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On 10 July 2014 thousands of teachers stood up for education and public services in England and Wales, answering to the call to strike action made by the National Union of Teacher (NUT) alongside with Unison, FBU, PCS, GMB and Unite.

Rallies and marches were organised all over England and Wales. From the strike rally in Birmingham, Christine Blower, General Secretary of the NUT and President of the ETUCE, stood up against blind UK government education policies: “detrimental to education and the profession”, she previously said. She called teachers and parents to ‘Stand up for education!’ and continue to keep up the pressure on the UK Education Secretary Michael Goves.

Commenting on the day of action, Christine Blower added:

“Extraordinarily the Government’s response to today’s action has been to completely ignore the issues and instead seek to reduce people’s right to strike. There is no point pontificating on the fact that citizens have the right to strike if every time they do so they are vilified. It is a clear indication that this Government does not want to listen to our concerns, nor do they want them drawn to the general public’s attention.

“The reason why this dispute is so long running is due to the absolute failure of this Government to engage in any meaningful discussions on the main issues of our dispute. The responsibility for today’s action lies fairly and squarely at the door of Government. It is high time that we saw some significant movement. Teachers love their jobs but unless their concerns on pay, pensions and workload are addressed teacher recruitment will certainly become an issue.”

This well-attended last-resort action came after another one-day strike in March, denouncing the effects of 4 years of austerity policies on teachers’ profession and morale.

Available on NUT website: List of rallies

Protect teachers Defend education: Photos from 10 July action

NUT’s campaign Facebook page for latest updates: www.facebook.com/nut.campaigns