The National Education Union will call further teacher strikes in early July if the government does not move to settle the dispute in the next month.
Leaders of the union made the ultimatum after weeks of stalemate with the government after its pay offer was roundly rejected. The NEU is currently re-balloting members for a renewed mandate for strikes in the autumn term,
The union said education secretary Gillian Keegan had now received recommendations pay from the School Teachers’ Review Body “and so she now has to make decisions”.
“If she makes the right call, she can start to move our schools in a better direction,” said joint leaders Dr Mary Bousted and Kevin Courtney.
“She can fund schools properly, start to address the decline in teacher pay and its consequences for the appalling state of teacher recruitment and retention. If she makes the right decisions, she could also avoid further strike action.”
A motion passed at the NEU’s conference in April had proposed dates for further strikes in late June and early July, after exams are over, would be set at an executive meeting on Thursday.
However, Bousted and Courtney announced they were pushing the decision back to their next meeting on June 17.
“We hope that by then she will have discussed the STRB report and her reaction to it with teacher and headteacher unions, and discussed both workload and this year’s pay which remains unsettled.
“If she hasn’t moved to settle the dispute, then that meeting will decide on further strike action in the week commencing July 3.”
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