Fresh strikes for England as teachers reject offer
Teachers in England rejected a government pay offer, paving the way for more strikes and dealing Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Conservative government another blow.
Ministers had proposed a one-off £1,000 payment to teachers for the 2022/23 tax year and a 4.3% rise the next. But 98% of the members of the National Education Union (NEU) who cast ballots rejected that offer, the union announced at the start of its annual conference on Monday.
The vote means teachers will now go ahead with walkouts planned for April 27 and May 2, disrupting schools as pupils prepare for annual exams, and causing a knock-on effect for working parents.
PRESSURE
This piles pressure on Sunak just as his administration appeared poised to draw a line under months of industrial unrest that hit the country’s schools, railways, hospitals and postal service. Education secretary Gillian Keegan described Monday’s vote as disappointing.
“The offer was funded, including major new investment of over half-a-billion pounds, in addition to the record funding already planned for school budgets,” Keegan said in a statement. “The NEU’s decision to reject it will simply result in more disruption for children and less money for teachers today.”
The NEU said the offer was not fully funded and about half of the schools would have to make further cuts to cover the pay increase. Mary Bousted and Kevin Courtney, the union’s joint general secretaries, said Keegan must now come back to the negotiating table with a better proposal.
“These strikes are more than three weeks away: Gillian Keegan can avoid them,” they said in an emailed statement. “No teacher wants to be on strike. Nor can they accept this offer that does nothing to address the decades of below-inflation pay increases, making them the worst-paid teachers in the UK.”
The scale of the rejection, on a 66% turnout, suggests Keegan still has some way to go before reaching an offer that is acceptable to unions.
Pay for experienced teachers has fallen by one-fifth in real terms since 2010, and many are leaving the profession due to heavy workloads and long hours, according to the NEU.
Keegan said the matter was now in the hands of the independent review body that makes recommendations on pay deals for public sector workers.
The union said it was asking schools to plan with head teachers to ensure GCSE and A-Level students would have a full programme of education on the strike days.
EXAMS
The government had seemed to be heading towards resolving a series of industrial disputes when it entered into talks with teacher leaders in March. It had been buoyed by a potential deal with nurses, midwives and ambulance workers, which health union members are currently considering. There have also been deals to end some action by railway workers.
But other disputes appear to be far from resolution. Junior doctors will strike again for four days this month, threatening the worst disruption to England’s struggling National Health Service since walkouts began in December. More than 130,000 public servants are planning to strike on April 28, and passport office staff began a five-week walkout on Monday.