Teachers' strike set to force closure of over 60 Lancaster and Morecambe schools

Members of the National Education Union (NEU) locally will join their colleagues nationwide in a series of strikes likely to begin in February.

“Local members are adamant that they have had enough of below-inflation pay rises, or none, even when inflation was low and refuse to accept it now that prices have risen so much,” said NEU district secretary, Sam Ud-din.

“Striking is something that we very much regret having to do, but have been forced into by repeated failure of governments to fully engage with us, but instead fall back on so-called independent pay review bodies that only do the bidding of the government. This has meant that education as a whole has been underfunded for over a decade.”

“The inadequate rise that was imposed for this academic year was not funded by the Treasury so every penny has had to come from schools' existing budgets,” he said. “That's why some schools have not replaced all staff that have been leaving in recent years and why some are now looking at making staff redundant.”

According to Mr Ud-din, overall, teachers are 25% behind where they should be if their pay had just kept up with inflation and support staff who are generally part-time and paid less, are about 27% poorer than 12 years ago.

The district NEU has so many members in local schools that the union thinks it is likely that nearly all will close during the strikes as even non-union staff can decide not to cross picket lines without any comeback from their employers.

“The only safe option for school governing bodies is to assume that all staff might be absent, and so to close,” Mr Ud-din explained. “Any school where it is decided that they will attempt to stay open may be subject to obvious parental concerns about how safe their in-school provision can be.”

No NEU member can be made to supply work to pupils on strike days and no other members of unionised staff can be asked to cover strikers’ work. Mr Ud-din said the NEU would look very carefully at any schools that fail to follow TUC guidelines.

Locally, the NEU has seen an influx of new members in the last week who, legally, would be entitled to take action too even though they were not balloted.

The NEU isn’t alone in balloting teachers about strike action. The National Association of Headteachers (NAHT) ballot showed 10,000 school leaders across England were willing to strike but the legal requirement for turnout was not met, with votes counted for 42% of the union’s membership – short of the 50% needed. A pay strike by the NAHT would be unprecedented.

A ballot of the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers(NASUWT) also failed to meet the legal requirement and a consultative ballot on industrial action by the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) has shown a majority in favour of proceeding to a formal ballot.

“Even if the other unions do not reach the draconian thresholds set by this government, they know that they should not be trying in any way to undermine our efforts,” said Mr Ud-din.