Category Archives: Pay

Give teachers in England a deal similar to nurses to avoid strikes, says union

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Dr Patrick Roach of NASUWT calls on education secretary Gillian Keegan to reopen pay talks

Ministers could avoid teachers’ strikes in England this summer if they make an improved pay offer as good as that made to NHS nurses, the leader of one teaching union has proposed.

Dr Patrick Roach, the general secretary of the NASUWT union, called on the education secretary, Gillian Keegan, to reopen talks to allow pay negotiations to continue, saying strikes were “not inevitable” if a better deal could be reached.

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Government treating teachers in England with contempt over pay offer, says union

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NASUWT general secretary said ministers ‘not serious about compromising’ in last month’s talks


Ministers are treating teachers in England with contempt if they refuse to renegotiate their “miserable” pay offer, according to a teaching union leader who fears the government wants to “walk away” after only six days of talks.

Patrick Roach, the general secretary of the NASUWT teaching union, said the government insisted on using forecasts of very low inflation next year to justify its pay offer and was “not serious about compromising” during negotiations last month.

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FTSE 100 bosses paid more in three days than average UK worker for whole year

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CEOs pass milestone nine working hours earlier than last year, with pay up 39% on January 2022

The bosses of Britain’s biggest companies will have made more money in 2023 by Thursday afternoon than the average UK worker will earn in the entire year, according to analysis of vast pay gaps amid strike action and the cost of living crisis.

The High Pay Centre, a thinktank that campaigns for fairer pay for workers, said that by 2pm on the third working day of the year, a FTSE 100 chief executive will have been paid more on an hourly basis than a UK worker’s annual salary, based on median average remuneration figures for both groups.

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Zero-hours contracts among over-50s hit highest level recorded

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According to ONS data, there are now nearly 300,000 people aged 50 or over in insecure employment

Zero-hours contracts among the over-50s have reached their highest level since records began, according to new analysis of official government statistics.

There are nearly 300,000 people aged 50 and older with zero-hours contracts, the highest number for this age group since records began in 2013 and almost double the number 10 years ago, from 149,000 in October to December 2013 to 296,000 in July to September 2022.

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UK workers face return to 2006 real-term wages in ‘highly challenging’ 2023

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PwC predicts increase in divorces, slide in house prices and drop in happiness index

British wages next year will fall back to 2006 levels, while 2023 will also bring a slide in house prices and an increase in divorces, according to a forecast that finds the UK is on course to be a less happy place to live.

The consultancy firm PwC said a look ahead to 2023 showed there were few positive indicators, with most measures of the UK’s economic and social performance going into reverse.

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Is the UK really facing a second winter of discontent?

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Comparisons with 1979 are misleading – strikes over pay now are smaller in scale and focus, and stoked by inflation

Britain is facing a winter of strikes, as industrial action on the railways spreads to the health service and other key sectors of the economy. Such is the wave of discontent that more than 1m working days could be lost to disputes in December, the most since 1989, during Margaret Thatcher’s final years in power.

With inflation at the highest rate in 41 years amid the cost of living crisis, it’s not difficult to see why workers are pushing for better pay. Coming after the worst decade for average wage growth since the Napoleonic wars, including deep real-terms pay cuts for many in the public sector, it’s even less surprising still.

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Women £570 a year worse off after 12 years of Conservatives, says Labour

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Analysis of ONS figures suggests average woman’s salary has fallen from £30,250 in 2010 to £29,680 today

Women are £570 a year worse off than they were before the Conservatives came into power 12 years ago and the autumn statement will leave them even worse off, Labour has claimed.

Citing analysis of ONS figures, Labour said that in real terms, the median full-time female worker’s salary has fallen from the equivalent of £30,250 in April 2010 to £29,680.

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CBI urges Jeremy Hunt to relax immigration rules to ease UK staff shortages

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Lobby group says failure to tackle workforce shortages would be highly damaging for the economy

Britain’s foremost business lobby group has urged Jeremy Hunt to use this week’s autumn statement to shake up immigration rules to support companies struggling with chronic staff shortages and a looming recession.

The head of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) said urgent action was required from the chancellor on Thursday to bolster the economy, including “tough political choices” to allow more overseas workers in Britain as employers struggle with a desperate lack of staff.

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Minority ethnic Britons’ educational success not reflected in pay, study finds

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‘Clear evidence’ of discrimination in terms of salary and careers despite academic progress, IFS study finds

Most minority ethnic groups in the UK have made remarkable progress in educational achievement but “clear evidence” of discrimination remains in their pay and careers, according to a study published by the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

The IFS report found that most of the largest minority ethnic groups obtain English and maths exam results at least as good or better than those achieved by white British students in England, and are more likely than white teenagers to go on to university.

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Teaching assistants quitting schools for supermarkets because of ‘joke’ wages

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Headteachers fear impact on children of unfilled vacancies as support staff say rising bills force them to leave jobs in education

Headteachers across the country say they cannot fill vital teaching assistant vacancies and that support staff are taking second jobs in supermarkets to survive because their wages are “just a joke”.

