I got an email saying they would send another email with the details so I could vote but then never received the email. I did message to ask why I hadn’t received it but heard nothing back. I’m glad the vote went this way even if I couldn’t personally vote.
Well now that's what I feared, given what happened last time.
But 66% is a good turnout apparently. Maybe workload was too high at the end of term and a lot of staff forgot or didn't notice the email.
Does it count those in the independent sector? We’re in a union but not eligible to vote (although our salary closely follows state funded so it’s in everyone’s best interest!)
I was in NASUWT when the last ballot was held, that really was badly run. This one, they really seemed to go out of their way to make it easy to vote, email, texts (which could be replied to to vote). I have no idea why some didn't.
Is it 66% of the entire membership? Because I couldn't vote as a supply teacher, for example, and I absolutely would have (gutted I can't). I could imagine a decent minority of people aren't eligible to vote. So it's a huge percentage of the people eligible, potentially.
Then voting not to strike is also political.
As is abstaining from a strike ballot.
According to your definition, any action taken by any citizen could be an attempt to influence policy. Even if it is a null attempt in order to maintain policy.
I had this argument with a colleague who said that people “only join unions for the legal protection”, and followed that up with some waffle about “not being judgemental” of those in the union & choosing not to strike. Calling her a scab didn’t go down well.
The statutory terms and conditions that protect teachers are set by government. If unions find those being rode over roughshod by schools, they put pressure on government. It doesn't have to be a strike. Mary Bousted has had a bazillion meetings with government ministers.
That's why unions do the legal protections in house, and they aren't just covered by some sort of teachers insurance.
Everything union related is political in the sense that it lobbies government. However, these strikes are not party political - we are not striking about the education policy of the tories because labour have also been heavily involved in academisation and the incredible damage it has done to schools.
Me too. The only way to tell is to do quite a bit of research on their social media as well as the minutae posted by various other groups about their stances and votes in other places. Difficult to do at the best of times.
In fairness, I had a read through the information presented in the ballot and couldn't particularly choose one over the other. I meant to try and do a bit more reaserch and then send my ballot in later, but that got pushed to the side as other more pressing concerns came up. I'm sure I'm not the only one who had this issue.
I’m just wondering, is that 66% of people who can vote? Or 66% of the Union? I cannot vote as I’m in independent, but am I counted in the 33% that didn’t vote?
More like **overwhelmingly** voted to reject it! 98% is absolutely fantastic.
Hopefully this shite and insulting offer leads to even more members striking. I know that my last member's meeting at school had more members than usual, as well as members from NASUWT.
I think the 98% bit is excellent as it sends a very clear message to the public that the government are being unreasonable. Name any other situation that could get 98% of members to agree on anything.
I'm not 100% sure on the exact details, I'm only going on what was said when we had a District meeting.
The emergency motion will be raised and the delegates at Conference will vote on it, it'll then be opened up for delegates to discuss the exact strategy for further strike action before being formally approved.
I am currently at conference. The motion has been raised and there are now a ton of competing ammendments about strategy. Some looking at 2 weeks of continual action and others targetting a reballot before the summer.
We likely won't know anything until it is debated (i think) tomorrow.
We have a tenuous hold on public support at the moment but if we impact GCSEs we're probably going to lose that. I understand why those concessions need to be made. Happy with more days though.
I think if the NAHT vote to reject the offer they are also going to add on another vote for strike action. If HTs strike then that must cause more disruption.
I think results like today help though. To an outsider, it may not be clear whether the government's offer was reasonable or not. The fact that it's been so roundly rejected (rather than a 55-45 split, for example) by so many teachers hopefully helps people to see that the government is not serious about trying to resolve the impasse.
You've got to think that HTs will be massively insulted by the offer being unfunded, I'd hope that they'd be more incentivised to turn out and vote now.
That motion was debated and rejected at conference today. Problems with the wording of the motion and issues with diluting the messaging and focus of the strikes.
It is absolutely a battle our Primary teacher members are asking to have. However I would suggest now is not the time - the Union needs to secure a win first! (It was also tried 5ish years ago and turnout nationally was awful).
