Don’t let education union leaders row back on strike ballot

NEU general secretary Daniel Kebede (Photo: X/ NEU)

There are warning signs that the NEU education union leadership is retreating from national strikes over pay.

The NEU national executive has voted to hold an electronic survey of union members after Labour makes a pay award.

Socialists on the executive argued the union should move to a formal strike ballot straight away, if the award is below-inflation and unfunded.

The national executive’s decision goes against what the NEU conference passed in April.

Delegates overwhelmingly passed a motion that instructed the union to “launch a formal industrial action ballot” if certain conditions are met. One condition was “if the final outcome of the School Teachers’ Review Body process remains unacceptable”.

Another was “if the government does not announce real terms funding increases in the June spending review”. “A fully-funded, above inflation pay rise for educators is necessary,” it said.

But now the union leaders will only launch an electronic survey if the government’s pay award is not fully funded.

The survey will ask two questions. “Should we conduct a major political campaign into and beyond the autumn term?” and “Are you prepared to take strike action to achieve a fully funded pay award?”

Jess Edwards, an NEU national executive member, told Socialist Worker that this strategy “runs the danger of not taking a national fight with the government”. “And that is a perilous position to be in,” she said.

“The trade union movement has to get its act together for how it takes on Labour.”

An electronic survey, instead of a formal ballot, suggests that the union isn’t serious about strikes. It leaves the decision about what happens after the survey entirely in the hands of the national executive. And it runs the risk of demobilising members who have been gearing up for a fightback.

NEU members voted for strikes by 83 percent, on a turnout of 47 percent, in an indicative ballot.

Labour had recommended a pay award of 2.8 percent to the School Teachers’ Review Body. The body, which is officially independent of the government, is expected to put forward a pay award of nearer to 4 percent.

But Labour has stated that schools will get no extra cash to fund pay awards above the 2.8 percent. This means schools will make cuts to pastoral support, curriculum options, classroom resources and more.

It won’t reverse the long-run decline of teachers’ pay. Teachers in the middle of the pay scale have wage packets nearly 6 percent lower in real terms than in 2010, according to the Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS).

It won’t reverse the recruitment and retention crisis in education, where a shortage of school workers will continue to disrupt children’s learning.

But strikes can force Labour to cough up—and become a focal point of resistance to a government hammering working class people.