UK
Solidarity with Sixth form Colleges Taking Strike Action
Daniel Kebede, NEU General Secretary
National Education Union sixth-form college members are set to take further days of strike action over pay and funding.
Unionised teachers have lodged four more strike dates due to the government’s “failure to resolve a clear pay discrepancy” between staff in sixth-form colleges and schools.
National Education Union officials have added an extra strike date later this month as well as three days in the new year to protest the Department for Education’s pay award snub.
More than 2,000 NEU members will walk out tomorrow, marking the second day of striking following last week’s march on Parliament.
The industrial action originates from the summer announcement that schools and academised sixth form colleges would receive £1.2 billion to fund a 5.5 per cent pay rise for 2024/25. But no funding for pay was announced for standalone sixth form colleges and further education colleges.
Unless ministers come to an agreement to extend the funding to non-academised sixth form teachers, the union will strike on the following days: December 3 (previously announced), December 4 (previously announced), December 13, January 7, January 8 and January 9.
Last month, 32 of the 39 sixth-form colleges voted in favour for strike action, achieving 97 per cent of the ballot vote.
Swathes of striking teachers marched to Westminster last week, to take their issues straight to the education secretary.
A crowd, led by NEU general secretary Daniel Kebede, gathered at the DfE headquarters to chant, cheer and boo officials for excluding them from the 5.5 per cent pay award.
Sixth-form teachers told FE Week they’d expected better of a Labour government.
“No Labour government worthy of the name performs actions like this,” said Ian Morton, accounting teacher at WQE and Regent College in Leicester.
Kebede said Thursday’s strike action should have been a “wake up call” to DfE ministers that the NEU “will not back down on this issue”.
He added: “The responsibility for these strikes lies with government not teachers. No teacher wants to be taking strike action. They want to be in classrooms doing what they do best: teaching. We remain as always willing to resolve this dispute with government. However, in the face of yet more silence our members will continue with their action.
“Government needs to recognise this absurd situation needs to end and that they must quickly address this inexcusable pay divide. Let there be no doubt the strike action will continue into the new year unless sense prevails, and our members are given the pay they deserve.”
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