The biggest strike in Northern Ireland’s recent history is under way, with the situation in schools a major focus of today’s industrial action.
An estimated 150,000 public-sector workers are taking part in the walkouts over pay, with Northern Ireland secretary Chris Heaton-Harris being urged to intervene to release funding and make delayed pay awards in the absence of devolved government.
However, he has refused, insisting the matter is a devolved one.
Northern Ireland members of school leaders’ union the NAHT are today taking strike action for the third time, in a dispute that has lasted for more than a year, as part of what it describes as “the greatest ever act of industrial protest of its kind in Northern Ireland”.
NAHT Northern Ireland president Jackie Bartley said: “Three years of total pay stagnation, following 10 cumulative years of pay erosion, has brought our profession to the point of crisis.”
She added: “Given that the frontline education workforce has held education together despite the devastating swingeing cuts imposed upon schools in recent years, this is insult added to injury.”
School leaders’ pay ‘used as leverage’
Ms Bartley said that school leaders’ “obvious need for fair pay” was being “used as leverage in a political strategy”, which she described as “repugnant”.
NAHT general secretary Paul Whiteman said that “funding, which is now clearly available, must be released immediately, and it must be followed by a very swift movement from the Department of Education and employing authorities towards a meaningful negotiation that brings fairness and equity to our members”.
Public-sector workers in Northern Ireland have not received pay rises like those elsewhere in the UK, as a result of the political hiatus at Stormont.
The government has offered a financial package worth more than £3 billion, but Mr Heaton-Harris has made it clear this depends upon the return of the devolved executive at Stormont.
There has been no functioning power-sharing government in Northern Ireland for almost two years, as a result of a DUP boycott in protest at post-Brexit trading arrangements.
The DUP has accused the UK government of “political blackmail” and insisted the pay issue should be dealt with separately from the impasse over trade.
The strike was expected to result in schools closing, hospitals offering Christmas Day-level services, public transport being cancelled and limited gritting of roads.
Teachers heading abroad
Teacher Linda Millar said she was striking so that workers in Northern Ireland could get pay parity with the rest of the UK.
Ms Millar, a teacher at Ballyclare Secondary School and a member of the Ulster Teachers’ Union, was on the picket line at Stormont on Thursday morning with her one-year-old son.
She said: “We are losing teachers left, right and centre to Doha, Dubai, everywhere.
“The education system is crumbling. Our buildings are crumbling, we don’t have educational psychologists. We want to feel valued as workers and we don’t have the resources.”
On Wednesday night, Gerry Murphy, assistant general secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, said: “The secretary of state’s strategy has clearly failed and it has failed the people of Northern Ireland.”
Patrick Mulholland, deputy general secretary of the Nipsa public-sector union, warned that the action could escalate if the dispute is not resolved.
In a statement, Mr Heaton-Harris said it was “regrettable” that the Stormont Assembly had not been resurrected to allow access to funds to make the pay awards to public-sector workers.
Today also marks the deadline in current legislation for the resumption of Stormont, or else the secretary of state is obliged to call a fresh election.
Mr Heaton-Harris has indicated that he will extend that deadline and introduce further legislation to ensure delivery of public services.
He said: “While public-sector pay is devolved, the UK government has offered a fair and generous package worth over £3 billion, which would address public-sector pay and provide more than £1 billion to stabilise public services.
“This will require ministers being back to work in Stormont so that decisions on governing can be taken in the round.”
Mr Heaton-Harris said he was “deeply disappointed” that the funding offer had not been taken up after a last-ditch attempt to revive Stormont on Wednesday had failed.
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