THIS academic year so far has felt strange. A bit anticlimactic even, after such an intense year of industrial action in education. In fact in 2023 I was on strike for more days than in the last 12 years of my teaching career. 

After the most intensive industrial action in the history of the National Education Union (NEU) the executive committee recommended that members accept the offer set out by the government. A 6.5 per cent pay rise and £900 million additional funding came with assurances that this funding would not come from front-line school or college budgets. 

With the executive, outgoing general secretaries and the incoming general secretary all in favour of the deal it was inevitable that the membership would accept the offer. And so they did in large numbers. 

The offer was not as warmly accepted by many in the union, though, and even saw a group set up to explicitly challenge what they saw as a bad offer, Educators Say No. 

Many on the left were rightly concerned that this would lead to a split within the union between those who wanted to continue to fight and those who wanted to bank the offer and fight another day. 

The NEU executive noted that the government had threatened to withdraw the offer had they not put the offer to their members in a positive way. The government’s strategy was clear — to divide and weaken our trade union movement and our profession with a divisive tactic amounting to little more than blackmail by the government.

Before the deal last year we saw promising signs with education unions on the verge of taking unprecedented joint action. NEU members were continuing to vote for strike action, with the reballot surpassing the result of our initial ballot in January.  

The government’s immediate concern is to shore up its dwindling public support in time for the upcoming elections and put an end to the growing professional unity of education workers and co-ordinated action of trade unions.

Despite differences in opinion, we must see last year as a victory.  Education workers were and still are rightly outraged about the callousness of the government towards our members, our schools and our children’s education and it was the justified action of our hundreds of thousands of members that forced the government from offering no pay rise, to an offer of 3.5 per cent, to 4.5 per cent, to 6.5 per cent — the biggest pay rise in recent years.

We also managed to see considerable improvements in workload and the removal of performance-related pay.

As we await the School Teachers’ Review Body pay recommendations, we now stand on the verge of another round of industrial action, with over 90 per cent of NEU members voting to strike over pay and funding though on a decreased turnout that only just met the anti-union thresholds. 

We need to put in the work now to hammer home our message, recruit more reps, improve comms and engagement with the membership. 

Despite the victory of last year — or perhaps because of it — the government is once again attacking unions and offering insulting pay rises that will do little to address the cost-of-living crisis and the teacher recruitment and retention crisis.

They have perhaps sensed that as the strike wave across Britain subsides so too will support for strikes.

There are longer-term goals to consider, too. It is important to maintain focus on what should be the union’s strategic priorities — maintaining the unity of NEU members and building the Broad Left programme within the union, building professional unity with other education unions in our workplaces, building united mass action with other unions against the government, and continuing the battle for the just demands of our members and other workers. 

To do this we must have a long-term strategy to build the broad democratic bases of our union and the labour and progressive movement, which are the guarantees for united mass action against the anti-worker policies of the government, the profiteering agenda of big business, and the fragmentation and destruction of the education system and other public services.

As educators, trade unionists and socialists, we must defend the immediate needs and interests of the working class, and take the fight forward towards our long-term aims. Much more still remains to be fought for — such as adequate funding and pay, guarantees on the reduction of workload, and real bargaining and negotiation.

As part of this we need to consider the fight to advance pay and conditions as well as protect jobs for support staff. Build the unity and co-ordinated action of education workers and their unions, especially between teachers and support staff.

In the long term, the aim should be not only for pay restoration, but also for full collective bargaining rights. Industrial action over pay and terms and conditions has the potential to undermine the system of a so-called “independent” pay review body, which was imposed on the profession after the defeat of the 1984-86 teachers’ strike, and pave the way for direct collective bargaining at the national level for the pay and conditions we want to see in our workplaces.

We have brought out hundreds of thousands of our members to fight for what is right and just, and already won so much against a Tory government and big business bent on maximising profits and devastating our public services, jobs and living standards.

This is why we must, once again, take the fight to the government. So long as we close ranks and continue to build our broad trade union movement, we will continue to win the battles that lie ahead. 

Robert Poole is a teacher NEU rep and editor of Education for Tomorrow.