Teachers across East Yorkshire and Northern Lincolnshire vote on strike action
Today's the last day of the ballot
Teachers across East Yorkshire and Northern Lincolnshire are voting on whether they want to go on strike.
Today (13th January) is the last day of the ballot- with 3 major unions involved in a row over pay, staffing and conditions.
The government says they’ll continue talks with teachers’ unions to discuss what they say will be damaging action.
Steve Scott is from the National education union in East Yorkshire, he said:
“With inflation at the rate it’s at and the cost of living going up massively, teachers aren’t able to accept a 5% pay increase that has to come out of school budgets. School budgets are already over stretched so to take another 5% from them to fund a pay rise is simply not acceptable.
If at least 50% are in favour of it- picket lines are likely to be set up at the end of this month.
Steve added:
“We imagine that our larger schools will probably have picket lines. In some of the bigger towns we’d like to get all of the people that are on strike together and get them to talk about what the problems with education are at the minute and what we’d like to see the government do about that.”
The Government will continue talks with teachers' unions to avert "damaging" industrial action, Downing Street has said.
It came after nine out of 10 members of NASUWT in England and Wales voted for strikes, but the union failed to secure enough support to go ahead.
A No 10 spokesperson said:
"The Education Secretary held a meeting earlier this week, a constructive meeting with union leaders, and I believe that she held a similar meeting today.
"She agreed the importance of working together to avoid strike action that would be damaging to children. We know the disruption that children have already faced in terms of their education due to the pandemic, so we obviously don't want to see any further disruption.
"We continue to want to try and help and facilitate teachers and the unions receive a fair and affordable pay deal.
"But as I say that the most important thing is that we continue to talk."