A third of the NEU teaching union’s national executive voted to reject the government’s 6.5 per cent pay award, it has emerged.
The figure has emerged as members are voting on whether to accept the deal, and as a faction within the NEU has launched its own campaign urging members to reject it.
All of the four main teaching and school leader unions, including the NEU, are currently running electronic ballots of members.
The joint general secretaries of the NEU, Dr Mary Bousted and Kevin Courtney, have recommended the deal, as have the leaders of the Association of School and College Leaders, the NAHT school leaders’ union and the NASUWT teaching union.
On Monday, Dr Bousted and Mr Courtney hosted an online call in which they strongly urged members to accept the offer.
However, as members weigh up their decisions, a group calling itself “Educators Say No!” has launched its own website, Twitter and Facebook group to lobby for an outright rejection.
Coordinators of the group organised a Zoom meeting on Monday, after the call hosted by Dr Bousted and Mr Courtney.
It suffered several interruptions, including when phallic images were drawn on slides, which the group has blamed on “wreckers”.
Present at the meeting were at least three members of the NEU national executive, some of whom spoke against the deal.
The NEU executive is made up of six national officers, 64 geographical members, three equality constituency members and three sector seat constituency members.
The NEU has confirmed to Tes that a third of the executive in attendance voted against the deal.
The incoming general secretary of the NEU, Daniel Kebede, was one of the executive team members present at the fringe meeting, however, he argued in favour of Dr Bousted and Mr Courtney’s line and recommended that members accept the offer.
He told members that, if they accept the pay award, it would not mean the pay campaign is over, but that it will take “a multi-year approach”.
He signalled that if government recommendations for teacher pay to the independent pay review body next year do not “take steps to restoring teacher pay”, he will seek permission to begin an indicative ballot of members in the spring term.
An indicative ballot is the first necessary step before a formal ballot can take place.
On Monday, Mr Courtney told members that members of the executive who did not want to accept the pay award wanted to “escalate action”.
He told members: “There is the alternative of rejecting the offer. But if you do this, we think it’s really important that you understand that [you] would be committing yourself and your colleagues to a radical intensification of industrial action in the autumn term.
But Mr Courtney said on Monday he thought this would be “a very risky course of action”.
An NEU spokesperson said: “The decision to recommend the pay offer to members was made by a clear two-thirds majority of the executive and is strongly supported by the general secretaries.
“As a democratic union, the NEU leadership promised members that any pay offer given by the government that warranted their consideration would be put to them.
“The union strongly urges members to accept the progress they have won and to end the current campaign of industrial action.
“It remains the view of the NEU that school and college funding is far from adequate. It remains a commitment of the NEU to campaign for further increases in teacher pay.”
