GFTU BGCM Minutes 2017

trying to replace properly employed teachers, but, sadly, many are employed

on zero hour contracts today. It is frightening when you realise that there are

now almost a million workers on zero hour contracts, a rise of more than 20%

on a year ago.

Co-operatives have to be better than a service which is outsourced, as it is

called, but we all know it means privatisation. Co-operatives are genuine not-

for-profit organisations. In the early 1990s Newcastle-upon-Tyne Council

decided to cut its peripatetic service. The teachers wanted to stay together as

a team, especially to protect borough wide music groups, such as youth

orchestras. The teachers decided they would become self-employed. It was

not a huge leap of imagination to realise that some sort of co-operative would

achieve both the council’s and the teachers’ wishes. The MU engaged a co-

operative consultant, Geoff Cox, who worked together with one of the then

Assistant General Secretaries of the MU, Bob Wearn. They came up with a

model where the teachers became self-employed but formed a co-operative to

service themselves, managing invoicing, loan of instruments etc. It was not

long before NEMCO, North East Music Co-operative was born. Schools by

and large bought into the service, some paying directly, some recharging

parents or a mixture of both. A hardship fund was established through a

parents teachers association for those with talent but unable to afford the

charges. The last sentence pleases me a great deal, because I have always

regarded it as a sin to ignore talent.

All members of the co-operative are expected to be MU members. It was

written into the business articles that the union would arbitrate in any dispute between a member and the co-operative. NEMCO is in its 21 st year of trading

as a music co-operative. It teaches in the majority of Newcastle schools,

holding firm to its goal of providing good quality, affordable and sustainable

instrumental music tuition, a true success story. The most successful model

was soon copied by Swindon and South East Lincolnshire. The list is growing

with Milton Keynes joining in 2014, Salisbury 2015, Denbighshire and last

September Bedford had joined. Cotswold Music Trust was set up in 2012 and

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