An April 20 tweet by Dr. Kait Clark, a cognitive neuroscientist and senior lecturer, confirmed that fully 22 institutions said they would dock 100 percent of staff pay. Another 24 universities threated to slash between 20 and 80 percent of pay.
As teachers across the country are fighting back against deteriorating conditions in public schools, the union’s are seeking to channel discontent into dead end appeals to the same politicians cutting school budgets.
Although there is no agreement on ballots and unified strike action across the education sector, all the unions are agreed that the threat of strike action will be suspended at the drop of a hat if the Education Secretary Gillian Keegan agrees to further negotiations.
Both the education unions and the government knew full well that educators would reject the pay offer and have used the “talks” to diffuse anger and opposition through political theatre and posturing, with the unions now calling for “fresh talks”.