Teacher pay deal does not waive right to strike - union leader

A pay offer made to teachers does not include a commitment to waive their right to strike in the future, the head of one of Northern Ireland's main teaching unions has said.

Graham Gault, the national secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT), said no trade union would ever give up "its sovereign and constitutional right to take industrial action".

Teachers in Northern Ireland have been offered a 5.5% pay rise, backdated to September 2024.

The offer, which is being considered by union members, also asks them to agree that "industrial action should only be taken as a last resort in any dispute".

However, Mr Gault said that accepting the offer does not rule out future strikes.

He told Good Morning Ulster there had been "a lot of misinformation on social media" about that aspect of the deal and he wanted members to "vote on the basis of truth instead of hysteria".

Mr Gault said the offer is asking unions to "sign up to work collectively along with each other, the employing authorities and the department to create conditions in which industrial action isn't required".

"The deal actually ties the department and the employing authorities into delivering improvements for the workforce, these are commitments that they've made that lie behind this deal.

"And should those conditions for the work force not continue to improve and programme of work not be delivered, actually there's every possibility that there could be a dispute."

The pay offer came after members of three of Northern Ireland's teaching unions voted overwhelmingly for a strike last month.

Teachers in England received a 5.5% pay rise offer last year.

The teaching employers, which include the Department of Education, Education Authority and the Council for Catholic Maintained Schools (CCMS), said the offer had been made "notwithstanding the unprecedented financial challenges faced by the education system in Northern Ireland".

"We firmly believe that this formal offer provides a significant and fair pay increase for our teaching staff and will positively impact teachers' workload concerns," their letter to the unions said.

In December, the Education Minister Paul Givan said that giving teachers in Northern Ireland the 13.5% pay rise unions had asked for was "simply impossible".

BBC News NI understands the unions are likely to have recommended members accept the deal, although Mr Gault said the NAHT have made no recommendation either way to its members.

He said all the unions are running consultations and surveys, and that members could find out the outcome of those on Thursday.

He did not indicate whether he would would back the deal, but said that if it does go forward "we expect money to be in teacher's bank accounts by the end of the financial year".