School’s out as teachers join strike en masse

Schools may have “no choice” but to close their doors to pupils during strikes, the leader of headteachers’ union, NAHT, warned today after teachers in England and Wales became the largest group of public sectors so far to vote overwhelmingly in favour of industrial action.
 
In the profession’s biggest-ever walkout, over 250,000 teachers, who are members of the National Education Union, will swap the classroom for the picket line for seven days in February and March, in protest over what the NEU has branded “a toxic mix of low pay and excessive workload”.

Gillian Keegan, the education secretary, is set to stage urgent meetings with teaching unions on Wednesday.

This isn’t the only new strike announcement. Thousands of train drivers are set to take to the picket line again next month, after their union, Aslef, rejected a pay offer today. Their February 1 strike will also coincide with teachers and civil servants, making it the biggest day of disruption so far this winter. And nurses – who are already walking out tomorrow and Thursday – have announced fresh strikes across trusts on 6 and 7 February. 

While all strikes are damaging, the seven days of teacher walkouts are set to be some of the most consequential industrial action to date.

How schools choose to manage strike days will vary. Whether or not they are forced to close completely will depend on what portion of teachers are NEU members. While some may stay open to vulnerable pupils and children of critical workers, an estimated 23,000 to 24,000 schools will be forced to close. There is also no legal requirement for striking teachers to make up for the time, and curriculum teaching, lost. 

The lost learning is yet another setback for pupils who have already been disadvantaged by two years of pandemic disruption. And the number of working parents who may be forced to stay at home to look after their children will have a big knock-on effect on the general economy. 

Yet the fact that almost 90 per cent of teachers who voted in the ballot backed industrial action exposes the scale of discontentment within the profession. 

Indeed, it’s a clear reminder that the biggest challenge to Sunak’s “double maths” policy would almost certainly be staff recruitment, given teachers’ resounding complaints of being undervalued, underpaid and overworked. 

While the government has upped its offer of a pay rise to 5 per cent for most teachers in England and Wales this year, the NEU is demanding inflation-busting pay rises to compensate staff for a decade of eroded wages. The union estimates that its members have lost a minimum of £64,350 in earnings since 2010 due to real terms pay cuts. 

And newly released ONS figures – showing private sector pay increased by 7.2 per cent, before adjusting for inflation, in the three months to the end of November compared to a meagre 3.3 per cent in the public sector – will only embolden teachers. 

Mary Bousted and Kevin Courtney, joint NEU general secretaries, have branded it “disappointing that the Government prefers to talk about yet more draconian anti-strike legislation, rather than work with us to address the causes of strike action.”

The comment is a swipe at the government’s controversial new bill, which passed its second reading last night in parliament, and could mean workers are sacked for not turning up to their jobs on strike days. 

Following the vote by MPs, thousands of public sector workers descended on Downing Street in protest. The mood was one of defiance. Jo Grady, general secretary of the University and College Union, remarked on the freezing weather, but added that news that the NEU has “smashed their ballot” was “keeping [her] warm.”

Adding teachers to the ever-growing list of strikers is a huge additional headache for the government. And an electorally damaging one too, when stressed parents, unable to find childcare, join the long list of voters blaming the government for not doing enough to resolve the industrial unrest.

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