 After starting their second day of strike
action last Thursday by picketing their school, teachers at St
Aloysius College, Islington, took their battle for a school fit for a 21st
century education to the HQ of building multinational Balfour Beatty in central
London by protesting outside and briefly occupying the building's foyer. (Photo
attached.)
While nearly thirty protesting teachers were
holding placards containing the slogans "Balfour Bullies" and "Pupils Not
Profits" a delegation handed in a letter to Ian Tyler, Chief Executive of
Balfour Beatty (see below) calling on Balfour Beatty to drop threatened penalty
payments on its contract to rebuild St Aloysius under the Building Schools for
the Future programme so that the planned demolition of a perfectly good existing
building can be stopped and pupils and school staff will not have to move in to
a new building which head teacher, Tom Mannion, has called "inadequate",
"unacceptable" and even "a disgrace".
The new building has a number of glaring
deficiencies. Among the most glaring are Design and Technology rooms which are
L-shaped - and therefore difficult for teachers to supervise effectively and too
small to safely accommodate potentially hazardous power tools and machines with
sufficient space around them.
At a recent public meeting - called to explain the
teachers' case to parents by their union, the NUT - one parent, Joanna Haran,
said, "I send my child to get educated, not electrocuted".
A much better solution - supported by school staff,
many parents is the retention and refurbishment of the existing Block B which
has larger and better designed rooms than the new building. Local MP
supports this option and leading members of the newly elected Labour council
have expressed some sympathy with it.
The main stumbling block to this are Balfour
Beatty's penalty payments.
Should local authorities be employing private
companies, who put their shareholders' dividends before the interests of the
children we teach, to rebuild their schools?
Next Tuesday 6 July, from 7 pm, St Aloysius
teachers and support staff will be assembling outside Islington Town Hall in
Upper Street, along with parents and other supporters within the local community
to lobby the Council Executive. They would very much welcome members of other
trades unions and community groups to come along to support them with their
banners.
The following week, unless fully inclusive
negotiations have resolved the rebuilding issue to the satisfaction of St
Aloysius
 They are determined to win and will continue
fighting for as long as it takes.
Opposite is a pic taken a few weeks
ago, shortly after teachers at at St Aloysius refused to begin teaching one
morning because ongoing building work had left the school in a dangerous
condition.
|