Ahead of the series of teachers’ unions’ conferences which will take place over the Easter period, the Guardian has this week reported on the series of differences between the unions and the Coalition Government. A number of issues divide the two, not least the impact of pensions reform (of which more above). Hostility between Government (of whatever stripe) and the unions is nothing new however and all three major unions note that this Government’s Ministers are at least prepared to listen: Christine Blower of the National Union of Teachers (NUT) calls Secretary of State Michael Gove “courteous” and Mary Boustead of the ATL calls the current crop of education Ministers “charming and polite”.
All union leaders complain however that this makes absolutely no difference. Ministers “just carry on” with their plans, Dr Boustead says, whatever the unions say. There is contention on issues such as reform of the national curriculum, free schools and, the biggest issue of contention of all, on academies.
As Lord Hill, the Minister responsible for academies, said in a letter to the unions, the Government considers “the ability to set the pay and conditions of staff to be one of the key freedoms of academy status”. This drew an angry response from Christine Keates of the NASUWT union, who warned if schools failed to consult unions about academy plans then they faced possible legal action.
Together with this threat of legal action, some unions are threatening, explicitly and implicitly, industrial action over the Government’s education policies (as demonstrated over pensions). In particular, Ms Blower from NUT, the biggest teachers’ union, warns that academy plans may bring teachers out on strike.
The Guardian’s article, essentially a “state of the unions” survey before the conferences take place, reveals three unhappy organisations, with polite but distant relations with Ministers from a Government that many of them would not have voted for. The twin threats of legal action and industry action are on the horizon and hostility towards Government policies, particularly towards academies, will surely not lessen.