TEACHERS have voted by a massive 98% in favour of strike action to defeat the Tories’ miserable 4.3% pay offer.
Commenting on the ballot result yesterday, Dr Mary Bousted and Kevin Courtney, Joint General Secretaries of the National Education Union (NEU), said: ‘The offer shows an astounding lack of judgement and understanding of the desperate situation in the education system.
‘We have today written to the Education Secretary informing her of the next two days of strike action on 27 April and 2nd May that NEU teacher members in England will now be taking.’
The vote was as follows:
Total Eligible 295,560
Total Voted 195,564
Turnout = 66.17%
REJECT: 191,319 (97.83%)
ACCEPT: 4,245 (2.17%)
Teacher salaries fell by an average of 11% between 2010 and 2022, after taking inflation into account, the Institute for Fiscal Studies says.
Dr Bousted said: (Tory Education Secretary) ‘Gillian Keegan needs to stop the bullying tactics. She needs to start reading the room. She needs to start listening to teachers.
‘These are not union barons. It is not me making members reject this offer. They had a free private vote either by text or by email. It wasn’t a crowded room where people were intimidated.
‘They know what they are rejecting. They know it’s not good enough.
‘Crucially, they know it’s not properly funded. They know even this offer, if it is paid out, either children will have less equipment or there will be fewer support staff in schools.
‘So they want a fully funded and much better offer.
‘And if we are to keep our schools running the crisis is now so poor that we have children routinely being taught by teachers who are not specialists in the subjects they are teaching.
‘The government is missing 41% of its secondary training targets this year and looks likely to do just as badly next year. We can’t carry on like this.
‘We have to pay teachers properly, get more of them in the profession and get our schools working properly for the children and the young people who deserve a decent education.’