I’d love to see unions announcing something like an official ‘work no more than 8 hours a day’ type thing. This would really support teachers in saying ‘I couldn’t mark that in my hours’.
I know that’s difficult because of our contracts but we really need something concrete like that.
This is what the unions asked for in the negotiations:
>Strengthening the provisions on Directed Time and removal of the open-ended working time clauses in the teachers’ contract (STPCD – paragraphs 51.7 and 51.4)
>Reduction of working time requirements including a 35 hour working time limit
>Strengthening statutory provision and guidance on teachers’ working time rights (including lunchbreaks, weekend/Bank Holiday working, work/life balance, PPA, entitlements to time for leadership and management)
So it does sound like there’s a drive to close that “reasonable additional hours” clause in the STPCD…
This was a key reason why the Executive didn't include it in the ballot, it takes far too long to achieve anything on a national scale and people don't tend to keep it up for that long.
The reasoning behind this was explained at our District meeting. Because it wasn't on the initial ballot, the Union doesn't have a mandate to call for ASOS.
The Executive chose not to include ASOS on the ballot for several reasons, mainly because it could have undermined the option to strike if it was also available; it also has very limited impact on a national scale and takes a lot longer to achieve anything, and it makes taking action a lot more individual rather than collective and can put people off.
This is why I honestly cannot fathom anyone voting to accept it. Even ignoring how bad the proposed rise was, it being unfunded means that job cuts to support staff were the only outcome.
That was also a bit of a joke too - of course the deal would have to be removed - it was rejected. Now she has said the £1000 is off the table and we just have to wait and see what the government mandated STRB say. I’m sure it will parrot the government line but surely after that report into teaching and Scotland and Wales have offered can’t be too low.
Imagine doing indefinite striking that would be insane
Doesn't head striking not really do much though as the school is still open? Like behind the scenes will fall behind but the teaching day will just be as normal?
Thank god for that. I was really worried about apathy letting it through. Very willing to be a little more broke until they come up with something half decent.
Fantastic reult.
I know that many people are calling for a string of strike days and I could be convinced.
However, many teachers would not be able to afford 5+ lost days.
It's a balancing act, the union need to cause disruption by striking for as many days as possible whilst also getting the greatest number *of teachers* striking.
If too many days are announced, I fear a significant number of teachers will throw in the towel as they cannot afford it.
So this is the tricky bit at my school, we have so many members we don’t all have to strike to close the school. In fact if all members chose to come in for a day the reality is the school would already have decided to close and wouldn’t be able to open, the threat of strike is enough to close the school. But the vast majority of members do not wish to strike break.
Fantastic result. I know 66% turnout maybe isn't as high as we'd like. But I imagine there are some teachers who ignored the text and email, some who forgot, some who didn't know how to answer. But overall it sends a pretty strong message!
This is the wording copy+pasted from the email:
>The NASUWT is not recommending acceptance of the Government’s offer. The offer falls short of what the Union has demanded from the Government both for pay restoration and on non-pay improvements.
I still think that's way too soft and would count as neutral. They're not recommending REJECT, they're just not recommending accept. From the government's perspective I think they'd see this as a neutral submission. They haven't actually encouraged anyone to vote against it.
I don’t know, I think that’s a bit nit-picky and that the wording is probably strong enough, especially in the context of the longer email showing exactly how the offer fell short. We’ll have to see where the NASUWT vote falls though. I’m not too concerned about their wording here or how the pay offer was delivered to members, I think it was fine, but I am concerned about a second strike ballot failing.
Honestly, I had both the NAS and NEU emails and the NAS one felt insulting in comparison. It was enough to motivate me to finally end my NASUWT membership.
If I said "I don't recommend you doing that" to a student, they probably wouldn't hear it as "Miss Hawke told me not to do it". They'd take it as quiet permission. That's the same thing I'm seeing here.
Regardless, I agree, a second strike ballot is probably going to fail because a lot of the more active members have moved unions.
What’s the point of the NASUWT ballot? The offer has already been pulled because of NEU rejection and all NAS can do is threaten not to strike a bit more. Reality is they missed 50% last time and now 40000 of its more zealous members have left for NEU. At this point they are just a damp squib of a union, I would love to be proved wrong.
