Following a rousing speech by Mark Serwotka to the National Union of Teachers yesterday, they voted to combine forces with PCS, the biggest civil service union, to hold simultaneous strike ballots if pay is frozen or pensions and working conditions are cut. Delegates at the NUT conference chanted “the workers, united, will never be defeated”, fists raised, during a standing ovation for the call by Mark Serwotka, the general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union, for co-ordinated action across the public sector.
“Our message to the politicians should be simple,” Mr Serwotka told the NUT. “If you’re coming for our jobs, our pensions, our services and our education, we are going to stand together and we are going to defend them. And we are going to take united industrial action as a last resort, if we have to, because we know it’s the best way of defending ourselves.”
