Teachers’ Union Reject Nine Per Cent Pay Rise

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Teaching unions in the Uk have blasted Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi’s offer of a 9% pay rise after the union went on a protest strike.

The conservative (tory) minister appears to have backed away from his position last week that striking would be ‘unforgivable’ and is begging Chancellor Rishi Sunak to bankroll a wage hike for 130,000 junior teachers in England.

However, Mary Bousted, the general secretary of the National Education Union (NEU), said it was still a pay cut’ when factoring in inflation. ‘If we don’t receive a very much better offer we will be looking to ballot our members in October.’

The union leader added that even under a ‘best case scenario’ that less than half of new teachers would start training this September – with just 12 confirmed places in DT, 40 in physics and 41 in modern languages.

It came after Britain’s National Education Union threatened industrial action if the Government did not increase its offer for most teachers. The National Association of Schoolmasters and Union of Women Teachers union has also threatened that it would ballot members for industrial action in November if the pay rise this year is less than 12%.

Bousted said: ‘9% for beginner teachers does not really shift the dial on the Government’s plan to reach a £30,000 starter salary within two years. In that time, however, teachers will have experienced the intense and excessive workload which leads to almost a third quitting within five years of qualifying’.

She added that more experienced teachers had been ‘subjected to poor pay deal after poor pay deal for many years, and for them a 5% deal would be unacceptable’.

‘It is well below the current RPI inflation of 11.7%. What we need to see is an inflation-plus pay increase for all teachers.

‘Teacher pay has fallen by a fifth in real terms since 2010. Combine this with the high workload – and amongst the highest unpaid working hours – and it is no wonder there is a major problem with recruitment and retention,’ she said.

‘With training numbers through the floor, this has profound consequences for our education system. Add to this schools struggling to make ends meet through periods of underfunding, additional Covid security, and now the cost-of-living crisis.’

And Patrick Roach, general secretary of NASUWT, said the plans ‘did not come close’ to what was needed.

Dr Roach said it was ‘extraordinary’ that the Government had chosen to delay publication of the pay review body report and that ministers had refused to ‘engage in dialogue directly with the profession’.

‘The deepening cost of living crisis together with 12 years of real-terms cuts to teachers’ pay require a genuine commitment to pay restoration for teachers starting in September,’ he said.

‘A typical classroom teacher is today £40,000 worse off than they would have been had their pay kept pace with inflation over the last decade.

‘Talk of a pay award of 5% for the vast majority of teachers doesn’t come close to what is needed.’

Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said that ASCL was ‘not entirely sure what is new about this’ given that the DfE submission to the STRB in March proposed a two-year pay award of 8.9% and then 7.1% to teacher starting salaries as part of the commitment to raise them to £30,000.

‘The trouble is that it also proposed lower pay awards for other pay points tapering down to 3% and then 2% for teachers on the upper pay scale and for leaders – which is significantly below inflation and represents another effective pay cut,’ he added.

‘This is on top of pay erosion since 2010 which has seen the real value of salaries fall by a fifth and is one of the main drivers of a teacher shortage crisis that is hitting our schools.

‘We are seeking an across-the-board pay award which matches inflation and which also begins to address this long-term attack on teacher pay. We simply must have enough teachers to put in front of classes.’

Last week, Mr Zahawi said that teaching unions taking strike action after the disruption students faced in the pandemic would be ‘unforgivable’ and ‘unfair’.

In March, the Education Secretary said that the unions should ‘show restraint’ by accepting 3%.