UK

The Guardian view on strikes: Sunak needs a better plan
Editorial
Wed, 1 February 2023 

Photograph: Jacob King/PA

To the extent that Rishi Sunak has a plan for dealing with the biggest wave of industrial action in Britain for a generation, it seems to involve waiting for public opinion to turn against the strikes. To hasten that process, ministers cast trade unions as self-serving militants, causing harm to citizens who rely on the services that are being disrupted. The plan isn’t working.

About 500,000 workers took part in industrial action on Wednesday. That was inconvenient for millions of others, but for the time being it is the government that takes the greater portion of blame. Deservedly so, when ministers have responded to legitimate grievances with high-handed disdain.

The teachers’ strike on Wednesday was especially difficult for parents who had to make childcare arrangements or miss work. For many, it stirred stressful memories of home schooling during the pandemic.

That doesn’t mean teachers were wrong to leave the classroom in protest at inadequate pay, nor that parents all blamed them for a decision that most could see was taken as a last resort. As with striking nurses and ambulance drivers, there is a bedrock of public recognition that people who provide essential services do so from vocation, not to get rich. They expect remuneration and working conditions that are adequate, and that allow them to do the job safely.

The degradation of those services over years of budget cuts is evident to those who rely on them. Parents do not want their children to be taught in underfunded schools or to be treated by demoralised nurses in overcrowded wards.

Everyone is feeling the same long-term squeeze on their incomes. Well, almost everyone. A small minority enjoys sufficient wealth to be insulated from pressures that weigh on ordinary people. That lucky social segment happens to be disproportionately represented in Mr Sunak’s cabinet. This might explain some of the political miscalculation around industrial unrest, although a lack of strategic competence also plays its part.

Mr Sunak has an argument against strikes, which he seems to think is the same as a negotiating position. The government view is that pay rises above inflation are unaffordable and that they would stoke inflation further. That is a highly partisan and tendentious account of the underlying economics. Teachers’ pay has been falling in real terms for years, leading up to the present spike in inflation, so their salaries can hardly be the cause. Nurses are not to blame for Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent pinch on energy supplies, nor did they negotiate the Brexit deal that raised import costs, tightened the labour market and snarled up supply chains – the actual drivers of inflation.

In reality, the government is making a political choice not to pay public sector workers enough money, because the prime minister’s fiscal priority is an election war chest of tax cuts for later in the parliament. As a campaigning tactic, that might work, but it relies on voters putting up with prolonged chaos, and on public sector workers losing the will to fight for decent pay. That is not only a political gamble, but also an abdication of responsible government. Mr Sunak is not popular enough, nor does he have the moral authority to stake so much on a confrontation with people whose public service credentials are much better than his own. He needs a new plan.

Parents join teachers on demonstrations despite school closure disruption

Eleanor Busby, PA Education Correspondent
Wed, 1 February 2023

Parents have joined striking teachers in demonstrations across the country as many schools closed their doors to pupils, a union boss said.

Teachers in England and Wales, who are members of the National Education Union (NEU), took part in the first national strike since 2016, which threatened disruption to more than 23,000 schools.

Kevin Courtney, joint general secretary of the NEU, said he believes “more than 200,000” members have staged walkouts on Wednesday, adding that the strike has been “really effective”.

Groups representing parents have released a joint statement in support of members of the NEU in their demand for “fair pay” despite the disruption.

(PA Graphics)

Mr Courtney told the PA news agency: “We know there were parents on the demonstrations.

“I have just spoken to a parent who came to a demonstration in Birmingham because she’s so outraged about the way her child with special needs has been treated and is on our side.”

The NEU has estimated that around 85% of schools in England and Wales have been affected – either fully closed or partially closed – by the action.

Mr Courtney told PA: “We think a big majority of schools will be closed to more than half the children in the schools.”

Some parents have been forced to work from home and take leave due to school closures.

The NEU will launch “the biggest ever programme” of parental engagement on Thursday to bolster support for further planned strikes, Mr Courtney said.

He told PA: “If I was government I’d be really worried about our ability to reach parents.

“We intend to start the biggest programme of parental engagement there’s ever been and talking to them about the truth about the crisis in our schools.”

Walkouts by teachers took place on Wednesday – the first of seven days of strikes in February and March – after talks with Education Secretary Gillian Keegan failed to find a resolution.

Mr Courtney added: “I think we can keep parental support, but we will be working to keep parental support.

“And even parents who don’t support the strike can support the demands that we’re putting forward that could end these industrial disputes.”

Mr Courtney and Mary Bousted, the joint general secretaries of the NEU, have called on Ms Keegan to “step up with concrete and meaningful proposals” on pay to prevent further strikes.

In a statement on Wednesday, the NEU bosses said: “Today, we put the Education Secretary on notice. She has until our next strike day for England, February 28, to change her stance.

“NEU members do not want to go on strike again. They want constructive talks that deal directly with the long-standing concerns they experience in their schools and colleges every day. So that they can get back to doing what they do best, working with pupils in the classroom.

“However, be in no doubt that our members will do whatever it takes to stand up for education, including further strike action, if Gillian Keegan still fails to step up with concrete and meaningful proposals.”

Jason Elsom, CEO of charity Parentkind, said: “The reality is stark: right now, parents support these strikes and they support teachers in their bid for an inflation-related pay rise.

“Nobody wants schools to be closed and nobody wants children to lose days of learning, and so it’s in this vein that parents across the country want the Government and the teaching unions to work together to achieve a fair and lasting settlement to the question of teacher pay.

“Only then can disruption to children’s education be kept to a minimum.”