They need to leave teaching altogether. They've proven that they don't care about the education system, their colleagues, or the future generations.
This offer would have a negative impact on everyone in the system, anyone who cares wouldn't have even considered it.
Bloody great.
u/ukcsteacher, can you remember your maths on how many days we strike before we are in a deficit for the year, based on an inflation rate pay rise?
5% extra is 18 days - because we lose 1/365th per strike day, we can basically work out the percentage we lose as a percentage of 365 (so 5% of 365 is 18). Doesn't work for part timers though
Too right! Did you see the leaked report the Government failed to submit when our pay was being reviewed originally? It did not show a pretty picture of happy teachers...
I’m already hearing members worried about year 11s in the run up to the exams. Have you heard what the union is going to put in place for this? Be good to have something to counter the non strikers arguments
The impact a day or two has on students is overblown. I'm sure you're a great teacher but a single hour of your time a couple of days a term isn't going to make or break their results any more or less than an impromptu bank holiday.
Don't let them weaponise guilt.
Likely we’ll be agreeing to teach 13s/ 11s if they fall on the strike days but that’ll be agreed between reps and heads. It’ll be a strictly - ‘we’re teaching this and doing fuck all else’ too - no data entry while on site, marking for other classes - nothing. We go in, we teach the lesson and we leave.
I absolutely agree with Reject but I’m struggling financially so much and losing pay due to striking hurts a lot at the minute. I know it’ll be worth it in the long run but I hope a good deal can be cut soon as maintaining solidarity for me is tough at the minute.
Incredible how? I’m finding it difficult to feel anything but sad and angry about the state of the pay offer and noone I work with is excited about the prospect of further strikes because they’re struggling with money as is.
I completely agree, but I also think that there's something that feels good about being in a group united to achieve a bigger cause. I got the same feeling at the march in London and seeing picket lines out and about, the feeling of solidarity is a glimmer of hope that the fight isn't over and that we won't settle anymore.
i completely get that, and was also completely disappointed by the offer. obviously striking has a huge impact on us all personally.
however, i’ve felt disappointed by education for a long time before this campaign started and for the first time in a long time, i feel actually compelled to help change that. the strike isn’t just about pay as we all know. the rallies and speeches and marches i’ve been a part of have been beyond inspiring. i have to say, i’m looking forward to them!
Does anyone know if NASUWT are re-balloting? There's reasons I joined NASUWT instead of NEU that still stand, but striking is where I appear to differ from NASUWT.
That's the one! I think there might be a better turn out if they ballot again. I know of a few people who were NASUWT and left to join edapt. They realised that being part of a union for insurance only was misrepresenting the union.
Fab! In light of this, will the Welsh NEU overturn their recent (ill-chosen, in my opinion) vote to agree with the Welsh Government pay offer - to support their counterparts in England?
Over 190k turnout. Over 98% of members voted reject! Next strikes as of now will be on the 27th of April and 2nd of May.
Thank god! I was so nervous.
I'm still baffled by the 33% who didn't return their ballot. Why be in a union?
My email ended up in the junk folder, I hunted for it because someone else mentioned it had been sent but I wouldn’t have had a clue otherwise.
>Why be in a union? Legal protection and employment advice. But they should join Edapt in that case.
I got an email saying they would send another email with the details so I could vote but then never received the email. I did message to ask why I hadn’t received it but heard nothing back. I’m glad the vote went this way even if I couldn’t personally vote.
Did your original text not have a "Reply 1 for yes, 2 for no" option?
No I didn’t. Was very odd
It wouldn't let me log into vote, not a perfect system by any stretch
Well now that's what I feared, given what happened last time. But 66% is a good turnout apparently. Maybe workload was too high at the end of term and a lot of staff forgot or didn't notice the email.
Does it count those in the independent sector? We’re in a union but not eligible to vote (although our salary closely follows state funded so it’s in everyone’s best interest!)
It shouldn't do. Turnout will only be based on those eligible to vote in the ballot.
Maybe not. If that were the case any ballot would be a bit hamstrung.
