National Education Union (NEU) members at sixth form colleges took three days of strike action on 27 November and 3 and 4 December, demanding money from the Labour government to fund a pay rise.
One teacher at Wyggeston and Queen Elizabeth sixth form college in Leicester commented to Socialist Party and Socialist Students members:
“We’re on strike because we’ve been denied the 5.5% pay rise that the rest of the teaching profession has been awarded and that’s just grossly unfair.
“Sixth form colleges that are academies have been granted the rise, where those of us who are non-academised have not. It’s grossly inequitable, it’s cheap to fix. And it’s staggering that the government hasn’t done anything about it yet. We hope they would do the right thing.”
Nick Chaffey reports that at Barton Peverill College in Eastleigh, Hampshire there was strong support for the strike and an increase in union membership. “Why are we doing the same work as schools but getting less funding? Colleges get 22% less funding than schools, and in the new funding we aren’t getting anything!”
Socialist Party members in Bristol report that several support staff refused to cross the picket lines in solidarity.
A support staff member of NEU at Monoux college in Waltham Forest, east London, told Martin Reynolds: “I’m not crossing the picket line. I’m in solidarity with my teacher colleagues. The government allocated £300 million to the further education sector. But the sector definitely needs more than that and they haven’t explicitly said that money can be allocated towards pay. We’ve been underfunded for decades now and it is still the case.”
“They just don’t give us any respect or credit for what we do,” another Monoux striker said, explaining that the fight over funding for pay is linked to everything sixth form staff face.
James Ivens reports that at Leyton sixth form college, also in Waltham Forest, cheery strikers were talking about the new government. While one had concluded Labour isn’t going to change things for the better, others said: “Give them a chance” or “They just haven’t thought this through.”
At the strike protest outside the Department of Education, this idea was unfortunately encouraged by NEU general secretary Daniel Kebede, when he said: “This could have just been an honest error. Let’s hope it is and that it’s corrected.”
But Keir Starmer’s government did not provide full funding for the school teachers’ pay award, and in the October Budget only increased funding for education, councils and the NHS by tiny amounts, leaving public services starved of cash. The ‘error’ will only be corrected if the government feels it has no choice. So it is good that additional days of strike action have been announced.
- Further strike days: 13 December and 7-9 January
