Teachers across England are set to go on strike from as early as 1 February after a 90 per cent vote for strike action.
Overall, 121,253 members voted for strike action in the ballot which closed last Friday, with a turnout of 53.27 per cent.
The union is declaring seven days of strike action in February and March, though any individual school will be affected by only four of those days.
The first will be on Wednesday 1 February, affecting 23,400 schools in England and Wales.
However, the NEU ballot of support staff in schools failed to meet the 50 per cent threshold. While 84.13 per cent voted to strike, there was a turnout of 46.46 per cent, just below the legal threshold.
Last week, the NASUWT teaching union revealed that 90 per cent of its returned ballots called for strike action - with the 42 per cent ballot turnout failing to reach the legal threshold for industrial action.
However, today the union said it was reballoting members.
Mary Bousted and Kevin Courtney, joint general secretaries of the NEU, said today: “We have continually raised our concerns with successive education secretaries about teacher and support staff pay and its funding in schools and colleges, but instead of seeking to resolve the issue they have sat on their hands.
“It is disappointing that the government prefers to talk about yet more draconian anti-strike legislation rather than work with us to address the causes of strike action.”
Meanwhile, a new round of pay strikes started in Scotland today, with teachers in two of the country’s 32 local authorities walking out for each of the next 16 days.
There have been several strikes since the historic walkout on 24 November - the first national teacher strike over pay in Scotland since 1984-85.
Teaching unions are campaigning for a 10 per cent pay offer, but the Scottish government has not made any advance for several months on 5 per cent for the majority of teachers and 6.85 per cent at most (for probationer teachers at the start of their career).
On Friday, the EIS, Scotland’s largest teaching union, announced 22 more days of strike action between 28 February and 21 April.
Downing Street has urged teachers not to strike and inflict “substantial damage” to children’s education.
The prime minister’s official spokesperson said: “We would continue to call on teachers not to strike, given we know what substantial damage was caused to children’s education during the pandemic and it’s certainly not something we want to see repeated.
“We would hope they would continue to discuss with us their concerns rather than withdraw education from children.”
When are teachers striking?
The full list of projected strike days for NEU members is as follows:
- Wednesday 1 February 2023: all eligible members in England and Wales.
- Tuesday 14 February 2023: all eligible members in Wales.
- Tuesday 28 February 2023: all eligible members in the following English regions: Northern, North West, Yorkshire & The Humber.
- Wednesday 1 March 2023: all eligible members in the following English regions: East Midlands, West Midlands, Eastern.
- Thursday 2 March 2023: all eligible members in the following English regions: London, South East, South West.
- Wednesday 15 March 2023: all eligible members in England and Wales.
- Thursday 16 March 2023: all eligible members in England and Wales.
