UK teachers vote to take strike action

Teachers in Britain have approved taking a series of local and national industrial actions in response to the government’s plans to freeze their payment while raising the obligatory annual contribution to pension funds.

The move was voted in during the National Union of Teachers’ (NUT) annual conference on Saturday.

The teachers’ union decided that they begin their campaign with a strike in the northwest of England on June 27 and follow up by regional walkouts in the autumn.

The NUT said a nationwide strike will follow some time before Christmas if the government fails to address their concerns.

“This conference has to send a message to [Michael] Gove that we’re in a serious battle and that means we’re prepared for national strike action next term,” Martin Powell, an NUT official said.

This is while, the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers has also agreed to debate joining NUT in the campaign of strike during NASUWT’s annual conference today.

NASUWT had earlier blasted the government’s education policy as “destructive” and schools’ watchdog (Ofsted) inspections as damaging to the education system.

The union says it has found in a study that 95 percent of its 3,000 members think Ofsted operates “in the interests of politicians rather than the public or pupil”.

During their conference, the NUT also called for a boycott of school inspections and demanded chief schools inspector Sir Michael Wilshaw to step down following a “stream of negative and inaccurate comments directed at teachers.”