Pay Award means crisis will continue
It endorsed the
recommendations of the independent School Teachers’ Review Body, including
a 2.9 per cent pay increase from April for most teachers.
The DfES are now putting
a spin - euphemism for a lie - that teachers in inner London will receive even
more.
Previously, London
allowance was flat rated on the basis that a loaf of bread was no cheaper for a
young teacher than a headteacher. Now, we are awarded new pay scales for
inner London, which merge the basic pay scales and the Inner London Allowance,
claiming that there will be a minimum 4 per cent overall rise for all inner
London teachers.
The spin is being put on
the increases for the most experienced teachers in inner London, including: (i)
A virtual doubling of the value of the inner London threshold payment (up from
£2,148 to £4,002); (ii) A two-thirds increase in the second
performance pay point on the upper pay scale from £1,000 to £1,670;
and (iii) An overall increase of up to 10 per cent for heads and deputies,
worth £4,000 on average.
And here we have the nub
of the problem. There is very little at the bottom. It is a continuation of the
madcap proposals advocated by Estelle Morris of abolishing the London Allowance
and just paying most experienced teachers a good whack. We said then and we say
now: unless new teachers are attracted in by paying well, there will be little
prospect of retaining teachers for long. The government have succeeded in
continuing the scheme of attracting teachers in from poor regions worldwide, in
effect stealing their educational resources, having unstable situations in
schools which are then failed.
Did you
know:
If teachers were
given just 2.9% of Lord Irvine's salary, standing at £180,736 at present,
it would be worth £5241. Perhaps we should campaign for wigs and gowns to
be part of the dress code? |
Tied to this is Clarke's
desire for schools to have enough room in their budgets to get on with school
workforce remodelling in 2003-04. Clarke somehow believes that the national pay
award of 2.9 per cent will assist because teachers consistently rate higher
than pay as a priority to be tackled. “I am also delighted that the Review
Body has supported us in targeting its pay proposals on experienced teachers in
inner London. London’s pupils deserve high standards and our schools need
help in attracting and retaining senior and talented teachers. These measures
will help heads, teachers and pupils.” This is a nonsense. we need to
re-iterate - the reason for the teacher shortage is that qualified teachers are
not prepared to work in the conditions given - which will now
worsen.
The pay proposals will be
subject to consultation until 7 March. A pay and conditions order will give
effect to the pay rises from April. The pay proposals raise starting salaries
in inner London to £21,522 (from £20,700). £822 before tax
and NI. The top salary for a head teacher in inner London rises to
£94,098 (from £88,776) . £5,122. Precisely £4,300 more.
There is also a
distortion on the pay increases since 1997 - when Labour came to office. At
that time Spine point 1 paid £13,407, but most teachers would have
started at that time on Spine point 3 with £15,057. Not a lot,
admittedly. Six years later, with conditions worsened, the day longer, Clarke
is offering £18,103. A 20% increase over this period. Sounds good? Well,
it might do had it not been for the fact that house prices have gone up by 300%
in parts of London, and even most regions well above 20%. It is a nonsense to
suggest wages are keeping up with inflation, as Charles Clarke does without
taking into account the housing crisis.
It is not top
headteachers that are scarce. Clarke has not only failed to solve the crisis,
but has made the differentials worse by removing London Allowance as a flat
rate and put it on a differentaited scale that assists the better paid and
makes it more dicretionary at a local level. |
The Pay Campaign continues
The NUT conference policy was for 10% and the
union's submission to STRB was in line with that.
What we have seen since has been a momentous
struggle by London teachers and other public service workers, most notably the
firefighters to stop the deterioration of public services because of low pay.
this onslaught is driven by a government determined to reduce public sector
spending to match the criteria required for entry to the Euro. There is no
rational reason not to boost public sector pay. Despite the stock market slide,
Britain's economy is not in trouble as such.
The campaign on pay continues with the action
on the London Allowance. Balloting is underway in 24 London boroughs for
selective action in schools. This is a rolling programme with action staring in
some boroughs on 5th March and in some Lambeth schools likely to be on 18th
March.
Teachers and other public sector workers have
been brought into action not for the sake of it, not because they enjoy
disruption, but because they are angry. In a situation where the Secretary of
State has done nothing to assist young teachers in real terms that anger will
only grow. Worse still, unless the problem is seriously addressed in the coming
period, the attraction of young teachers to the profession will diminish
further.
The National Union of Teachers, representing
the majority of lower paid classroom teachers - as opposed to the minority who
have been awarded performance pay - is correct to continue with our campaign
for a decent pay award. There is no doubt about it : we haven't won everything
by a long way, but without the prolonged campaign, including the two days of
strike action in March and November of last year, it would have been far
worse.
It is important that the NUT doesn't spend too
much time on the betrayals of the other unions and their capitulation on
conditions of service, but recognises that we can act against the government if
we can convince the members of those other unions, as well as our own members
that we can't take this lying down. |
