Teachers vote for further action

TWO major teaching unions were yesterday on a collision course with the Westminster Government after voting for further industrial action, including strikes, over pensions, pay and job losses.

The National Union of Teachers (NUT) passed a resolution at its annual conference in Torquay yesterday, seeking fresh walkouts as early as this summer amid concerns over the Government’s changes to public sector pensions.

It came just hours after the NASUWT, holding its conference in Birmingham, agreed to escalate its industrial action campaign against attacks on pay, pensions, working conditions and job losses, raising the possibility of strikes in the autumn term in both Scotland and England.

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The resolution by NASUWT, which has 7,000 members in Scotland, warns that in the face of a “vicious and unjustified assault on teachers, it will be essential to intensify the industrial action campaign”.

“Conference is committed to further extending the current national action instructions to restore teachers’ professionalism by attacking policies and practices which deprofessionalise teachers, including punitive fallout from the inspection and accountability regimes,” it says.

It endorses the NASUWT leadership’s work in “setting out the next phase in the Union’s industrial action campaign, which will include the escalation of action short of strike action and strike action.” Most of the 50,000 teachers in Scotland are represented by the EIS.

General secretary Chris Keates said: “The NASUWT has been in continuous action short of strike since December 2011 in an attempt to get the Government to focus on the real concerns of the profession.”