A teaching union has written to prime minister Rishi Sunak as it launches its ballot for strike action today, calling on him to intervene to find a resolution to the current pay dispute.
The NASUWT teaching union is balloting members for strike action and action short of strike action over teachers’ pay, workload and working time.
If members vote for strike action, the NASUWT’s mandate for action would stretch into the spring term of next year.
The ballot opens today and closes on 10 July.
The NASUWT’s last strike ballot on the government’s 2022-23 pay offer failed to meet the legal turnout threshold, and the union has previously said it would announce plans for a re-balloting of members.
Earlier this year, the Department for Education made all four teaching unions - the NASUWT, the NEU teaching union, the NAHT school leaders’ union and the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) - the offer of a £1,000 non-consolidated payment for 2022-23 and an average 4.5 per cent rise for 2023-24.
Of this, just 0.5 per cent of the overall 4.5 per cent pay award for next year, plus the £1,000 one-off payment for this year, would have come through new funding.
The NASUWT, alongside all other education unions, rejected the offer in April, with 87 per cent of members saying they would not accept the offer.
Today, Dr Patrick Roach, the NASUWT general secretary, has written to Mr Sunak claiming the union had been left with “no other option than to ballot its members for industrial action”.
Dr Roach stated in his letter to Mr Sunak that the prime minister had “previously stated that the government prefers to see constructive dialogue and for all parties to engage in negotiations in order to avoid the disruption of industrial action”.
He wrote: “We believe that your intervention in seeking a resolution to this dispute is now essential.
“If the secretary of state is not willing or able to discuss a resolution to our dispute, we believe it is incumbent upon you as prime minister to intervene to find a resolution.
“It is in the interests of teachers, pupils and the education service for your government to demonstrate in practice that it is willing to engage in meaningful negotiations and, to that end, we look forward to hearing from you.”
Both the NAHT and the NEU are currently balloting members over strike action.
The ASCL will open its ballot for strike action on 19 June and close it on 31 July.
In April, the general secretaries of all four major education unions revealed plans to coordinate walkouts if members back industrial action in simultaneous ballots being held this term.
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 and we will publish our response in the usual way.
“Thousands of schools have received significant additional funding as part of the extra £2bn of investment we are providing both this year and next.
“As a result, school funding will be at its highest level in history next year, as measured by the Institute for Fiscal Studies.”
