When prices go up, the fortunes of the Government go down. It’s as close to an axiom as we can find in politics. The Government is finding it hard to maintain control while the cost of everything goes up and that includes, inevitably, the cost of labour. The public sector unions are demanding pay rises closer to the rate of inflation than the Government is prepared, or perhaps able, to yield. Rishi Sunakseems ready to ignore the recommendations of the independent pay review bodies and let the strikes run. It would be a mistake to do so.
The first deal that can be done, which could then be a template for all the rest, is with the teachers. The National Education Union (NEU) was offered a one-off payment of £1,000 for the current academic year and an average pay rise of 4.5 per cent from September 2023. The NEU turned away the offer, pointing out that teaching salaries have fallen 11 per cent when inflation is taken into account between 2010 and 2022.
Members of the NEU went on strike last Friday and if no deal is reached, further absences from school are inevitable. The NEU ballot closes on July 28 but is almost certain to recommend further action. The union may also now be joined — which it has not been thus far — by the two other teaching unions and the headteachers. This would mean that half a million teachers could be out on strike and the schools would be forced to close.
The risk for the Government is that these strikes will create the sense of a PM who has lost all control of events
This is a dreadful prospect which raises the most important reason there now needs to be a deal. Children only receive one education. They will not get this time back. A general educational strike would cost them dearly. And it is not as if a settlement isn’t within sight. The School Teachers’ Review Body has now recommended an increase of 6.5 per cent. The NEU’s joint general secretary Mary Bousted has been clear that she would accept that number.
There is a tendency in the Tory party to see the prospect of political gain from industrial strife because they think they can pin it on Labour. There has therefore been discussion within Government of adding teachers and doctors to the register of public service personnel, which currently includes police and prison officers, who are not permitted to strike. The current legal proposal is that unions should be forced to provide a minimum service while some colleagues strike. This is precisely what is at issue with the prospect of a teachers’ strike in the autumn.
The political risk for the Government of such strikes is significant because it will create a sense of a Prime Minister who has lost all control of events. If the teachers were the only malcontents it might be possible to ride it out. But soon there will be a parade of strikes and the feeling that no service in Britain is working.
The junior doctors will strike between July 13 and July 18. The rail workers will take industrial action on July 20, 22 and 29. London Underground workers will not come into work from July 23 to 28. Staff at the Passport Office have yet to reach a deal and civil servants may walk out too. Students have not had their papers marked as lecturers went on strike at 150 universities in a dispute over casual contracts and pay.
It is true that the Labour leadership finds industrial action uncomfortable. But governments do not get rewarded if they pick a fight which feels unfair and which they cannot win. The initial union demands are too high, of course. But this is a negotiation. A deal was done with NHS staff and ambulance workers on May 2 at five per cent plus a single payment of £1,655. The same needs to be reached with the rest of the public sector staff. We are not much more than a year out from a general election. An autumn of discontent is in the interest of neither side.
