April 3, 2008

Teachers to go on strike

Following a ballot of teachers from the National Union of Teachers, the members from England and Wales have voted to go on strike for one day on the 24th April over pay. The ballot was only used by 32% of the union members, but the results for action were almost three to one.

This strike action will be the first strike from teachers in twenty years. In the mean time the government are saying that it will be the children’s education that will suffer from this action. The annual pay rise for 2008 will be 2.45% which was accepted by the unions, however they are now calling for the annual pay rise to be lifted above that of inflation, and this is currently running at 4.1%.

Another claim by the NUT is that in order to get recent graduates interested in becoming student teachers, but the starting salaries are too low, in fact it estimated that they are around £400 per year lower than a graduate starting in the private sector.

Source [BBC News]