Union leaders have urged the education secretary to make a “concrete” pay offer for teachers to prevent further strikes going ahead in schools in England ahead of crunch talks today.
Gillian Keegan is set to meet with the leaders of unions representing teachers and headteachers in a bid to resolve the ongoing pay dispute and to prevent further walkouts in the coming weeks.
Regional strikes in England are due to take place by National Education Union (NEU) members on 28 February, 1 March and 2 March, with national strikes in England and Wales planned for 15 and 16 March.
Earlier this month, the majority of schools in England were forced to shut their doors to some pupils during the first day of walkouts by NEU members.
Ahead of the talks, Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT), said the lack of a resolution is “putting children’s education at risk”.
He said: “While it is positive that the secretary of state is talking to us, the government is fast running out of time to do the right thing and what we really need to see now is a concrete pay offer.
“Our members have waited long enough after enduring more than a decade of real terms pay-cuts which are fuelling a really worrying recruitment and retention crisis against a backdrop of a mounting workload, long hours and the legacy of the pandemic.
“This is putting children’s education at risk and neither the profession nor families across the country will forgive the government if it fails to act.”
While Patrick Roach, general secretary of the National Association of Schoolmasters/Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT) teaching union, said: “Whilst we welcome the opportunity to meet again with the government to discuss our ongoing pay dispute, we now need to hear specific proposals from the education secretary which will address our members’ concerns.
“Ministers cannot continue to play for time. We need to see concrete proposals from the government which can form the basis for a negotiated settlement of this dispute.”
Last week, the NEU suspended a planned strike in Wales after receiving a pay offer from the Welsh government.
Kevin Courtney, joint general secretary of the NEU, said the move in Wales should pile more pressure on the education secretary to bring forward proposals on teachers’ pay to avoid further strike action.
The Welsh Government has offered teachers in Wales an extra 1.5% on this year’s 5% pay award, as well as a 1.5% one-off payment.
Mr Courtney said: “We think that the government in Westminster can do better than the government in Wales because it has more financial resources.”
On Tuesday evening, the Scottish government revised its pay offer for teachers.
The new offer would see all staff earning up to £80,000 receive a 6% increase from 1 April 2022 and 5.5% from 1 April 2023.
Meanwhile, those earning in excess of £80,000 would receive £4,800 for 2022/23 and £4,400 for 2023/24.
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Tens of thousands of University and College Union (UCU) members will remain on strike at 150 UK universities in a dispute over pay, pensions and conditions.
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Government ‘not leading’ on strikes
Around 100 members of the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union at the British Museum in London, working in visitor services and security teams, will continue their strikes as part of a dispute over pay, pensions, redundancy terms and job security.
PCS members are also on strike this week at the Department for Work and Pensions, DVLA and the Animal and Plant Health Agency.
Ministers continue to insist increasing wages to that level would fuel inflation, and its top priority was to cut that down over the coming weeks and months.
