UK teachers announce strike, adding to wave of industrial action
- PM Sunak is under increasing pressure to resolve pay disputes with hundreds of thousands of workers following months of strikes
- The government has said it cannot afford big wage rises, warning that any significant boost to salaries will exacerbate the country’s inflation issue
Teachers in England and Wales on Monday announced they would take strike action, joining nurses, rail workers and others in staging industrial action in a further headache for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s government.
The National Education Union (NEU) said that the first strike would be on February 1, a date when 100,000 public sector workers are due to strike in what could become Britain’s biggest day of co-ordinated industrial action for decades.
In all, 23,400 schools in England and Wales will be impacted by the school strikes. Teachers in Scotland have already held strikes which have closed many schools.
Sunak is coming under increasing pressure to try to resolve pay disputes with hundreds of thousands of workers following months of strikes which have caused widespread disruption.
With inflation running at more than 10 per cent, workers from multiple sectors are demanding higher wages.
The NEU, Britain’s largest education union, with around 500,000 members, said the government had offered its members a 5 per cent pay rise which it says equated to a pay cut. Low pay for teachers has pushed many to leave the profession, the union said.