Teachers' union calls strike in pay and workload dispute

http://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/jun/19/teachers-union-strike-july

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The National Union of Teachers has announced a strike in England and Wales on 10 July, with Unison, GMB and Unite planning to call on their members in local government and education to take action on the same day.

The NUT said the government was still failing to make progress on a long-running dispute over pay, pensions and workload.

"The talks are still only about the implementation of government policies, not about the fundamental issues we believe to be detrimental to education and the profession," said Christine Blower, general secretary of the NUT, the largest teaching union. "For teachers, performance-related pay, working until 68 for a full pension and heavy workload for 60 hours a week is unsustainable."

The NUT held a one-day strike in March, the first time the union called out members from across England and Wales, which closed down thousands of schools. After four years of austerity and what many teachers feel is a culture that blames them uniquely for failure, the list of grievances is a long one.

Teacher churn – the arrival followed too often by the departure of teachers at every level, most markedly in challenging schools – is a big problem, flagged up by MPs on the education committee two years ago.

"This action is the responsibility of a government and education secretary who are refusing point blank to accept the damage their reforms are doing to the teaching profession," Blower said.

"The consequences of turning teaching into a totally unattractive career choice will most certainly lead to teacher shortages. Strike action is a last resort for teachers and we deeply regret the disruption it causes parents and pupils. This date has been chosen to cause minimum disruption to examinations."

According to the OECD, England has one of the youngest teacher workforces in the developed world. It is partly because older, more experienced (and more expensive) teachers are being squeezed out, not least because changes to the national curriculum, such as the exclusion of music, make their jobs redundant.

But young teachers are leaving at such a rate that only half of recruits are still teaching five years after qualifying.

Before the March strike, Michael Gove, the education secretary, wrote to union leaders setting out the progress he believed had been made in a programme of talks between the Department for Education and the teaching unions. But the NUT said the letter showed how little progress had been made in the talks.

The NUT has been embroiled in its dispute with the government for more than two years, and staged a series of regional strikes with the NASUWT, the other major teaching union, last year. Between them they represent the vast majority of teachers. The NAWUWT did not take part in the March strike.

A DfE spokesperson said: "There is no justification for further strikes. The unions asked for talks, we agreed to their request and talks are ongoing. Ministers have also met frequently with the unions and will continue to do so. Further strike action will only disrupt parents' lives, hold back children's education and damage the reputation of the profession."