June 30th: strikes an opportunity for progressive education

Dear members and supporters,

We write to you a week before the largest strikes that the UK has seen for many years, which are planned to take place on Thursday 30th June (next week). Thousands of school and college students are expected to be either given the day off school or to refuse to cross picket lines and stage a walk out.

The Woodcraft Folk, as one of the only progressive youth organisations in the UK, wants to make sure that we are supporting our young people taking actions of conscience. No young person should have to undermine legal and legitimate industrial action by crossing any picket line and we will be supporting all our members who take a stand to protect their future. “The strike … is expected to bring schools, colleges, universities, courts, ports and jobcentres to a standstill, and comes as millions of staff face pay freezes, job losses and pension reforms.”(Guardian, 20 June 2011)

We want to be able to support our members taking action and make sure that young people get their voices heard. It is equally important they are given the space to discuss why many public sector workers feel it necessary to take this action and how, if they choose to do so, our young people can take action to support them.

On the day many of our members will be taking action themselves and this is a perfect opportunity to talk about industrial action in your groups. If you are a group leader, your General Council in the coming days will develop activities for you to use in your group to talk about why the ability to be part of a Trade Union is an important human right that the Woodcraft Folk upholds and promotes. The packs will touch upon why it is important to be able to withdraw labour as a last resort.

If you have time on the day we encourage groups to organise activities alongside picket lines for children and young people that may not be in school. You may wish to involve singing, parachute games or even discussions and solidarity actions. We encourage our members and all our groups to use the 30th June to proactively build links with our comrades in the Trade Union movement and educate our young people in strengthening those historical links.

Speed the Adventure

Blue Skies

Lloyd Russell-Moyle
Chair, on behalf of General Council
The education pack can be found here