Ministers and unions dig in amid widespread strike action across UK

Unions and the government appeared as far apart as ever, after Wednesday’s widespread strike action closed thousands of schools across England and Wales.

Striking workers from participating unions held rallies in cities including Bristol, Brighton, Birmingham and London, as teachers, university staff, rail workers and civil servants stopped work to demand better pay.

When Rishi Sunak was asked whether he would negotiate with public sector workers, the prime minister instead called on Labour to condemn the teachers’ strikes as “wrong”, and told MPs that children “deserve to be in school today, being taught”.

A survey of 948 schools by the Association of School and College Leaders, which represents headteachers, found that 97% of them had at least some teachers on strike.

Of schools affected by industrial action, only 11% had been able to remain fully open, while 80% were partially closed, and 9% shut altogether.

Polling by Savanta suggested 58% of parents supported the teachers’ strike, despite having to cope with schools closures. Across the population as a whole, 50% backed the teachers.

Chris Hopkins, Savanta’s political research director, said: “The government’s strategy on the strikes has very much been to hope that the greater the disruption, the higher the opposition, but so far that hasn’t been the case.”

The leaders of the National Education Union (NEU), Mary Bousted and Kevin Courtney, described Wednesday’s strike as “a huge statement from a determined membership who smashed through the government’s thresholds that were only ever designed to prevent strike action happening at all”.

They urged the education secretary, Gillian Keegan, to “step up with concrete and meaningful proposals”, in time to halt their next planned strike action on 28 February.

The focus will swing back to the NHS next week, with an extraordinary four days of industrial action, kicking off with simultaneous strikes by nurses and ambulance workers on Monday.

Health unions are deeply frustrated by what they see as the unwillingness of ministers to enter into serious discussions.

A government source sought to blame the unions for the standoff, saying “they need to come to the table with something that is realistic”, and insisting ministers and officials were ready to talk.

But the health unions say it is the government that needs to make a fresh offer – specifically, on pay – and that no meetings are scheduled.

Sunak struck a tough line on the school strikes at prime minister’s questions on Wednesday.

“When it comes to teachers, we’ve actually given teachers the highest pay rise in 30 years, that includes a 9% pay rise for newly qualified teachers and record investment in their training and development,” he said.

“I am clear that our children’s education is precious, and they deserve to be in school today being taught.” Responding to a question from the City of Durham MP, Mary Kelly Foy, he said her party “would do well to say that the strikes are wrong and we should be backing our schoolchildren”.

With inflation in double digits, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) thinktank calculated recently that most teachers would get a 5% real-terms cut in their pay this year, with more experienced members of the profession losing out by as much as 13% since 2010.

Earlier, Keegan said she expected “the majority” of schools to remain open. “Some will open with restrictions, some will open to everyone. But we’re very disappointed that any are closing,” she said.

Rail unions the RMT and Aslef held the first of two days of strike action on Wednesday, causing widespread disruption to train travel.

The RMT general secretary, Mick Lynch, told a rally in London: “We are the working class, and we are back. We are here, we are demanding change, we refuse to be bought, and we are going to win for our people on our terms.”

Downing Street’s public stance remained unchanged by Wednesday’s strikes, with Sunak’s official spokesperson offering no new initiatives to unblock a process some in Westminster fear is at an impasse.

“We want to have further talks with the unions,” the spokesperson said. “Some of these discussions have been constructive. We have to balance that against the need to be fair to all taxpayers, the majority of whom don’t work for the public sector.”

Two days after the Commons passed the government’s controversial bill to clamp down on public sector strikes, the spokesperson said it was possible other rules could be toughened to force striking teachers to give formal notice of their plans to school heads.

“In terms of the parliament and legislation we are retaining the ability to apply that to education,” he said. “That’s not the step we’re taking in the first instance. Obviously we need to keep that under review.”