This is a fight to save education and the union has to throw everything it has into it, writes Molly Maguire
The national executive committee of the NEU have announced a formal ballot for strike action of over 300,000 teachers and support staff in England’s state schools.
It follows a promising indicative ballot which showed overwhelming support for strike action (90.5%). The chief demand is a fully-funded, above-inflation pay rise, which the government has not signalled it will grant. The School Teachers’ Review Body is currently recommending a 6.5% rise over three years. But inflation due to the Iran war – which might increase dramatically over the summer – could, as NEU General-Secretary declared, wipe out any gains ‘in one Tomahawk cruise missile’.
Crucially, the Chancellor and Education Secretary have suggested they will not fund school budgets to pay for any rise in salaries, meaning already cash-strapped schools will need to cut programmes and services to students, delay desperately-needed building repairs and make other staff redundant.
In addition, the government has stated they would like to eliminate a long-standing cap on working hours for staff (1,265 per year), further increasing workload and exacerbating a national teacher recruitment and retention crisis.
School staff have been forced into a fight for our lives, and the union must throw everything it has into it.
The formal ballot will open on 3 October and close 15 December, with a view to initiating strike action at the start of 2027. The timeline is a long one, partly due to the school summer break, partly due to regressive trade-union laws which require ballots to be handled through the post and for 50% of ballots be returned. The indicative ballot was electronic, and just shy of half voted, so turnout will need to be organised.
We don’t want to lose the momentum that the indicative ballot has built, nor do we have time to waste in winning new layers of staff to smash through the voting threshold. Starting now, schools and district branches need to build the confidence and organisation we need to win the ballot, and win our strike.
This will involve raising awareness of what’s at stake among colleagues, parents and pupils and building alliances with other unions and community groups through workplace campaign meetings and committees, local demonstrations, public forums and school-gate leafletting. Our ‘Save Education’ campaign should be talked about at dinner tables across the country.
In short, the NEU must re-mobilise in the style of spring 2023, when, after eight days of strike action for pay, it found itself on the precipice of a full-scale shutdown of the school system. Other education unions, NASUWT, NAHT and ASCL had begun balloting in tow, and teachers were marching with other public-sector strikers like doctors and lecturers. That fight forced a very intransigent Rishi Sunak to find extra money for a better pay rise (4%-6.5%). But the 2023 deal was still below inflation, and we cannot afford that again. This time, we must go further.
One way to do this is to link up with broader movements against war and austerity, which is certain to gain more momentum as the economic impact of war really starts to set in over the coming months. The NEU has been an important presence on pro-Palestine and marches against the far right, and NEU branches around the country have backed the International Conference Against War in London, 20 June. Let’s make our pay campaign central to all of that. Wages not Weapons! Books not Bombs!
Get your ticket to the International Conference Against War
