Ministers will have heaved a huge sigh of relief to see teachers and school leaders in England vote to accept a 6.5% pay offer and end strike action in state schools in England.
After months of disruption as a result of strikes by members of the National Education Union (NEU), there were real fears in government of an escalation of the dispute, with coordinated strike action in the autumn term by four unions.
That threat was averted after the government agreed to implement a 6.5% pay uplift from September, as recommended by the teachers’ independent pay review body.
Union leaders, however, have been careful to avoid presenting the result as a victory for teachers, insisting that the battle for fair pay and better school funding will continue.
The scale of the vote in favour of the deal was convincing in all four unions, after the offer was recommended by union leaders, but many teachers and school leaders will have accepted reluctantly after a long campaign for an above-inflation pay rise.
Patrick Roach, general secretary of the NASUWT teaching union, spoke for many when he said: “Whilst NASUWT members are willing to accept the School Teachers’ Review Body [STRB] pay award recommendation, they do not believe that it is sufficient redress for the impact of more than a decade of real-terms pay cuts, where the value of teachers’ pay has declined by 25%.”
Negotiations between the Department for Education and the unions ended in March, with all four decisively rejecting the government’s offer of a 4.3% pay rise and £1,000 one-off payment.
Teachers will see 6.5% as progress from the 3.5% the government initially recommended to the STRB. They are affected by the cost of living crisis as much as anyone else, and many will feel relieved that the threat of further strike action next term – and the resulting loss of pay – has been averted.
Members of the NEU have already sacrificed pay with eight days of industrial action in England. “What teachers were definitely not keen on was an escalation of strike action in the autumn,” said one NEU member. “I’m seeing a mixture of resentment that we gave up, but perhaps relief from a silent majority of others, feeling there was no alternative and we got an improved deal.”
Nevertheless there was clear opposition to the deal and a campaign within the NEU to reject it. Debs Gwynn, one of the executive members opposed to the deal, told colleagues prior to the vote: “The offer is short of what we were asking. It is not inflation proof, it does not redress the real-term losses we have suffered over the past 13 years and it does not address the chronic funding and staffing crisis in our schools.”
Many will share that sentiment. On social media, teachers expressed their disappointment, with many comments aimed at Daniel Kebede, who takes over as the NEU general secretary in August after also recommending the deal to members.
“How exactly can we move the campaign forward when members have been told to roll over and accept this ‘offer’? I’m so disappointed in @NEUnion right now,” one year 6 teacher tweeted. “@DanielKebedeNEU hope you have a bit more backbone going forward and actually fight for us and our students.”
Kebede also said the 6.5% would never have been awarded without the eight days of action by NEU members and signalled what might lie ahead
“We must go further though. We need pay restoration for all school staff (teachers, leaders, support staff). This isn’t just about fairness. It is the only way to save our schools. The crisis of recruitment & retention is so severe,” he wrote on Twitter.
“We have shown we can beat the government’s anti-democratic strike thresholds. We have shown we can deliver solid and sustained strike action. In September serious discussions will take place about how we move the campaign for education forward.”
