Dan Warrington, Surrey NEU district membership secretary, personal capacity
With the same inevitability as the end of term, the Keir Starmer government’s truce with schoolteachers seems to have come to a dramatic end.
Last week, the government submitted its evidence to the School Teachers Review Body (STRB), proposing an unfunded 2.8% pay increase for teachers in September 2025.
After 14 years of austerity imposed on the education sector, many headteachers will be faced with a stark choice in September: either deny the pay increase in the midst of a recruitment and retention crisis, or cut other parts of the school budget in order to fund teachers’ pay.
The evidence submitted to the STRB reveals this government for what it is: a pro-austerity government, committed to the same failed policies as previous Conservative governments. It is a far cry from what is needed. The National Education Union (NEU) School Cuts website shows that billions more investment is needed just to reverse the effect of austerity since 2010. And although the Starmer government has pledged to recruit an extra 6,500 teachers, the NEU estimates 33,000 are actually needed.
2.8% barely exceeds the Bank of England’s own (optimistic) projections for inflation of 2.75%. This will do nothing to restore wages in the sector, where experienced teachers currently earn 11% less in real terms than in 2010, and perpetuates the pay differences between England and the rest of the UK. Scottish teachers at the top of the main pay scale currently earn £7,000 more than their counterparts in England.
Workload
Scandalously, Starmer has told public sector workers to improve ‘productivity’ – this when school staff already struggle under intolerable workload.
The four main unions representing teachers in England and Wales have been quick to send a joint letter to the education secretary registering their concern. An emergency meeting of the NEU National Executive has been scheduled for January to discuss the issue.
It was eight days of strike action in 2023 that forced the Tories to raise pay by 6.5% and come up with £900 million in funding, and it was the threat of strike action this autumn that forced the new Labour government to implement this year’s 5.5% uplift. On both occasions, Socialist Party members argued that we should have pushed for more, building on the momentum of the campaign rather than de-escalating. We need only look to the example of the junior doctors to see how much more can be gained by sustained action.
Instead, the NEU leadership has paused action and trusted in Labour to deliver better for education. The repeated mobilisations followed by de-escalation have left many members confused and frustrated.
Despite its majority in parliament, Starmer’s New Labour government is not in a strong position, its already-low support having evaporated since the election. Ordinary workers did not vote Labour into power in order to see a continuation of Tory austerity. NEU members in sixth forms are already striking across the country over pay, having been excluded from the 5.5% uplift seen by school teachers (see page 7).
Now that the NEU leadership has put Keir Starmer “on notice”, it must be willing to see the coming struggle through. The issues in education around pay, funding and workload can no longer be ignored. We must fight for a limit to hours worked alongside restoration of lost pay and full funding.
NEU members have shown that they want to fight, when given an effective lead. A concerted campaign by unions across education could force the government to come to the table, and could become a launchpad for a wider campaign for pay and funding across our public services as a whole.
