the NUT, the TUC and other unions have called for a mass protest at the Tory Party conference on 29 September in Manchester .
4)     The powerful strikes by 2.5 million workers on 30 November 2011.

ITA believes

1)     That we can’t simply wait for a Labour government to end austerity, particularly after Ed Miliband signed up to Tory spending plans.
2)     That we should support the call for the creation of local People’s Assembles.
3)     We should build the biggest possible mobilisation at the Tory Party conference in Manchester .
4)     There is an urgent need to build up the strength of trade union organisation across the public and private sector.

ITA resolves

1)     To encourage members to attend the demo at the Tory Party conference
2)     To re-affiliate to Unite the Resistance and send up to 10 delegates to the Build the Protests, Build the Strikes, Build the Unions event on 19 October.

3)     To support the North London People's Assembly conference on 26th October and send as many delegates as want to go.