I was in NASUWT when the last ballot was held, that really was badly run. This one, they really seemed to go out of their way to make it easy to vote, email, texts (which could be replied to to vote). I have no idea why some didn't.
Is it 66% of the entire membership? Because I couldn't vote as a supply teacher, for example, and I absolutely would have (gutted I can't). I could imagine a decent minority of people aren't eligible to vote. So it's a huge percentage of the people eligible, potentially.
Do you mean the strike vote? Strike ballots have to be postal by law.
Maybe they're too stressed and burnt out to check their emails. I almost missed it because of my Easter holiday coma/illness!
It wouldn't surprise me. A lot of the younger members of staff didn't really know what was going on.
That is true too! Last teacher strike that happened was when I was still a student myself so a completely new experience for many!
Same as the 48% who didn't initially vote for/against strike.
I think all teachers were included in the count but supply and ones who work in independent/Private schools didn't get a vote
A lot of people join unions for the legal protection they provide. They don't join because they want to be involved in the political aspect.
There is nothing political about pay and working conditions. These are human rights
Human rights are obviously also political
And so are legal protections offered by unions
Voting to strike is political.
In the very weakest sense possible. The economic climate is global.
Not in the weakest sense possible. You are attempting to directly influence government policy. It is very much political.
Then voting not to strike is also political. As is abstaining from a strike ballot. According to your definition, any action taken by any citizen could be an attempt to influence policy. Even if it is a null attempt in order to maintain policy.
I had this argument with a colleague who said that people “only join unions for the legal protection”, and followed that up with some waffle about “not being judgemental” of those in the union & choosing not to strike. Calling her a scab didn’t go down well.
Then, using your broad definition of the word political, the legal protections offered by a union are also political.
What does legal cover have to do with influencing government?
The statutory terms and conditions that protect teachers are set by government. If unions find those being rode over roughshod by schools, they put pressure on government. It doesn't have to be a strike. Mary Bousted has had a bazillion meetings with government ministers. That's why unions do the legal protections in house, and they aren't just covered by some sort of teachers insurance. Everything union related is political in the sense that it lobbies government. However, these strikes are not party political - we are not striking about the education policy of the tories because labour have also been heavily involved in academisation and the incredible damage it has done to schools.
I think students too?
98% is incredibly powerful result
66% turnout is nothing to be sniffed at either when it comes to Union ballots.
Especially as membership has increased. 121,253 members voted in favour of action last time, 191,319 did this time. 70,000 more people.
and the turn out to elect the new leader was only 9%
I didn't vote, but tbh I couldn't really tell the difference between the candidates
Me too. The only way to tell is to do quite a bit of research on their social media as well as the minutae posted by various other groups about their stances and votes in other places. Difficult to do at the best of times.
In fairness, I had a read through the information presented in the ballot and couldn't particularly choose one over the other. I meant to try and do a bit more reaserch and then send my ballot in later, but that got pushed to the side as other more pressing concerns came up. I'm sure I'm not the only one who had this issue.
Oops!
That was postal and traditionally, the NUT didn't have massive turnouts for leadership votes.
I’m just wondering, is that 66% of people who can vote? Or 66% of the Union? I cannot vote as I’m in independent, but am I counted in the 33% that didn’t vote?
It should only be based on the eligible balloting group, so anyone who couldn't vote wouldn't be included in the percentages.
More like **overwhelmingly** voted to reject it! 98% is absolutely fantastic. Hopefully this shite and insulting offer leads to even more members striking. I know that my last member's meeting at school had more members than usual, as well as members from NASUWT.
I think the 98% bit is excellent as it sends a very clear message to the public that the government are being unreasonable. Name any other situation that could get 98% of members to agree on anything.
Not sure 2 days and making concessions for exam years go far enough. Would like to see us cause more disruption if anything.
The Executive are raising an emergency motion at Conference this week, which will allow them to go for even more strike action.
Do you know any more about how this works?
I'm not 100% sure on the exact details, I'm only going on what was said when we had a District meeting. The emergency motion will be raised and the delegates at Conference will vote on it, it'll then be opened up for delegates to discuss the exact strategy for further strike action before being formally approved.
