‘Day of Action’ Ball Expanding: Britain’s Schools to Join Civil Servants, Announce 7 Days Strike  

By Staff, Agencies 

British schools have been told they can use volunteers to stay open after teachers voted to strike on seven days between now and mid-March in a row over pay.

Teachers across England and Wales have voted to strike over the next two months amid fears walkouts will lead to a return to online lessons and Covid-style classes.

Nine out of 10 members of the National Education Union [NEU] voted for the action and the union passed the 50 per cent ballot turnout required by law.

The NEU announced there would be seven days of walkouts between now and mid-March, but said any individual school will be affected only on four days.

The first day of strikes will be on February 1, when more than 23,000 schools in England and Wales are expected to be affected, the NEU said.

The date is the same day as a “national day of action” that will see rallies across the country and a strike by 100,000 civil servants.

The union is also to target the Budget, on March 15, in a bid to send a message to ministers. Teachers will also hold a rally in Westminster that day, it said.

As well as strike action the union asked all its members to write to their MP - and visit their surgeries - to make the case for an inflation-proof pay rise.

Downing Street had called on the unions to call off any strike.

Teachers are the latest public sector workers to vote to strike, as the government battles a wave of industrial action which has swept the country for months.

Members of the Royal College of Nursing [RCN] in England will this week walk off wards on Wednesday and Thursday. But the union has warned that if progress is not made in negotiations by the end of January the next set of strikes will include all eligible members in England for the first time.