UK teacher strikes suspended as unions and government agree to ‘intensive talks’

NHS pay breakthrough sees intensified talks over teacher pay, conditions and workload reduction

Teaching unions and the government have agreed to hold “intensive talks” on teacher pay, conditions and workload reduction, after a breakthrough on NHS pay saw health worker strikes suspended.

The offer – backed by the Royal College of Nursing, the GMB and Unison – includes a one-off lump sum for 2022-23 that rises in value up the NHS pay bands, as well as a permanent 5 per cent rise on all pay points for 2023-24.

Union members will now vote on whether to accept the deal, with workers expected to consider the detail over the coming days and weeks.

In a further development, education unions agreed to “create a period of calm for two weeks during which time they have said no further strike dates will be announced” as they hold intensified talks with the government.

But it came as the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union announced that HM Passport Office staff will strike for five weeks from the start of April – potentially leaving more than one million passport applications stuck in a bottleneck of applications.

The NHS’s existing budgets “provide enough” to pay for the government’s 5 per cent pay offer to striking staff, the deputy prime minister has said.

“Well 3.5% has already been budgeted for,” Dominic Raab told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “It won’t come of course from frontline funding and the Health Secretary will set out some more of the details once we have got this thing settled.”

Pressed on whether further funding will be provided, he said: “That will be for the health secretary and the chancellor in the usual way to consider.

“I think the expectation will be the budget is set, it provides enough resource but of course with all of these things and particularly with something as fluid as the strikes, the opportunity to make sure we get that right is there. But the good news is that the vast majority of unions have accepted the offer.

“The health secretary has done a great job in calmly working through to a point of compromise and we hope that all of the unions will in that way … we can do the right thing by our brilliant NHS staff.”

Nine months after the national rail strikes began, the biggest rail union is staging four more days of strikes, wrecking journey plans for millions of prospective passengers in the second half of March and into April.

Tens of thousands of members of the RMT union working for 14 train operators will walk out on 16, 18 and 30 March, plus 1 April.

Announcing the huge escalation in strikes by Passport Office staff, PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka blamed ministers for having “ failed to hold any meaningful talks with us”.

“This escalation of our action has come about because, in sharp contrast with other parts of the public sector, ministers have failed to hold any meaningful talks with us, despite two massive strikes and sustained, targeted action lasting six months,” the union leader said.

“Their approach is further evidence they’re treating their own workforce worse than anyone else. They’ve had six months to resolve this dispute but for six months have refused to improve their 2% imposed pay rise, and failed to address our members’ other issues of concern.

“They seem to think if they ignore our members, they’ll go away. But how can our members ignore the cost-of-living crisis when 40,000 civil servants are using foodbanks and 45,000 of them are claiming the benefits they administer themselves?

“It’s a national scandal and a stain on this government’s reputation that so many of its own workforce are living in poverty.”

More than one million passport applications could be stuck in a bottleneck when HM Passport Office staff strike for five weeks from the start of April.

In a “significant escalation” of a dispute over jobs, pay and conditions, the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union says more than 1,000 members will walk out at all seven offices in England, Wales and Scotland from 3 April to 5 May. Staff at the Passport Office in Belfast may join the strike later.

The union says the walkout will have a “significant impact” on the delivery of passports as the summer approaches.

The government and education unions have agreed to “intensive talks” on teacher pay, conditions and workload reduction, they announced in a joint statement.

The talks, which will focus on pay, conditions and workload reduction, will involve unions including the National Education Union (NEU), whose members were on strike in England earlier this week.

It comes after health unions and the government reached an agreement on a final pay offer following weeks of talks and months of strikes.

A union leader has claimed that officials negotiating on behalf of NHS workers for a pay rise were told the proposed 5 per cent pay increase from April would not be funded from the health service’s existing budgets.

Rachel Harrison, national secretary of the GMB, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “That was one of the conditions that the GMB and some of the other unions put on the table before we even entered the room.

“We wanted reassurance that this was additional money and it was not going to come out of NHS current budgets and that was the commitment we were given by the government.”

She added: “We were told that this would be additional money and it wouldn’t come out of existing health budgets.

“This would be new money that wouldn’t come out of NHS budgets and that is the information we were told.

“I don’t work for the Treasury, I can’t tell you where that money is coming from but we were given reassurances that this was not existing health money.”

Striking junior doctors could meet the health secretary as soon as Friday afternoon to discuss a pay rise, a member of the British Medical Association (BMA) said.

Dr Vivek Trivedi, co-chairman of the BMA’s junior doctors committee, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme he hopes talks with Steve Barclay can begin soon.

Dr Trivedi said: “Our position has been that we are open to talk in good faith, meaningfully, at any time.

“We were ready to talk months ago. Our formal dispute started over 150 days ago and, again, that is just what I mean in that it is disappointing it has taken Steve Barclay so long to get to the negotiating table.

“I only hope that he does come with good faith and a mandate to negotiate.

“So far we haven’t arranged a time for this afternoon but there has been some correspondence

Credit: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/strikes-uk-2023-passports-teachers-nhs-b2302842.html

ENND