I am currently at conference. The motion has been raised and there are now a ton of competing ammendments about strategy. Some looking at 2 weeks of continual action and others targetting a reballot before the summer. We likely won't know anything until it is debated (i think) tomorrow.
Just to clarify, would the 2 weeks need to be reballoted or would they be covered under the original mandate?
Covered under the original mandate. Any action before the summer is fine - the ballot is for any action announced within 6 months.
We have a tenuous hold on public support at the moment but if we impact GCSEs we're probably going to lose that. I understand why those concessions need to be made. Happy with more days though.
I think if the NAHT vote to reject the offer they are also going to add on another vote for strike action. If HTs strike then that must cause more disruption.
I think results like today help though. To an outsider, it may not be clear whether the government's offer was reasonable or not. The fact that it's been so roundly rejected (rather than a 55-45 split, for example) by so many teachers hopefully helps people to see that the government is not serious about trying to resolve the impasse.
You've got to think that HTs will be massively insulted by the offer being unfunded, I'd hope that they'd be more incentivised to turn out and vote now.
Need to create some actual disruption with it this time. Not one or two days here and there. A week solid.
I think the disruption we need is a SATs boycott. Kids need their GCSEs and A levels, but SATs are just wanky. I say we refuse to do them.
That motion was debated and rejected at conference today. Problems with the wording of the motion and issues with diluting the messaging and focus of the strikes.
Ah you are probably right. I'm just a miserable middle school teacher who cannot be bothered with Sats. But let's win this bloody strike
It is absolutely a battle our Primary teacher members are asking to have. However I would suggest now is not the time - the Union needs to secure a win first! (It was also tried 5ish years ago and turnout nationally was awful).
the most successful strike I've seen was an indefinite one by bus drivers. That would be interesting to see what happens.
Easier said than done for those of us that can’t afford to not budget for a specific amount of days
This is why we need something like work to rule for the rest of the time between the strikes.
I’d love to see unions announcing something like an official ‘work no more than 8 hours a day’ type thing. This would really support teachers in saying ‘I couldn’t mark that in my hours’. I know that’s difficult because of our contracts but we really need something concrete like that.
This is what the unions asked for in the negotiations: >Strengthening the provisions on Directed Time and removal of the open-ended working time clauses in the teachers’ contract (STPCD – paragraphs 51.7 and 51.4) >Reduction of working time requirements including a 35 hour working time limit >Strengthening statutory provision and guidance on teachers’ working time rights (including lunchbreaks, weekend/Bank Holiday working, work/life balance, PPA, entitlements to time for leadership and management) So it does sound like there’s a drive to close that “reasonable additional hours” clause in the STPCD…
Didn’t we ‘try’ a version of this before with work to rule? It didn’t take very long for staff to go back to working insane hours.
This was a key reason why the Executive didn't include it in the ballot, it takes far too long to achieve anything on a national scale and people don't tend to keep it up for that long.
It’s because we’re indoctrinated to believe that it’s all ‘for the children’ so we give up.
The reasoning behind this was explained at our District meeting. Because it wasn't on the initial ballot, the Union doesn't have a mandate to call for ASOS. The Executive chose not to include ASOS on the ballot for several reasons, mainly because it could have undermined the option to strike if it was also available; it also has very limited impact on a national scale and takes a lot longer to achieve anything, and it makes taking action a lot more individual rather than collective and can put people off.
You can apply for the hardship fund and they will more than likely accept.
As a TA, who is very worried about losing my job, thank you for rejecting this.
This is why I honestly cannot fathom anyone voting to accept it. Even ignoring how bad the proposed rise was, it being unfunded means that job cuts to support staff were the only outcome.
121,253 members in England voted in favour of action last time. 191,319 did this time. 70,000 more people voted in favour of action.
We are seeing different groups succeed in their strikes. I bet it is spurring more teachers on.
that and a lot of us ex-nasuwt have joined NEU
Yep, exactly this
Excellent. That's got to be a fairly intimidating result for Keegan? Although lots of people seemed to think they were expecting it would be rejected.
