By Socialist Alternative members in the NEU
The NEU National Executive recently announced that they will hold an indicative ballot for strike action, following the derisory pay offer of 2.8% for 2025/26 from the Labour government. This is obviously a welcome step, and could provide the first big trade union struggle of Starmer’s government. It could further act as a lightning rod to the wider trade union movement.
The indicative ballot is set to take place between 1 March and will close on 11 April, just before the NEU holds its annual Conference in Harrogate, which will decide on the next steps for the dispute.
However, the issue of pay is not the only factor that is impacting education workers. Lack of funding, staff retention, workload and academisation are all important issues in every school up and down the country. Many will remember schools having to close at the beginning of the 2023/24 academic year amid reports of unsafe buildings due to RAAC. However the issue of dilapidated schools continues today, with a reported 1.6m pupils in schools that need repair.
A real-terms pay cut
The 2.8% pay offer is unfunded – meaning that cash-strapped schools and academies starved of funds by six figure management salaries will have to cut back on other necessary things. This usually means support staff, who provide an essential service to pupils.
While the government has claimed that the 2.8% offer is above the estimated inflation rate, this is only measured against CPI inflation, which does not take into account such ‘luxuries’ as housing. The estimated RPI inflation for 2025, is by contrast likely to be 3.5%, so this will effectively be another pay cut in real terms.
The pay offer is currently being considered, along with evidence from the NEU, by the School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB). However it appears that the government will proceed with the pay offer of 2.8% regardless of what the STRB recommends, which begs the question of what the point is in seeking ‘independent’ advice from the STRB.
Instead, the NEU should be pressuring the government to deal directly with the union. Socialist Alternative would argue that teachers need a minimum pay rise of 10% to begin to claw back the pay erosion that education workers have suffered over the last period. Even including the paltry offer from the government, teacher pay in real terms has been cut by 9% since 2010, and this urgently needs addressing to begin to overcome the staffing crisis in education. But the dispute must also take up the question of workload to avoid the continued teacher burnout, leading to many good teachers leaving the profession.
Building the ballot
The NEU has set out some positive plans to engage union members with the ballot, to include a rolling out of branch and district meetings, to be followed by workplace meetings and regular conversations about the ballot within the workplace. Should the ballot meet the undemocratic thresholds imposed by the Trades Union Act 2016 (which Starmer said he would revoke, but as yet has taken no action), then members must place massive pressure on the union’s Executive members to press for an immediate industrial action ballot at Conference.
In terms of the aims of the ballot, this should not simply be about pay. Pay increases must be fully funded by the government to avoid any cuts to services or staff. The union must fight for more funding to alleviate the precarious situation many schools are in, and begin to fund the building and maintenance issues. Our children, and the workers who educate them, deserve the opportunity to learn and develop in schools that are fit for purpose, not cold and draughty classrooms, or in some instances school buildings that are unsafe.
Support staff
Support staff members of the NEU will be rightly disappointed that there has not been action to increase their pay. Whilst they were awarded 2.5% in 2024, NEU members have repeatedly rejected this as it does nothing to redress the poverty wages many support staff receive. They continually vote in indicative ballots in favour of strike action for a decent pay rise.
As the NEU doesn’t have negotiating rights on support staff pay, it has been at the behest of the National Joint Council unions (UNISON, GMB and Unite) which did not strike and eventually accepted the offer. Yet, support staff have shown they will join any pay dispute in schools and should be involved in the struggle for proper funding in education to win pay restoration for all education workers whilst protecting jobs.
Any strikes in schools in the summer term should involve all workers, making them more powerful and effective whilst also putting to the fore the needs of support staff, building a united front of educators against government attempts to pit teachers against vital support staff.
The NEU in the last few years has begun to see a transformation within the union. A layer of newly elected reps and Executive officers have arisen who are more willing to fight whichever government is in power for better pay and funding.
We should not accept crumbs from the table or a ‘softly softly’ approach towards Labour. After privatisation and chronic underfunding have ravaged the education system, fostering the creation of a hostile environment for any critical voices, we can only ever reclaim education if we are suitably ambitious in ideas and willing to back it with action.
