Zahawi offers teachers 9% pay rise in bid to see off strikes

2022-07-01

Nadhim Zahawi offers teachers NINE per cent pay rise in desperate bid to see off action but unions say even that is not enough

Nadhim Zahawi has offered militant teaching unions a whopping 9% pay rise
The Education Secretary begged Rishi Sunak for cash to stave off strikes
But NEU boss Mary Bousted called the wage hike ‘not enough’ and ‘a pay cut’

Nadhim Zahawi has blinked and bowed down to militant teaching unions by offering them a whopping 9% pay rise in a desperate bid to see off strike action in the autumn.

The Education Secretary has appeared to back away from his position last week that striking would be ‘unforgivable’ by begging Rishi Sunak to bankroll a wage hike for 130,000 junior teachers in England.

But Mary Bousted, the general secretary of the National Education Union (NEU), said it was still a pay cut’ when factoring in inflation. She told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘If we don’t receive a very much better offer we will be looking to ballot our members in October.’

The union leader added that even under a ‘best case scenario’ that less than half of new teachers would start training this September – with just 12 confirmed places in DT, 40 in physics and 41 in modern languages.

It came after the NEU threatened industrial action if the Government did not increase its offer for most teachers. The NASUWT teachers’ union has also threatened that it would ballot members for industrial action in November if the pay rise this year is less than 12%.

Education SecretaryNadhim Zahawi addressing the Local Government Association Annual Conference, at Harrogate Convention Centre, North Yorkshire yesterday

Mary Bousted, General Secretary of the NEU, on ITV’s Peston show on June 22, 2022

A-level and GCSE results could be delayed this summer after staff at the country’s largest exam board AQA voted in favour of strikes.

If grades are delayed pupils may have to call universities to beg for their place to be held or risk losing it.

Unison, which represents around 160 of the 1,200 staff at AQA, said the strike was backed by 71%. A turnout threshold of 50%, needed to win ballots for strike action, was also reached.

Many more AQA staff in the Unite union are also considering a strike.

Unison regional organiser Lizanne Devonport said: ‘Staff have demonstrated they’re clearly unhappy with the way they’re being treated.’

AQA said pay rises would actually average 5.6% and were ‘higher than many organisations’.

It came as Royal Mail managers and more rail workers also voted to strike.

TSSA members at Avanti West Coast voted in favour of walkouts by 86% on a turnout of 66%. No strike dates have been set in the pay dispute.

Unite said it would announce strike dates in the Royal Mail managers dispute in the coming days. It said the firm plans to cut 542 delivery managers’ jobs.

Last week, Mr Zahawi said that teaching unions taking strike action after the disruption students faced in the pandemic would be ‘unforgivable’ and ‘unfair’.

In March, the Education Secretary said that the unions should ‘show restraint’ by accepting 3%.

But he is now thought to be the first Cabinet minister to have questioned the Chancellor over his calls for a restraint in pay due to concerns that inflation could be fuelled by large salary rises.

There are 130,000 teachers in England in the first five years of their careers, who would be affected by the proposed 9% rise.

A raise of 5% would be put forward for the remaining 380,000 teachers in England, instead of the Government’s planned initial figure of 3% figure.

In a letter to the Education Secretary, the unions said: ‘You must respond to the new economic reality of double-digit inflation and the threat this poses to teacher living standards.

‘We call on you to commit to an inflation-plus increase for all teachers.

‘A clear and unambiguous signal that educators are valued, with undifferentiated inflation-plus pay increases for all teachers, is urgently needed. And you must fund schools accordingly.’

A source told The Daily Telegraph: ‘Nadhim Zahawi has made it clear that the quality of teaching is the single most important factor within a school for children’s outcomes and we need to make teaching an even more attractive profession.

‘Teachers deserve a pay rise and the Government wants to prevent any strikes.’

Amid last week’s crippling rail strikes, Mr Zahawi wrote in The Daily Telegraph: ‘Young people have suffered more disruption than any generation that’s gone before them.

‘And to compound that now, as recovery is in full swing and families are thinking about their next big step following school or college, would be unforgivable and unfair.’

The NEU criticised the Government’s evidence to the School Teachers’ Review Body proposing a 3% pay increase for most teachers in England, which it said would mean a ‘huge’ pay cut on the basis of Wednesday’s inflation figures of 9.1% on the CPI measure and 11.7% for RPI.

Deputy general secretary at NEU, Niamh Sweeney, told Sky News that a teachers’ strike was ‘more likely than it’s been in my 20 years of working in the profession’.

It comes after staff at the country’s largest exam board AQA voted in favour of strikes.

Real household disposable income was down 0.2 per cent between January and March, as income growth of 1.5 per cent was outstripped by household inflation of 1.7 per cent. It is the longest sequence of drops since official figures started being compiled in 1955

HMRC figures have shown nearly two million people have been dragged into the higher and additional rates of tax over the past three years