A teaching union has made a plea for urgent pay talks ahead of the budget being delivered next week as it warns its members’ patience is “being tested to the limit”.
The NASUWT teaching union has also today put forward plans to the education secretary as a basis for a resolution of the current dispute, including calls for “immediate negotiations on the teachers’ pay award for 2023-24”.
Dr Patrick Roach, NASUWT general secretary, said: “We still have not received any proposals from the government on which to consult and our members’ patience is being tested to the limit.”
In January, the union said it would be “announcing plans shortly for further balloting of members” over strike action, after it failed to meet the legal turnout threshold in a previous vote on industrial action. However, no further plans have yet been announced.
The union today said it had outlined to ministers proposals that could provide a basis for a resolution of the dispute.
These include “additional measures to offset the additional cost-of-living pressures on teachers in 2022-23, including backdating of the 2023-24 pay award to an agreed date prior to September 2023”, and “immediate negotiations on the teachers’ pay award for 2023-24”.
The union has also proposed new measures to tackle the teacher workload crisis, including establishing a contractual limit on teachers’ working time, abandoning performance-related pay appraisals, and introducing a requirement for all employers to implement the recommendations set out in the DfE’s Making Data Work report and Workload Reduction Toolkit.
The union has also called for additional funding for sixth-form colleges.
Dr Roach said: “If we are to believe the secretary of state, the prime minister and the chancellor are committed to seeing proper negotiations taking place on teachers’ pay.
“The education secretary is also on record saying that her evidence to the pay review body is a starting point for negotiations. So, why are we still waiting?”
Dr Roach said that “no progress” will be made ”unless and until ministers are willing to sit in the same room with us to discuss and agree a way forward”.
“Ministerial promises mean nothing unless they are delivered.”
He added there was a “real and growing risk that progress could be made in resolving other disputes while teachers lose out on any new spending commitments from the government ahead of next week’s spring Budget”.
“We appeal to the education secretary to demonstrate that she is serious about resolving the current dispute by getting around the table for the good of pupils and their teachers.”
On Monday (6 March), the NEU teaching union, the NAHT school leaders’ union, the NASUWT teaching union and the Association of School and College Leaders wrote to the education secretary to suggest that a day of conciliation talks could be convened by the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (Acas).
But the offer was rejected in a letter to unions from education secretary Gillian Keegan yesterday.