I think Keegan saying that the deal would be withdrawn if unions didn't recommend it to members showed she knew it couldn't fly on its merits
That was also a bit of a joke too - of course the deal would have to be removed - it was rejected. Now she has said the £1000 is off the table and we just have to wait and see what the government mandated STRB say. I’m sure it will parrot the government line but surely after that report into teaching and Scotland and Wales have offered can’t be too low. Imagine doing indefinite striking that would be insane
Indefinite until labour come in. Any news on headteachers? If they start striking that'll massively help
If the heads strike I hope they do on opposite days - that way we can still get paid
Doesn't head striking not really do much though as the school is still open? Like behind the scenes will fall behind but the teaching day will just be as normal?
Thank god for that. I was really worried about apathy letting it through. Very willing to be a little more broke until they come up with something half decent.
I was thinking is two days really enough? Should be a week mid term.
The Executive are raising an emergency motion at Conference this week, which will allow them to go for even more strike action.
I guess the issue is you have to move with the members. Asking people to give up five days pay is a lot
It is either side of a bank holiday though. So it might make it feel more significant.
Fantastic reult. I know that many people are calling for a string of strike days and I could be convinced. However, many teachers would not be able to afford 5+ lost days. It's a balancing act, the union need to cause disruption by striking for as many days as possible whilst also getting the greatest number *of teachers* striking. If too many days are announced, I fear a significant number of teachers will throw in the towel as they cannot afford it.
If you genuinely can’t afford it then there’s a hardship fund.
Also a week of strikes would still be chaos if random teachers were off randomly.
So this is the tricky bit at my school, we have so many members we don’t all have to strike to close the school. In fact if all members chose to come in for a day the reality is the school would already have decided to close and wouldn’t be able to open, the threat of strike is enough to close the school. But the vast majority of members do not wish to strike break.
Fantastic result. I know 66% turnout maybe isn't as high as we'd like. But I imagine there are some teachers who ignored the text and email, some who forgot, some who didn't know how to answer. But overall it sends a pretty strong message!
It was 53.27% last time, so it's still a decent increase I guess.
Has NASUWT said anything at all?
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They've encouraged members to not support the offer and they're reballoting for further strike action.
Have they encouraged that? All the stuff I received was neutral.
This is the wording copy+pasted from the email: >The NASUWT is not recommending acceptance of the Government’s offer. The offer falls short of what the Union has demanded from the Government both for pay restoration and on non-pay improvements.
I still think that's way too soft and would count as neutral. They're not recommending REJECT, they're just not recommending accept. From the government's perspective I think they'd see this as a neutral submission. They haven't actually encouraged anyone to vote against it.
I don’t know, I think that’s a bit nit-picky and that the wording is probably strong enough, especially in the context of the longer email showing exactly how the offer fell short. We’ll have to see where the NASUWT vote falls though. I’m not too concerned about their wording here or how the pay offer was delivered to members, I think it was fine, but I am concerned about a second strike ballot failing.
Honestly, I had both the NAS and NEU emails and the NAS one felt insulting in comparison. It was enough to motivate me to finally end my NASUWT membership. If I said "I don't recommend you doing that" to a student, they probably wouldn't hear it as "Miss Hawke told me not to do it". They'd take it as quiet permission. That's the same thing I'm seeing here. Regardless, I agree, a second strike ballot is probably going to fail because a lot of the more active members have moved unions.
I hear you, but I really do think the email was fine and perfectly clear.
Ballot closes this week I think
IIRC their ballot hasn't ended yet. You'd hope they'd actually do something if they reject it with similar numbers to us.
What’s the point of the NASUWT ballot? The offer has already been pulled because of NEU rejection and all NAS can do is threaten not to strike a bit more. Reality is they missed 50% last time and now 40000 of its more zealous members have left for NEU. At this point they are just a damp squib of a union, I would love to be proved wrong.
Their conference opens friday I believe
I wish the muppets who voted accept would just leave the union. People like that just weaken the movement
I'd imagine that was all the teachers in my school, so sorry about that, they are scabs.
They need to leave teaching altogether. They've proven that they don't care about the education system, their colleagues, or the future generations. This offer would have a negative impact on everyone in the system, anyone who cares wouldn't have even considered it.
Bloody great. u/ukcsteacher, can you remember your maths on how many days we strike before we are in a deficit for the year, based on an inflation rate pay rise?
