Wales school strikes: One-off payment offered to teachers

Teachers and school heads have been offered a one-off payment by the Welsh government in talks on Thursday.

The meeting with Welsh Education Minister Jeremy Miles came ahead of four separate days of strikes by National Education Union (NEU) members.

Senior union officials said the proposals were not enough to meet pay demands.

Sources told BBC Wales the offer was similar to that made to health workers last week.

Meanwhile headteachers in the NAHT have announced they will hold industrial action short of a strike from 1 February onwards.

A representative of the NEU, which backed strike action earlier this week, claimed a "large number" of schools in Wales will have to close.

Earlier this week Jeremy Miles said he was "unsure" that would happen.

Not all teachers are planning to walkout - but a representative of NASUWT said their members would not do the work of striking teachers.

Both education and health worker unions are seeking pay increases that meet rising prices.

Last week Mark Drakeford offered a one-off payment to health unions to bring the strikes in the NHS to a close.

It was not enough to stop the RCN from declaring more walkouts, while strikes in the ambulance service have continued.

David Evans, Wales Secretary of the NEU union, confirmed unions had been offered a "one off non-consolidated payment".

But said it "doesn't go anywhere near meeting ours and the other unions' demands".

He said there was also a discussion on easing teacher workload.

Unions pressed the case for an urgent review of the latest Independent Welsh Pay Review Body report, which in practice would mean revisiting the pay rise for next year currently set at 3.5%.

The discussions - which included the Welsh Local Government Association - were "a start but nothing's been resolved", Mr Evans added.

Headteachers in the NAHT will begin action short of a strike (ASOS) from 1 February.

A greater number of members backed ASOS over a walkout in a ballot announced earlier this week.

The action includes:

Laura Doel, director of NAHT Cymru, said the talks "were productive".

She said: "There was a discussion about a potential one-off payment for teachers and leaders and a desire by all sides to make progress on some of the other concerns from our members on funding, workload and recruitment and retention.

"We remain committed to further talks with the Welsh government and local authorities to resolve this dispute as quickly as possible and we hope for more meetings in the coming days. However, the discussions today are not enough to pause our industrial action.

"A decade of unfunded, below-inflation pay awards has compounded a recruitment and retention crisis in education which has led us to this action and we maintain that unless our concerns are addressed immediately, education will continue to suffer."

She declined to give fuller details of what was offered.

No firm figures of what the payment might mean were available publicly on Thursday. One source said there was a discussion about the money being split equally, or weighted.

There has been no public confirmation of what has been offered to health unions either, although the BBC was previously told that the Welsh government had considered a payment of around £1,000 per NHS worker.

A pot of money was discussed in the talks with Health Minister Eluned Morgan last week.

Jeremy Miles said the meeting was "constructive".

"We have agreed that we will talk again ahead of any planned strikes," he said.

"I want to assure the education workforce that I am listening to your concerns and remain committed to working with unions and local authorities to seek a resolution. As a government we believe that disputes should be resolved by negotiation.

"During the meeting we discussed a one-off cash payment over and above the 2022-23 pay award and a series of non-pay issues, including a commitment to address workload issues."

Speaking to BBC podcast Walescast, the NEU's Mairead Canavan said a one-off payment would not be acceptable to the NEU because it is "not going to improve our salaries".

She said there will be "a lot of closures".

NASUWT union members voted overwhelmingly for strike action but turnout was below the 50% threshold needed for a lawful walkout.

Sion Amlyn, the union's policy officer, said NASUWT would conduct a "swift and sudden re-ballot".

Asked if NASUWT members would cross NEU picket lines on strike days, he replied: "Other union members do cross the picket lines, do go to work.

"But what's important is that once you are in work our members will not be undertaking the workload of those individuals who are on strike."

Neil Butler from the NASUWT said the one off payment offered by the Minister was "certainly not enough" but he was encouraged that "the minister came with an offer - he came to negotiate".

UCAC General Secretary Ioan Rhys Jones welcomed the Minister's willingness to address workload issues.

"We're looking forward to continue the discussions," he added.

UCAC also missed the 50% threshold in its strike ballot.