NEU strike win: Girls School Day Trust
How the NEU scored pensions victory for teachers with Movement
In an ever-more digital world, the NEU used Movement to unleash the power of mobile to support local organisers in mobilising teachers facing pension cuts. Revolutionary tech fueled this historic campaign – and the NEU won. But as Europe’s biggest education union, the National Education Union (NEU) is no stranger to huge campaigns and innovation.
And as a result, teachers won a fair pension deal at Girls' Day School Trust (GDST) after a pitched battle earlier this year.
Teachers: unprecedented challenges require innovative tech
During the first Coronavirus lockdown, hardworking teachers were hailed as some of the pandemic’s heroes as they quickly pivoted to educate students online. Some even risked their lives on the Covid frontline, keeping schools open for children of key workers.
With teachers facing the biggest challenges of their working lives, the NEU leapt into action to support and represent them. The Union worked with Movement’s creators ChangeLab to utilise and build the innovative tech these huge challenges demanded.
Zoom calls were held during lockdown for all NEU members, bringing up to 20,000 people together virtually to organise against the dangers posed by Coronavirus at their work. NEU members were inspired by hearing from movement leaders like Reverend Jesse Jackson Snr.
Working with ChangeLab’s development team, the NEU built software to survey every member in the country (that’s 10% of all teachers in England) to get real-time insights into what precautions schools were taking to protect teachers from coronavirus.
Teachers’ hard work rewarded with pension cuts
How were some teachers’ dedication during the pandemic rewarded? At the GSDT, they faced a 20% cut to their annual pension payments, as the Trust planned to leave the Teachers' Pension Scheme (TPS).
Having invested in digital organising, NEU organisers were able to quickly mobilise and poll GDST members on their feelings about the proposals using Movement. Movement helped them quickly learn that teachers were overwhelmingly opposed to the pension plans and supported industrial action.
Following this quick, cheap digital litmus test, when negotiations with GDST failed, the NEU called a postal ballot for strike action in January 2022.
A movement powered by messages…
Regular conversations with members were crucial during this ballot period to mobilise teachers to vote. The NEU’s national communication team supported local organisers with a coordinated SMS, call, and email campaign using Movement software.
“[Movement software] being simple was really important,” says Matthew Goodman from the NEU. “When we needed to send text messages, it wasn't a big faff...it was really simple.”
Rapid insights from email and text messages were important for engaging teachers and getting live turnout figures. The NEU used Movement’s digital tools to spread the word about the postal ballot, check if teachers had received their postal ballot, and find out if people had voted. By integrating Movement with their existing tech, the NEU had hourly updates on turnout figures for the ballot.
“Being able to track, in real time, who had completed the ballot or the action all the way down to the individual school level was really important when trying to find out where maybe engagement or turnout was lacking,” says Matthew.
Insights were used to plan the next day’s organising. On the ground, local activists could quickly react: approaching teachers at individual schools, and making sure they had filled out and returned their ballot.
Organisers also stayed in touch with teachers by phone. Movement’s integrated system made it simple each day to filter who had not yet filled their ballot, and contact them. “This worked really well,” Matthew says.
After finding other phone bank systems “very complicated”, the team chose Movement as it needed an easy-to-use phone calling software that could be used by organisers all over England and Wales.
“Phone calling was really, really simple.” Matthew says. “You can just invite [organisers] to the campaign, they get the link and they can just make a phone call, either from their phone or laptop. There’s no weird logins, and it’s really simple.”
With hundreds of teachers being contacted during the ballot by national and regional organisers, it was essential to protect members’ data in line with GDPR. Movement ensures organisers or volunteers only see the data they should have access to.
“Anything that can protect the data people are using is essential… [and ] it’s built into the platform,” Matthew says.
#23Together: the historic strike begins….
A massive 95% of members voted in favour of strike action, with the NEU mobilising 84% of its teacher-members to vote following its digital litmus test. For the first time in a century and a half, GDST teachers were striking. Over 1,500 teachers took to picket lines around the UK and Wales.
Regular conservations with striking teachers were important. Calls, text messages and emails continued to build the #23Together movement of solidarity between teachers at the 23 schools and ensure them the union was fighting for them.
The messages were customised in Movement, with teachers’ local branch secretary or the lead negotiator shown as the sender. Making messages feel personal and relevant to the recipient was important, using names the teachers recognised to build trust, increasing open and click rates.
Hundreds attend Parliament Square rally…
To keep the pressure on GDST, the NEU organised a rally at London’s Parliament Square in February - assembling hundreds of teachers at the heart of democracy to engage MPs in the fair pensions fight.
Striking teachers were invited via SMS messages and surveyed on whether they were attending. Knowing hundreds of people planned to come to the rally meant organisers had the confidence to invite MPs and celebrities to show their solidarity with teachers from the 23 schools.
There was an incredible turnout on the day, with ‘hands off our pensions’ placards filling Parliament Square and campaign hashtag #23Together flooding social media feeds. Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn and Barry Gardiner were among the MPs in attendance.
The headline and newsfeed-friendly nature of the rally was part of the NEU’s traditional and social media strategy for the campaign, injecting the teacher’s fight into public consciousness. This is another area where the NEU used Movement to shape the strategy, coordinating headline-grabbing moments and generating shareable content from its members and celebrities like legendary actor Miriam Margolyes.
At the Parliament Square rally, the NEU used Movement’s simple targeting tools to message people who said they were attending the rally, asking them to use a special widget to send their photos, videos and comments. This content was used as part of live tweeting from the NEU’s national and regional accounts. This strategy worked, with over 25,000 people watching a powerful video from the rally.
Now, it wasn’t just the #23Together. People all over the UK were behind them.
The NEU secures win for teachers
The NEU’s hard work representing its members paid off, as did the Union’s investment in cutting-edge technology. Following GDST teachers’ unprecedented six days of strike action, they won the right to stay in the TPS and an enhanced pay offer was made for teachers and support staff.
We’re proud our Movement software helped the NEU win a fair pension deal for its teacher-members, giving the Union the tools to fuel this amazing victory for these pandemic heroes.
Inspired by how the NEU used Movement to fuel its fight for a fair pensions deal? Get in touch to book a call with the team.
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