The largest teaching union in England has warned the government that it could face fresh strikes next month if education secretary Gillian Keegan ignores calls for pay talks to resume.
The NEU teaching union has also repeated calls for the leaked School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB) report to be published, which was said last month to have advised a 6.5 per cent pay rise for teachers next year.
All four major education unions are currently balloting members on strike action over an ongoing pay dispute and have announced plans to coordinate any resulting action in the autumn term.
However, the NEU’s existing mandate for strike action remains in place until the end of this term.
Writing to Ms Keegan today, the joint general secretaries of the NEU called for talks to reopen next week and accused the Department for Education (DfE) of “withholding vital information about what proposals that body has made on teacher pay, which may or may not help with the recruitment difficulties”.
Joint general secretaries Kevin Courtney and Dr Mary Bousted said that the NEU national executive will be discussing the next steps in the dispute on 17 June.
They say: “Should this letter be ignored, and negotiations are not in place by the 17 June, the NEU national executive will be discussing our next steps. This will include the consideration of NEU teacher members in England taking further strike action in the week beginning 3 July.
“We consider this delay in giving vital information to headteachers to be disrespectful in the extreme. And we consider your failure to engage with the unions to discuss this year’s pay, the STRB report, workload and funding to be inexplicable.
“The failure to publish the STRB report also raises suspicions that the government is planning not to implement the recommendations of the independent review body.”
Commenting on the letter today, Dr Bousted and Mr Courtney added: “The education secretary needs to be clear that burying her head in the sand will not work. The unions have previously announced their intention to coordinate industrial action going forward. If action was to be taken this would affect nearly every school in England.”
Earlier this year, the DfE made all four teaching unions - NASUWT, NEU, NAHT and ASCL - the offer of a £1,000 non-consolidated payment for 2022-23 and an average 4.5 per cent rise for 2023-24.
A Department for Education spokesperson said: “As part of the normal process, the independent School Teachers’ Review Body has submitted its recommendations to government on teacher pay for 2023/24. We will be considering the recommendations and will publish our response in the usual way.”