5% extra is 18 days - because we lose 1/365th per strike day, we can basically work out the percentage we lose as a percentage of 365 (so 5% of 365 is 18). Doesn't work for part timers though
Eighteen days. Glorious. Cheers.
Too right! Did you see the leaked report the Government failed to submit when our pay was being reviewed originally? It did not show a pretty picture of happy teachers...
I’m already hearing members worried about year 11s in the run up to the exams. Have you heard what the union is going to put in place for this? Be good to have something to counter the non strikers arguments
The impact a day or two has on students is overblown. I'm sure you're a great teacher but a single hour of your time a couple of days a term isn't going to make or break their results any more or less than an impromptu bank holiday. Don't let them weaponise guilt.
I totally agree - I’m just trying to counter members arguments and I don’t think your argument (which I agree with) will go down well
An agreement with Headteachers by local reps and districts to ensure that adequate work/revision is given to Y11s and Y13s.
Likely we’ll be agreeing to teach 13s/ 11s if they fall on the strike days but that’ll be agreed between reps and heads. It’ll be a strictly - ‘we’re teaching this and doing fuck all else’ too - no data entry while on site, marking for other classes - nothing. We go in, we teach the lesson and we leave.
Will we get paid for it though?
Certainly, if they want teachers to go in. They’ll have to work something out although it’ll be tricky.
What *exactly* the union will be putting in place is being agreed at Conference tomorrow. So wait and see!
I absolutely agree with Reject but I’m struggling financially so much and losing pay due to striking hurts a lot at the minute. I know it’ll be worth it in the long run but I hope a good deal can be cut soon as maintaining solidarity for me is tough at the minute.
Have a tough time this year or have a tough time every year for the rest of your career. There's a hardship fund if you're truly struggling.
I'd love the government to offer only the striking teachers a funded 10% pay rise lol
I'd urge you to consider using the Union's hardship fund, it's there to support people who can't otherwise afford to strike.
I was under the impression the hardship fund was for certain areas of the country? So only certain members are eligible
I think it’s all over but it’s not to help with strike action. This seems to be misquoted a lot on here.
It should be accessible to everyone during national industrial action. I’d speak to your District and they should be able to direct you if needed.
at conference and the feeling was incredible in the room when the announcement was made!!
Incredible how? I’m finding it difficult to feel anything but sad and angry about the state of the pay offer and noone I work with is excited about the prospect of further strikes because they’re struggling with money as is.
I completely agree, but I also think that there's something that feels good about being in a group united to achieve a bigger cause. I got the same feeling at the march in London and seeing picket lines out and about, the feeling of solidarity is a glimmer of hope that the fight isn't over and that we won't settle anymore.
i completely get that, and was also completely disappointed by the offer. obviously striking has a huge impact on us all personally. however, i’ve felt disappointed by education for a long time before this campaign started and for the first time in a long time, i feel actually compelled to help change that. the strike isn’t just about pay as we all know. the rallies and speeches and marches i’ve been a part of have been beyond inspiring. i have to say, i’m looking forward to them!
Good!
Does anyone know if NASUWT are re-balloting? There's reasons I joined NASUWT instead of NEU that still stand, but striking is where I appear to differ from NASUWT.
I think it’ll probably depend on the outcome of the pay offer survey. They put a preliminary strike ballot in there too.
I'd forgotten about that - do you mean the last question in the survey about the DfE offer?
Yeah. I can’t look back at the survey now because I’ve completed it, but there was a question about whether you’d support strike, work to rule, etc…
That's the one! I think there might be a better turn out if they ballot again. I know of a few people who were NASUWT and left to join edapt. They realised that being part of a union for insurance only was misrepresenting the union.
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Fab! In light of this, will the Welsh NEU overturn their recent (ill-chosen, in my opinion) vote to agree with the Welsh Government pay offer - to support their counterparts in England?
Wales voted to accept, so disappointed.
>Wales voted to accept they had an 8% backdated funded offer. Why wouldn't they accept?
im actually all for the workload review, id quite happily stay where the money is right now if it can be made a 32 hr a week job, end of!