Staff at further education colleges in Northern Ireland have voted for strike action over pay, workload and conditions.
The National Association of Schoolmasters and Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT) said 74.3% of members voted in favour of strike action, while 98.6% supported action short of a strike, which “demonstrated deep frustration over the failure to address long-standing concerns”.
NASUWT general secretary Patrick Roach said the result was a clear message to employers and the Department for the Economy.
“Years of pay stagnation, unsustainable workloads, and deteriorating conditions have left staff feeling undervalued and overburdened,” he said.
“The fact that such a significant majority are prepared to take strike action, with near-unanimous support for other forms of industrial action, underscores the urgency of addressing these issues.
“We call on the employers to immediately make a pay offer which addressed the pay differential between college lecturers and school teachers.”
NASUWT national official for Northern Ireland, Justin McCamphill, urged Stormont’s Economy Minister Caoimhe Archibald to step in to address the disparity in pay between teachers in schools and college lecturers.
“Strike action is always a last resort, but unless there is a serious commitment to addressing these concerns, disruption across FE colleges in Northern Ireland will be inevitable,” he said.
“We now have the bizarre situation where teachers employed by schools have received a 5.5% pay increase and commitments on workload, while college lecturers, who in many cases teach the same students in the same buildings, haven’t been offered anything.
“Minister for the Economy, Caoimhe Archibald, must now step in and address this mess ensuring that working in FE will at last be seen as a good job within education.”
