BBC News Online: UK

NUT to hold ballot on strike action

Union delegates voted to hold a ballot of members on whether to wage a campaign "up to and including strike action" against mounting paperwork.

Giving his key address, NUT head Doug McAvoy repeated the warnings given by David Blunkett about the damage militants inflict on the image of teachers.

Mr Blunkett told the Blackpool conference on Monday industrial action would hurt children. Mr McAvoy added that it had the potential to destroy the union itself and accused some members of behaving worse than the pupils they taught.

"Time and time again," he said, "those would-be martyrs demanded stike action to bring a government to its knees. Theirs were siren voices: had the union and its members been taken along such a path, it would have been crushed."

Mr McAvoy added: "If we behave in ways we would not accept from our pupils - if we treat others as we would not wish to be treated ourselves - we are telling children this is what being a teacher means. No, it does not."

But he appeared to have been ignored by delegates who believe strike action is the only way of protesting about increasing bureaucracy.

Industrial action by the NUT could include up to two days out of the classroom each week and working a 35-hour week. The proposed action does not include Scotland.

Meanwhile, the government faces another rebuke over paperwork as the second-biggest teaching union opens its conference.

The National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT) conference started in Scarborough on Tuesday.

The union's general secretary, Nigel de Gruchy, said his members would be "sensibly militant", having passed a required ballot for action.

Relevant Stories

Blunkett sells the 'challenge of change' (13 Apr 98 | UK)
Government moves to avert school strife (09 Apr 98 | UK)
Teachers back classroom action (06 Apr 98 | UK)

Internet Links

The Department for Education and Employment
The National Union of Teachers
NASUWT

The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

In this section

Setback for peace deal
Snow follows floods
Old soldiers finally laid to rest
Vauxhall boss gives up £160,000 salary
Sleaze watchdog keeps 'open mind'
Peace deal branded a 'sell-out'
Fears for mothers treated by HIV midwife
Arab League passes on Lockerbie proposal
Record ecstasy seizure at Chunnel
LG says 6,000 jobs safe in Wales (From Business)
MP flies sick Iraqi girl to UK
Peacekeeper 'blinds tourist'
Increase in aircraft near-misses
E-mail move in Woodward appeal (From Special Report)
Squirrels roped into road safety
No World Cup ticket? Come anyway, say French
Drugs czar warns of heroin epidemic
Police complain about children's home alerts
Druids set for Stonehenge solstice
Diana's brother explains burial site
Trapped Down Under

UK Contents

• Politics