It had to happen, didn’t it? After the railway workers, the train drivers, the nurses, the ambulance crews, the civil servants, and in all likelihood the junior doctors, here come the teachers – although not quite as enthusiastically as their union leaders might have wished.
The National Education Union, representing 300,000 teaching staff has announced strikes through February and March, in pursuit of an above-inflation pay rise, saying that the 5 per cent offered amounts to a pay cut, given the double-digit inflation rate. Teachers are now set to join their Scottish colleagues, who have begun a series of ‘rolling strikes’.
The planned strikes will not involve all teachers, after the other main teaching union, the NASUWT, last week failed to muster the 50 per cent turnout necessary to validate industrial action. Union leaders suggested difficulties with the post (ironically, given that these stemmed from strikes in Royal Mail), among other factors, could have complicated voting.
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