Teachers threaten strike in pay row
TEACHERS in Wales will be balloted for industrial action if they do not receive a 12% pay award from the Welsh Government.
At the Nasuwt Cymru annual conference in Llandudno, an emergency motion calls for a September ballot “if the Welsh Government falls far short of a 12% pay uplift”.
The union said after 12 years of pay erosion, teachers are facing the biggest squeeze on their living standards in half a century. The Nasuwt is calling for the award this year to prevent what it warns is an “unprecedented retention crisis”. Research by the Institute for Fiscal Studies has shown teacher salary levels fell by 4-5% for new and less experienced teachers between 2007 and 2021, while salaries for more experienced teachers fell by 8% in real terms during the same period.
Teachers in Wales had a 1.75% pay increase this year. The 2021-22 award was agreed by the Welsh Government on recommendation from the independent Welsh Pay Review Body last autumn. But the award hasn’t been fully funded by the Welsh Government.
Nasuwt general secretary Dr Patrick Roach said: “Teachers are suffering, not only from the cost-of-living crisis, which the whole country is grappling with, but 12 years of real terms pay cuts which has left a 20% shortfall in the value of their salaries. If the Welsh Government and the pay review body reject a positive programme of restorative pay awards for teachers, then we will be asking our members whether they are prepared to take national industrial action in response.
“Teachers will not simply stand by as their pay continues to be eroded and if a pay rise is not awarded, it will be won by our members in workplaces through industrial action.”
Neil Butler, Nasuwt national officer for Wales, said teachers had “given their all through a pandemic” and are grappling with the cost-of-living crisis.
“Their pay is nowhere near adequate in the face of the sharpest fall in living standards for decades,” he added.
A Welsh Government spokesperson said: “We have received the fourth report from the Independent Welsh Pay Review Body on teachers’ pay and conditions in Wales, and its advice and recommendations are currently being considered. It will be published alongside ministers’ decisions on the recommendations in due course.”