England’s biggest teaching union the NEU has announced its teacher members have voted for strike action, Schools Week reports.
The result means there will be seven days of strikes in February and March, with any individual school affected by four days of action.
Overall, 90.44 per cent of voting members said they supported striking over pay, with turnout of 53.27 per cent, which meets the legal 50 per cent threshold for turnout.
Meanwhile, the NAHT school leaders’ union in England did not meet the threshold for turnout in its own strike ballot, the first in its 125-year history, with leaders blaming Royal Mail strikes. Welsh school leaders in NAHT Cymru have successfully voted to strike, however, the TES reports.
The first day of NEU strike action will be on Wednesday February 1, affecting 23,400 schools in England and Wales, the union said.
However, the turnout threshold was not met in a separate ballot of support staff members of the NEU.
The vote comes after an NASUWT vote over strike action failed to meet the turnout threshold in state schools, but members in more than 100 independent schools voted to strike.
The TES reports that the NASUWT may re-ballot members over action.
Mary Bousted and Kevin Courtney, joint general secretaries of the National Education Union, 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.”
