2 minute read
Cost-of-living crisis
Preliminary pay ballot results for support staff: 78 per cent Yes to strike action on a 68 per cent turnout. See page 30.
United unions condemn cost-ofliving crisis at party conferences
THE NEU presented a united front with colleagues from the NAHT and ASCL at the Labour Party conference in Liverpool and the Conservative gathering in Birmingham. We hosted joint meetings to highlight how real-terms cuts to teachers’ pay and the costof-living crisis will have a damaging impact on education outcomes.
Speaking at the Labour meeting, NEU joint general secretary Mary Bousted said that over the past 12 years teachers had lost 20 per cent of their wage in real terms. This had created a crisis in teacher supply and the children most affected are those in the most challenging schools.
The president of ASCL, Evelyn Forde, warned that, “the cost-of-living crisis is tipping education into a precarious position. If our schools are not funded properly, we will be left with a substandard education system.”
Labour MP Emma Hardy highlighted how the cost-of-living crisis meant that seven million households were doing without essentials right now. This bad situation was only going to get worse and it was time “to challenge the normalisation of poverty”.
Also speaking at Labour conference, Councillor Tim Roca from the Local Government Association’s Children and Young People Board expressed concern that schools were grappling with an unfunded pay award, rising child poverty and a growing SEND crisis, adding “they shouldn’t have to manage this”.
(From left) Paul Gosling, president of the NAHT, Cllr Anntoinette Bramble of the Local Government Association, Shadow Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson and Mary Bousted, at Labour conference PHOTO by Jess Hurd
Evelyn Forde, ASCL
At the NEU’s meeting on the fringe of a tumultuous Conservative Party conference, Paul Whiteman from the NAHT noted how over the last decade education had been subjected to continuing austerity. With teacher recruitment targets missed for eight out of the last nine years, poor funding and inadequate and unfunded pay rises, the Government needed to get a grip or the quality of education would suffer.
Steve Mastin from the Conservative Education Society acknowledged that teachers hadn’t had a pay rise for a very long time. As this year’s award hadn’t been funded by the Government, he said that he fully expected lots of schools to go into deficit over the next six months.
Finally, Barbara Crowther from the Children’s Food Campaign told heartbreaking stories of the reality of the costof-living crisis for many children and young people.
She had heard of children hiding in the playground as they didn’t have money to pay for their lunch and children pretending to eat from empty lunchboxes. Ample justification – if it was needed – for the NEU’s call for free school meals for all primary children.