Schools are reporting that increasing numbers of teaching assistants are leaving because they will not be able to pay for high energy bills and afford food this winter. And with job ads often attracting no applications at all, heads fear they will be impossible to replace. They warn this will have a serious impact on children in the classroom, especially those with special educational needs, and will make it increasingly hard for teachers to focus on teaching.

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UK drivers for Bolt ride-hailing app pursue worker benefits claim

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Lawyers acting for more than 1,600 drivers say they have been wrongly classed as self-employed

More than 1,600 UK drivers working for the ride-hailing app Bolt are seeking compensation for missed holiday and minimum wage payments as they argue they have been wrongly classed as self-employed contractors.

Lawyers for the drivers have written to the government-backed workplace conciliation service Acas, in the first stage of lodging the claim against Bolt.

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City sceptical about benefits of scrapping cap on banker bonuses

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Sources at largest banks say the did not lobby for move nor expect it to result in major changes to pay packets

When City of London executives were summoned to No 11 Downing Street earlier this month, they were promised reforms that would boost growth, attract talented bankers and usher a new era of prosperity for financial services.

But what the chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, failed to mention to bank bosses was that their pay would become a lightning rod for controversy in the mini-budget that followed.

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Unions threaten ‘waves of industrial action’ over UK cost of living crisis

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Move could see synchronised strikes in autumn as new prime minister takes office

Britain is facing a wave of coordinated industrial action by striking unions this autumn in protest at the escalating cost of living crisis, the Observer can reveal.

A series of motions tabled by the country’s biggest unions ahead of the TUC congress next month demand that they work closely together to maximise their impact and “win” the fight for inflation-related pay rises.

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TUC picks opportune moment to call for rise in minimum wage

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Analysis: £15 an hour is ‘logical next step’ amid cost of living crisis but neither Labour or Tories likely to back campaign

• Minimum wage should be increased to £15 an hour as soon as possible, says TUC

The TUC has chosen its moment well. With Britain gripped by a cost of living crisis, the umbrella body for trade unions has called for the minimum wage to be raised from £9.50 to £15 an hour as soon as possible, and by 2030 at the latest.

It is an ambitious target, as the TUC openly accepts. The minimum wage is now 64% of median earnings. A £15-an-hour minimum wage by 2030 would be 75% of median earnings, the highest of any of the 38 members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development group of rich countries.

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Labour sets out plan to link minimum wage to cost of living

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Exclusive: Earnings of lowest paid could rise by £832; lower rates for 18- to 22-year-olds to be scrapped

Labour has drawn up plans to put hundreds of pounds into the pockets of the lowest paid by instructing the Low Pay Commission to factor in living costs when it sets the minimum wage.

They also want to scrap the lower pay categories for workers aged between 18 and 22, so they would all be paid at the higher rate.

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Teacher sick days soar as poor conditions take toll on mental health

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Increased workloads, class sizes, low pay and Covid legacy are leading to more absences and an exodus of staff

Teachers have spent at least 1.5 million days off work owing to stress and mental health issues, new figures have revealed, amid continued concerns over the increasing pressures they are facing in the classroom.

With long-running concerns about workloads and growing class sizes, new data seen by the Observer suggests that the number of days lost to mental health issues in some council-controlled schools in England and Wales has increased by 7% from the previous year. It is also up by almost a fifth compared to three years ago.

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Number of people in UK with insecure jobs rises to 3.7 million, TUC report says

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Union organisation criticises Tory ‘litany of failures on workers’ rights’ five years on from Taylor review

The Trades Union Congress has criticised the Conservative party for “a litany of failures on workers’ rights” as it published analysis showing a rise in insecure jobs in the five years since the government pledged to make work in the UK fairer.

At least 3.7 million people in Britain are in insecure jobs, up from 3.6m in 2021, out of a total workforce of 34 million, according to analysis of government data by the TUC. That compares to 3.2 million in late 2016, before the publication of the Taylor review, a landmark government-backed report on work in the UK.

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Cancer spending threatened if NHS staff given 3% pay rise without extra funds

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NHS England says Treasury must cover cost as health service faces first real-terms cut in funding ‘since possibly the mid-1950s’

The NHS will have to cut investment in cancer care if ministers award frontline staff a pay rise above 3% but refuse to provide extra money to cover it, health service bosses have warned.

The NHS England chief executive, Amanda Pritchard, and Julian Kelly, its chief financial officer, made clear their belief that soaring inflation means the service’s 1.3 million staff deserve a pay award of more than the 3% the government has already given the organisation funding to cover.

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Thousands march in London over cost of living crisis

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Demonstration organised by TUC calls on government to make ‘better deal’ for people struggling to cope with soaring inflation

Thousands of people have gathered in London to protest against the government’s lack of action in tackling the cost of living crisis.

Protesters marched from Portland Place to Parliament Square for a rally with speakers including Frances O’Grady, the general secretary of the TUC, which organised the event.

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UK pay falls at fastest rate for more than a decade

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Inflation and soaring energy bills cause squeeze on living standards, as unemployment rises slightly

Average wages in the UK are falling at the fastest rate for more than a decade as annual pay growth fails to keep pace with the rising cost of living.

The Office for National Statistics said annual growth in regular pay, excluding bonuses, fell by 2.2% in the three months to April after adjusting for its preferred measure of inflation – the biggest fall since November 2011.

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