Ministers are treating teachers in England with contempt if they refuse to renegotiate their “miserable” pay offer, according to a teaching union leader who fears the government wants to “walk away” after only six days of talks.
Patrick Roach, the general secretary of the NASUWT teaching union, said the government insisted on using forecasts of very low inflation next year to justify its pay offer and was “not serious about compromising” during negotiations last month.
“It was a miserable offer from the government, when we’ve seen teachers’ pay eroded by as much as 25% in real terms since 2011, on this government’s watch, at a time when inflation is running at over 10%. And for teachers to be offered next year 4.5% on average adds insult to injury,” said Roach, who took part in the talks with the education secretary Gillian Keegan.
So far, three teaching unions have overwhelmingly rejected the pay offer. In response, Keegan has said the offer would be scrapped and negotiations were at an end this year.
NASUWT members are also expected to reject the offer, by margins similar to the 90% who voted in favour of strike action earlier this year. The result of the consultation will be published this weekend at the union’s annual conference.
Roach revealed he has written to Keegan in protest at her unwillingness to reopen talks before the results of the NASUWT’s consultation had been announced.
“To find that the government has sought to pull the rug from under our members, before they even had a say about what they think about the government’s offer, is pretty contemptuous of the profession,” Roach said.
The Department for Education has said that rejecting the pay offer “will simply result in more disruption for children and less money for teachers today”.
“Following a week negotiating in good faith, the government offered teachers a £1,000 payment on top of this year’s pay rise, a commitment to cut workload by five hours per week, and a headline pay increase of 4.5% for next year, above both inflation and average earnings growth,” the DfE said.
Roach said: “My view is that government needs to recognise that its job is not yet finished, that actually the government has to come back to the negotiating table, and look at what more can be done to secure a deal which commands the support of the profession.”
He added: “My worry is that the government wants to walk away from this.”
The government restricted negotiations to six days, leaving the unions little time to assess its proposals and make counter-offers.
Roach said the teaching unions had been willing to compromise, with the NASUWT making “a very clear demand for pay restoration” in the wake of high inflation, including a 10% pay award for the 2023-24 academic year.
He accused the government of being “not serious about compromising” and said it would not understand why the unions refused to accept claims about the cost of living going into reverse next year.
“When you hear suggestions that the government or ministers believe that predictions inflation will fall means that prices will also fall, which economic textbook is this coming from? Because it’s not one that I’m familiar with,” Roach said.
While NASUWT delegates at its conference in Glasgow will be discussing pay and potential industrial action in England, Roach says they have other concerns that are sparking local disputes but get less attention nationally.
“Pay is an important issue right now, let’s be in no doubt about that. But so too are the issues of workload and teachers’ working time, the lack of support for teachers in the classroom, and pupil violence and assaults. These are big issues for our members.
“When our members are being balloted on these issues, week in week out, employer by employer, the length and breadth of the country, I think that speaks louder than words. And that will certainly be something which will be very prominent in the debates at our conference,” Roach said.
A NASUWT survey of teachers found that long working hours are affecting their wellbeing, with more than four out of five saying their mental health has declined over the last 12 months.
Excessive workload was blamed ahead of any other reason as the biggest driver of declining mental health, with the 8,500 teachers who responded saying they worked 54 hours a week on average, including evenings and weekends spent on marking, lesson preparation and administration.
Eighty-seven per cent of teachers reported an increase in their workload over the last year, with most saying it has increased “significantly”.
