The National Association of Head Teachers’ conference in Brighton voted overwhelmingly in favour of a ballot for industrial action – the call was backed by 99.6 per cent of the delegates.
It is the third union to vote to ballot its members for a strike over pensions, following in the footsteps of the National Union of Teachers and the Association of Teachers and Lecturers. It means a summer – and an autumn – of discontent in schools across the country.
The latest vote is a particular blow for the embattled Education Secretary as the NAHT, which is particularly strong in primary schools, is a moderate union and its members have, in the past, helped keep schools open when members of other unions have walked out.
If the NAHT votes “yes” to a series of strikes – and it seems certain it will – and if the union co-ordinates its action with the other teaching unions, then the disruption in schools will be enormous.
Mr Gove said pension reform was “necessary” and that “tough decisions” needed to be made. Mr Gove’s proposed changes will mean, on average, that each head teacher loses £100,000 from their pension pot.
Russell Hobby, general secretary of the NAHT, said: “They rightly see the proposals as an attack on the fair rewards from a lifetime of public service.”
David Fann, a member of the union’s national executive, said Mr Gove’s proposals were doomed because they mean: “We’re going to pay more, work longer and get less.”
NAHT member Brian McNutt said the Government’s approach was “disaster politics” and Chancellor George Osborne was from the “Arthur Daley school of economics”.
A poll of head teachers conducted by the NAHT and the Times Educational Supplement reveals that four in 10 schools will have to shed staff next year to cope with the Government’s budget cuts.
Mr Hobby said job cuts will “only get worse” over the next four years of this Government.
Meanwhile, the Equality Impact Assessment this week said the Government’s £180 million bursary scheme to replace Education Maintenance Allowance grants is open to charges of unfairness and unintended discrimination, on the the basis of disability, gender or ethnicity.
