Education cuts provoke school strikes across England
A government beholden to big business and not social needs has seized the drop in pupil numbers to slash public services to fund its key priority, military spending.
Tania Kent and Tom Pearce•
Educators Rank-and-File Committee
The Educators Rank-and-File Committee is an international network of educators, students, parents, and workers fighting for workers power in the schools, to stop the capitalist destruction of public education and eliminate COVID-19.
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Australia: Union offers no way forward for striking ACT teachers
The strike showed strong opposition among educators to the deepening attack on public schools, where conditions are already close to impossible. But the union speakers sought to channel this anger behind plaintive appeals to the same Labor government carrying out the attack.
Martin Scott•
Teachers in Türkiye to launch an indefinite protest in Ankara
Private-sector teachers in Türkiye will launch an indefinite protest in Ankara—where the NATO summit will be held in early July—to demand their social rights.
Can Denizli•
San Diego County schools gutted by cuts in 2025-26, as budget deficits deepen
Every major school district in San Diego County is in deficit. The 2025-26 school year has brought mass layoffs, pay cuts and campus closures, with deeper austerity projected for years to come.
Our reporters•
Committee for Public Education•
Committee for Public Education•
Mauricio Saavedra•
Kaye Tucker•
Nancy Hanover•
Reinstate Nexteer worker Antwiane Sanders immediately! An injury to one is an injury to all! Remove the company’s cops in the UAW bureaucracy!
Antwiane Sanders, a Nexteer worker with more than 10 years on the job, was fired after speaking out against the fourth tentative agreement at a UAW Local 699 roll-out meeting held on company premises.
Statement of the Nexteer Workers Rank-and-File Committee•
4 workers dead at Palmetto: The safety crisis, the privatization drive, and how postal workers can fight back
These were not simply tragic accidents but the lethal results of austerity. Preventing them requires an organized movement from below, not beholden to management, toothless regulatory agencies or corrupt union officials.
USPS Workers Rank-and-File Committee•
The way forward for resident doctors: Unite all NHS workers against Starmer government
The BMA and other health unions—Unite, Unison, the GMB and the Royal College of Nursing—are suffocating a unified fightback by National Health Service workers.
NHS FightBack•
Online meeting Sunday
Four workers dead at Palmetto—the consequence of decades of cuts and the drive to privatize USPS
Four workers have died at the Palmetto Regional Processing and Distribution Center in Georgia in the past two years. The most recent, Demarcus Little, told a supervisor he felt unwell last week, collapsed, and died.
USPS Workers Rank-and-File Committee•
Nexteer Workers Rank-and-File Committee•
Nexteer Workers Rank-and-File Committee•
Steve Hill•
Barry Grey•
David Harrison•
Frequently Asked Questions
What does the term “rank-and-file” mean and where does it come from?
“Rank-and-file” is originally a military term. It refers to the lower “ranks” of soldiers, who literally stand in lines or “files”. These soldiers have a different set of interests in preserving their lives than the officers or “brass” who prosecute the wars on behalf of the ruling elite.
Rank-and-file committees are of, by and for the rank-and-file workers, who have a different set of interests in preserving their lives than management, the bosses, the politicians, and the trade union apparatus, who send workers to die while defending the profits of the ruling elite.
Is it legal to build rank-and-file committees of educators and other workers to stop the spread of COVID-19?
Yes. The formation of rank-and-file committees is 100% completely legal under the First Amendment to the US Constitution.
The right to freedom of speech means you can say whatever you like about what you agree or disagree with. Freedom of association, also covered under the first amendment, means you have the right to associate with others who share your views, for political ends. You also have the right to petition the government for redress, to make demands on the government and tell them what you want them to do.
Does HIPAA law prevent schools or workplaces from disclosing information about the spread of COVID-19?
No. HIPAA has an exception for disclosures to prevent and control the spread of disease, but the state is deliberately not invoking this exception in order to conceal information from workers, so that they can pretend that what they are doing is safe when it’s not.
Rank-and-file educators have the right to know who’s gotten sick, where, when, and what happened. Rank-and-file committees have to demand this information, and have to share it with other workers as a matter of collective self defense.