The threat of coordinated strike action has forced the government to abandon plans that would have made schools fund part of England’s latest teacher pay rise by cutting into their existing budgets.
Members of the National Education Union (NEU), the UK’s largest education union, were due to vote next month on whether to strike over the government’s funding arrangements. Teachers have been offered a 3.5 percent pay increase from this month, followed by another 3 percent from September next year.
The offer was already an improvement on the proposals advanced by former education secretary Bridget Phillipson. But the government initially refused to provide schools with enough money to cover the full cost. Schools would have been expected to find 1.1 percent of the current pay rise themselves — almost a third of the total increase — despite many already struggling with overstretched budgets, staff shortages and deteriorating buildings.
This would have turned a nominal pay rise for teachers into another round of cuts elsewhere. Schools would have been forced to reduce staffing, support services, classroom resources or maintenance simply to meet their wage bill. The government could then claim to be raising teachers’ pay while making pupils and other education workers bear the cost.
That manoeuvre began to collapse when teachers demonstrated that they were prepared to act collectively. In a snap poll held before the summer break, 97 percent of participating NEU members said it was unacceptable for schools to cover the funding shortfall, while 89 percent said they were prepared to strike to secure full funding.
Following weeks of negotiations with NEU general secretary Daniel Kebede, the new education secretary, Lucy Powell, confirmed that schools would be allowed to retain savings resulting from a revaluation of the Local Government Pension Scheme. The reduction in employer contribution rates is expected to release roughly £500m that would otherwise have been swallowed by the cost of the pay award.
Kebede described the retreat as a significant victory:
“Finally, we have a government that accepts the reality that any teacher pay award must be fully funded,” he said. “Plugging the £460m black hole in school budgets signals a welcome return to reality, and a message of hope for the entire school community.
“Schools have been running on empty for far too long. Leaders simply could not afford to fund the pay award as set out by the previous education secretary. The new administration has accepted that it is wrong to force schools to make cuts to education just to make ends meet.”
The government hasn’t suddenly discovered that schools need adequate funding. Nor has it undergone a moral conversion concerning the living standards of education workers. What changed was the balance of pressure. Faced with an organised workforce preparing to withdraw its labour, ministers found hundreds of millions of pounds that had previously been treated as unavailable.
Powell explained the revised position in a letter to the union:
“I understand you are concerned the funding available in 26-27 is insufficient to cover the costs of the recent pay award.
“I am therefore pleased to be able to update you that recent revaluations to the local government pension scheme will see a 4.9ppt reduction in employer contribution rates and deliver significant savings on schools’ pay bill for support staff.
“We can confirm this reduction in costs will not be clawed back and as such, we are confident that schools will be able to cover the costs of the teacher pay award, at a national level.”
The money hasn’t been provided through a straightforward increase in the education budget. Instead, schools will retain savings produced by lower pension contribution rates for support staff. Nevertheless, the decision closes the immediate £460m hole that would otherwise have been pushed on to individual schools.
Powell made the government’s motive clear when she added:
“Given the material change to the affordability position, I would ask that the NEU revisits its proposed ballot of members planned for October and moves away from strike action.”
The additional resources are therefore being offered explicitly in exchange for industrial peace. Ministers hope that conceding the funding dispute will persuade the NEU to cancel its ballot and remove the possibility of widespread school closures.
This is how concessions are generally extracted under capitalism. Workers aren’t rewarded because those governing the state finally recognise the justice of their demands. They win when their organisation gives them enough collective strength to disrupt the institutions and services upon which the existing order depends.
Teachers are often encouraged to treat their work as a vocation rather than labour. That rhetoric is useful to the ruling class because it turns dedication to pupils into an excuse for accepting declining conditions. Any refusal to tolerate worsening pay or impossible workloads can then be portrayed as selfishness towards children, while the politicians starving schools of resources escape responsibility.
Strike action breaks through that moral blackmail. Education doesn’t function through ministerial announcements, performance targets or carefully worded press releases. It functions because teachers and support staff perform the labour necessary to keep schools running. When those workers collectively threaten to stop, their position within the production and reproduction of society becomes impossible to ignore.
The NEU’s national executive has yet to decide whether the ballot will go ahead. Whatever decision it reaches, the government’s retreat has already demonstrated where the real pressure came from. The £500m wasn’t secured by quiet appeals to ministerial goodwill. It was secured because tens of thousands of organised workers showed that they were willing to strike.
