TODAY the Matchwomen’s Festival is taking place in east London. It is a celebration of a strike organised in the summer of 1888 when 1,400 women walked out over management bullying and appalling, hazardous working conditions. 

The women and girls working at Bryant & May’s match factory in London’s East End paraded the streets singing songs and telling the truth about their starvation wages and mistreatment.They marched to Parliament. Their strength and solidarity won them better pay, safer conditions and the right to form the largest union of women and girls in Britain.

This was the start of trade unionism as a wider movement in defence of all workers, not just those with a craft or trade. Their fight was not just for themselves but also for their community. They gathered support from many others, building a social movement around them.

My union, the NUT, is proud to be associated with such a tradition and it is now important once again that we tell the truth about how much women and children are suffering from government imposed austerity and cuts. The NUT has 76 per cent female membership. While teaching staff do not suffer poverty pay, year-on-year pay restraint has eroded both the real value of teaching salaries and the status of the profession.

As teachers we also feel a deep responsibility to the children we teach. Child poverty grew under the coalition government and will grow further under a Tory government which is intent on imposing austerity even as real wages fall.

Many schools are expecting matters to get worse as the government moves ahead with plans to cut £13 billion from welfare and remove tax credits from the nation’s poorest families. The continued erosion of child benefit, previously a universal benefit payable to all mothers, is also having an impact on millions of families. It is the poorest in society who are bearing the brunt of these austerity measures.

The impact of austerity is devastating and highly evident in Britain’s schools. Teachers are finding themselves having to bring food for hungry children. Teachers are only too aware of the problems of poverty and, frankly, deprivation that are faced by their pupils. They take their pastoral responsibility very seriously, but addressing society-wide inequity cannot be the task of schools alone.  Children and young people who arrive at school hungry, who live in poor housing and who cope with the daily struggle of living in households with little money, cannot learn as well as they could and should. 

Teachers should do everything they can with every child — and they do. Politicians should do everything they can to eliminate poverty — but they don’t.

For children to thrive we have to recommit to ending child poverty. Instead the government has done the opposite by this week announcing that it will scrap the Child Poverty Act and abandon its child poverty targets.Clearly, this government wants to remove itself from the responsibility to oversee children’s welfare. It also seems content to let poverty return to the Victorian levels experienced by the matchwomen.

With only 24 per cent of the eligible vote, this government cannot claim a mandate for plunging children into poverty or for attacking the working conditions of teachers. We intend to continue drawing attention to these issues and campaigning in a way of which the matchwomen would approve.

During the run-up to the general election our Stand Up For Education campaign raised concerns about conditions for teachers and about the impact of child poverty on children’s ability to learn. Street stalls and hustings were held across England and Wales, even in Nicky Morgan’s own constituency. Our ideas were warmly received and strongly supported by parents, teachers and concerned members of the public.

It is important that we honour the true contribution that the matchwomen made to our history. They fought for themselves, but also for a wider vision of social justice. This is a tradition of which I am proud and one which is deeply important and relevant to our times. Matchfest should form part of our summer of celebration alongside Tolpuddle and the Durham Miners’ Gala.

These were brave women who should be celebrated and held up as an example we can all learn from, especially given current circumstances. I hope everyone at the Matchwomen’s Festival has a great day.

• Christine Blower is general secretary of the National Union of Teachers.