Today the National Education Union is
writing to employers with notification of our intention to carry
out national ballots of around 300,000 teacher and support staff
members in England and Wales.
These formal postal ballots will open
on Friday 28 October 2022 and close on Friday 13 January 2023.
Dates for potential strike action are yet to be decided, but
likely to be from week commencing 30 January
2023.
In our recent indicative ballots,
which closed last week:
- 62% of teacher members and 68% of
support staff members in more than 23,000 schools
voted;
- 98% of teacher members believe that
all teachers should receive a fully funded, above-inflation pay
rise;
- 86% of teacher members would be
willing to take strike action to demand that
rise;
- 92% of support staff reject the
employers' final pay offer for
2022/23;
- 78% of support staff would vote yes
to strike action.
The formal ballots will ask
members "Are you prepared
to take strike action in furtherance of this
dispute?" Each
dispute is about the failure to give a commitment for a fully
funded above-inflation pay rise (as measured by September 2022
RPI).
Kevin Courtney and Dr Mary
Bousted, Joint General Secretaries of the National Education
Union,
said:
"The latest financial statement from
the fourth Chancellor in as many months, will do nothing to quell
the anger of teachers and support staff as they face yet another
real-terms pay cut. Teachers have lost 20% in real terms since
2010, and for support staff in the same period the loss stands at
27%. This is simply unsustainable.
"The strength of feeling should not be
underestimated. Teachers work amongst the largest number of hours
of any profession, and according to the OECD those working in
England work longer hours than teachers anywhere else in
Europe. Pay, along with workload, lays at the root of a
recruitment and retention crisis which should be of deep concern
to the Government, but about which they have been completely
ineffective. According to their own figures, one in eight
teachers leave within their first year, a quarter within three
years of qualifying and almost a third are gone within five
years. 40% of teachers leave within ten years of qualifying. The
Department for Education routinely misses its own trainee
targets, year upon year.
"The Government believes that a
starting salary of £30,000, promised at the 2019 election and
introduced this September, will be generous enough to stem the
flow. But they ignore the fact that inflation since 2019 has
already wiped out its value.
"Our members are reluctant to
strike – they want to be in school teaching children –
but they have been undervalued for too long. The Government's
refusal to fully fund the meagre pay rise for 2022/23 is the
final insult. We repeat our willingness to meet with Government
to find a serious answer to more than a decade of declining
pay."
EDITOR'S
NOTE
The four ballots are for: teachers in
England, teachers in Wales, support staff in England, support
staff in Wales.
Details of the recent indicative
ballot can be found in these press
releases:
Teachers: https://neu.org.uk/press-releases/teachers-call-strike-action-pay
Support Staff: https://neu.org.uk/press-releases/support-staff-call-strike-action-pay
The National Education Union has
450,000 members in England, Wales and Northern
Ireland.
