Teachers need to win hearts and minds if they choose strike action

We live in unthinkably challenging times. Other than in times of war, things have rarely been more difficult, or unsettling, or disquieting. Stuff that would normally be front page news is relegated to the “news in brief” section, as huge events reveal themselves daily.

Almost lost from the news cycle in the last week has been one such story: the decision by the two biggest teacher unions and the biggest headteacher union to ballot over taking strike action. The scale of the potential industrial action – and the disruption to schools – would be completely unprecedented.

The National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT), which is run by moderates in the interests of its members, has never before gotten this close to taking its members to the picket. To do so at the same time as the classroom unions, the National Education Union (NEU) and the NASUWT, would be nothing short of extraordinary.

As per the law, the NAHT surveyed its members on the possibility of taking action – something it has to do before it is allowed to move to a formal ballot. Some 64 per cent of its 35,000 members responded, with 84 per cent backing some kind of industrial action and 55 per cent per cent in favour of a full blown strike. As of last week, the NEU is in a very similar position.

What has brought about this unique situation? It won’t surprise many readers that, broadly, it’s the diabolical state of school funding combined with the decision of the government to award teachers a pay rise – but not provide the cash to headteachers to pay for it.

To be clear, as a seasoned observer of such things, I am in no doubt that the anger being channelled by these unions is righteous. I was deeply, deeply worried about schools’ finances last week; today, with a new era of austerity apparently upon us, it is keeping me awake at night.

And if the pay rises can’t in fact be implemented, then an already hideous teacher recruitment and retention crisis could be about to get one hell of a lot worse. To coin a phrase, it’s the children who will suffer.

In the face of rocketing inflation and escalating bills, headteachers need budget increases, not cuts. This much is clear to anyone who knows anything about education. But in a strike situation, it doesn’t really matter what the education experts do or don’t know – what matters is where the 7 million parents are on the subject. The 7 million parents who vote in general elections.

This then is the challenge facing unions. This is a battle for hearts and minds; it will be very, very hard to hold the line (or the picket) if the weight of parent opinion is against them. Education ministers – and potentially even the prime minister, if he sniffs blood – will be keen to face the strike down and portray unions as money-grabbing leeches at a time of national crisis.

Of course, there is an ethical argument to be won – that should be won – about school funding, especially after Covid. There is absolutely no way that public investment in the teaching and learning of young people – and their teachers – should be anything other than excellent. This is the case that the unions need to prosecute time and time again.

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They need to be very careful to avoid industrial action being seen, as the government will want, as simply about teachers demanding pay rises. At a time when almost everyone in this country is facing eye-watering real-term pay cuts, this could be, well, awkward.

Also, those in charge of organising the pickets need to avoid being seen to be chuffed that a strike is taking place. Not all unionists are guilty of this, but some can be. This is not the first step in the road to revolution: closing schools must be a step taken more in sorrow than in joy.

For most parents, including this one, the idea of classrooms being closed to their kids, however temporarily, will bring back very painful memories of Covid and the hideousness of lockdown homeschool. This is a sore that Conservatives will want to rub salt in.

To be clear, the propaganda war over any future education industrial action is there to be won. But parents will need to be carried with the teachers and their unions. They cannot be taken for granted.

Ed Dorrell is a director at Public First