London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Friday, Oct 03, 2025

Fresh strike misery as schools could face more action and civil servants to walkout

Fresh strike misery as schools could face more action and civil servants to walkout

Union tells teachers to reject ‘insulting’ pay offer and PCS announce major industrial action
Britain is facing the prospect of further strike misery after a teaching union urged members to reject a pay offer and civil servants announced a fresh walkout by 133,000 workers at the end of next month.

The National Education Union (NEU) said it would recommend members reject what it called an “insulting” pay offer from Education Secretary Gillian Keegan.

Thousands of schools across the country were forced to partially or fully close during the last teachers strike on March 15 and 16.

Meanwhile, the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) said hundreds of thousands of workers would walk out on April 28 in a long-running dispute over pay, jobs and conditions.

Strikes in the coming weeks include a five-week walkout in the Passport Office from April 3, raising the possibility of widespread disruption for Britons awaiting a passport renewal.

PCS members working for Ofgem in London and Glasgow will strike for six days from April 10-14 and on April 17.

In a statement released on Monday evening, the NEU said the offer amounts to a £1,000 one-off cash payment for the present school year (2022/23) and a 4.3 per cent consolidated pay rise for most teachers for next year (2023/24).

Nurses and paramedics are currently voting over a similar pay deal struck by health unions.

But the NEU said its analysis suggested that between two in five (42 per cent) and three in five (58 per cent) of schools would have to make cuts next year to afford it.

Dr Mary Bousted and Kevin Courtney, joint general secretaries of the NEU, said: “This is an insulting offer from a Government which simply does not value teachers.

“It is now crystal clear that we have an Education Secretary and a Government that is ignoring the crisis in our schools and colleges.

“By refusing to address the legitimate and reasonable request to bring to an end more than a decade of below-inflation unfunded teacher pay increases, the Government is driving teaching and recruitment retention in schools in England to breaking point.

“No child benefits from this level of underfunding. Investing in the education of this generation of children and young people, those hit so hard by Covid, is essential to economic recovery.”

Members of the NEU will begin voting on the deal from Monday evening and the ballot will run until Sunday. Results of the ballot will be announced at the NEU conference on April 3.

Four separate education unions had been engaged in “intensive” talks with ministers over pay, conditions and workload.

Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the headteachers' union NAHT, said the union had received an offer and would make a further statement on Tuesday.

The NASUWT and the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) said they would ask for feedback from members before recommending a deal.

A 10-day strike by security staff at Heathrow is also expected to disrupt travel from April 9, with British Airways announcing that it would cancel around 32 flights a day as a result of the action.

A BA spokesman said: “Following Heathrow’s requirement for us to reduce the number of passengers travelling during the period of its employees’ proposed strike action, we’ve regrettably had to make a small number of adjustments to our schedule.

“We’ve apologised to customers whose travel plans have been affected and have offered them a range of options, including rebooking on to a new flight with us or another airline, or requesting a full refund.”

BA has already cancelled around 5 per cent of its flights during the industrial action and stopped selling tickets for strike days. The cancellations fall on short-haul routes and the long-haul services are not affected.

Heathrow insisted it had sufficient contingency plans in place to cope with the strike.

However, strike action has been suspended on the railways after members of the RMT voted in favour of a pay offer made by Network Rail.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
FBI Removes Agents Who Kneeled at 2020 Protest, Citing Breach of Professional Conduct
Trump Alleges ‘Triple Sabotage’ at United Nations After Escalator and Teleprompter Failures
Shock in France: 5 Years in Prison for Former President Nicolas Sarkozy
Tokyo’s Jimbōchō Named World’s Coolest Neighbourhood for 2025
European Officials Fear Trump May Shift Blame for Ukraine War onto EU
BNP Paribas Abandons Ban on 'Controversial Weapons' Financing Amid Europe’s Defence Push
Typhoon Ragasa Leaves Trail of Destruction Across East Asia Before Making Landfall in China
The Personality Rights Challenge in India’s AI Era
Big Banks Rebuild in Hong Kong as Deal Volume Surges
Italy Considers Freezing Retirement Age at 67 to Avert Scheduled Hike
Italian City to Impose Tax on Visiting Dogs Starting in 2026
Arnault Denounces Proposed Wealth Tax as Threat to French Economy
Study Finds No Safe Level of Alcohol for Dementia Risk
Denmark Investigates Drone Incursion, Does Not Rule Out Russian Involvement
Lilly CEO Warns UK Is ‘Worst Country in Europe’ for Drug Prices, Pulls Back Investment
Nigel Farage Emerges as Central Force in British Politics with Reform UK Surge
Disney Reinstates ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ after Six-Day Suspension over Charlie Kirk Comments
U.S. Prosecutors Move to Break Up Google’s Advertising Monopoly
Nvidia Pledges Up to $100 Billion Investment in OpenAI to Power Massive AI Data Center Build-Out
U.S. Signals ‘Large and Forceful’ Support for Argentina Amid Market Turmoil
Nvidia and Abu Dhabi’s TII Launch First AI-&-Robotics Lab in the Middle East
Vietnam Faces Up to $25 Billion Export Loss as U.S. Tariffs Bite
Europe Signals Stronger Support for Taiwan at Major Taipei Defence Show
Indonesia Court Upholds Military Law Amid Concerns Over Expanded Civilian Role
Larry Ellison, Michael Dell and Rupert Murdoch Join Trump-Backed Bid to Take Over TikTok
Trump and Musk Reunite Publicly for First Time Since Fallout at Kirk Memorial
Vietnam Closes 86 Million Untouched Bank Accounts Over Biometric ID Rules
×