Up to 2,800 teachers and school staff from 300 schools will be striking in Cheshire as part of the National Education Union’s industrial action announced today.
Teacher members of the NEU in England and Wales have voted overwhelmingly for strike action in a dispute over pay.
In the ballot of teachers, in England a 90.44% majority voted YES on a turnout of 53.27%, meeting the 50% legal threshold required for industrial action.
Schools in Cheshire will be hit by full day strikes on Wednesday February 1 (national strike), Tuesday February 28 (North West region), and March 15 and 16 (national strike days).
Education Secretary Gillian Keegan is planning to meet union leaders later this week.
Headteachers are expected to take “all reasonable steps” to keep schools open for as many pupils as possible during a strike, according to Department for Education guidance.
The NEU says the ballot is a result of “failure by the Secretary of State in England to ensure enough money is available to pay a fully-funded increase in pay for teachers which at least matches inflation, and which begins to restore lost pay”.
Teacher members in sixth form colleges in England, who have been balloted and taken strike action in recent months, will also take action on these days in a separate but linked dispute with the Secretary of State.
Peter Middleman, North West Regional Secretary of the National Education Union, said: “This is an emphatic result and an accurate indication of the strength of feeling within the teaching profession.
“It is all the more remarkable when you consider the administrative scale of conducting an aggregated ballot taken across 23,000 workplaces in England and in the context of the provisions of the Trade Union Act which has placed significant impediments on the ability of unions to engage fully with members since 2016.
“As such, the Government ought to take this democratic result seriously and recognise the mistakes in their approach to teacher reward which has brought the profession to this point.
“With workloads going endlessly up, our members have indicated that they will no longer tolerate their living standards going in the opposite direction.
“Headteachers and School Governors understand like we do, that with school funding in dire straits, only the Treasury and Department for Education can now resolve this dispute by placing a new value on our schools, and the people who learn and work within them.”
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