NASUWT Members Announce Strike Action

Members of the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT) are to stage a series of rolling one-day strikes in schools in Northern Ireland, it has been announced.

The first strike will take place later this month, with further rolling strikes planned for January and February 2017.

The action is in response to pay, workload and job insecurity.

In a statement, the NASUWT said members in schools in Belfast and Newtownabbey would take place in the one-day strike later this month. The date is to be announced later this week.

Chris Keates, NASUWT General Secretary, said: "The high quality education to which all children and young people are entitled cannot be delivered by teachers whose professional lives are being blighted by deep pay cuts and excessive workload.

"Our children and young people are entitled to be taught by those who are recognised and rewarded as highly skilled professionals and who have working conditions which enable them to focus on teaching and learning.

"For fourteen months of negotiations on last year's pay award to conclude with an offer of 0% shows that the employers had no intention of doing anything but delay the process to save money at the expense of hardworking teachers.

"And as if that was not enough to demonstrate to teachers, who are providing one of the most vital public services, the contempt with which they are being treated, the Minister then seeks to announce a 'good news' story on school funding, the bulk of which comes from plundering teachers' pay packets."

Keates continued: "Teachers do not take strike action lightly. No one wants to disrupt the children and young people they teach or their parents but teachers' pay and conditions are inextricably linked to the provision of high quality education."

Justin McCamphill, NASUWT National Official Northern Ireland, added: "We regret the disruption that will be caused to pupils and to teachers, if the ministers and employers fail to respond positively to the NASUWT's reasonable proposition on how strike action can be avoided."

(JP/LM)