The National Education Union has overwhelmingly rejected the government’s pay offer and called further teachers’ strikes in England for April and May 2023.
A consultative ballot held last week returned a 98% majority voting to reject the pay offer from the Department for Education which was made after two weeks of intensive talks with the four teachers unions.
On a turnout of 66%, 191,319 members voted to reject the offer, following the NEU national executive’s recommendation to do so.
The NEU has called a strike from Thursday 27 April to Tuesday 2 May 2023, but said that exam classes would not be interrupted to allow students to prepare for GCSE and A-levels.
Speaking at an NEU conference in Harrogate today, joint general secretaries Kevin Courtney and Mary Bousted described the offer as “unacceptable” and criticised it for not being fully funded and failing to deal with staff shortages.
The NEU has previously said that its analysis shows that between 42% and 58% of schools would have to make cuts to be able to afford the pay rises.
The government proposed its “final” pay offer last week that amounts to a £1,000 one-off cash payment for 2022-23 and a 4.3% consolidated pay rise for most teachers for 2023-24.
This is on top of the 5% pay increase imposed on many teachers in September when inflation measured by the consumer prices index stood at 10.1%. Starting salaries would also rise to £30,000 from September 2023.
The NEU is calling on the government to re-open pay negotiations but Gillian Keegan, the education secretary, has said that if the offer is rejected, the government would pass responsibility back to the independent pay review body, which had recommended a 3% pay rise from September 2023.
Bousted and Courtney said: “This resounding rejection of the government’s offer should leave Gillian Keegan in no doubt that she will need to come back to the negotiating table with a much better proposal.
“The offer shows an astounding lack of judgement and understanding of the desperate situation in the education system.
“We have today written to the education secretary informing her of the next two days of strike action on 27 April and 2 May that NEU teacher members in England will now be taking. These strikes are more than three weeks away; Gillian Keegan can avoid them.
“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 offer will do nothing to stem the teacher recruitment and retention crisis which is so damaging to our children and young people’s education.”
They added: “To parents, we say that we have no wish to disrupt education, indeed our action is aimed at getting the Government to invest in the education of this generation of children and the people who teach them.
“We are asking our school reps to plan with head teachers to ensure that year 11 and year 13 students have a full programme of education on the upcoming strike days.”
Three other teachers’ unions, the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) and the NASUWT, are also balloting teachers about the pay offer, but made no recommendations to their membership. The NAHT is also asking members whether they would support further industrial action if they reject the pay offer.
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The NEU has also announced that Daniel Kebede has been elected its new general secretary, taking over from Courtney and Bousted on 1 September 2023.
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