David Cameron will make a last ditch appeal to public sector workers today not to go on strike on Thursday after talks between the coalition government and the unions broke down last night.
The Prime Minister is to address the Local Government Association’s annual conference two days before a walkout of an expected 750,000 teachers, lecturers and civil servants due to an escalating row over plans to force them to retire later and contribute more towards taxpayer-funded pension schemes.
But Cameron will insist that current pension packages are “not fair to the taxpayer” and the “situation is unsustainable”, which means that public servants must accept change.
The strike will involve members of two teaching unions, the National Union of Teachers and the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, as well as the Public and Commercial Services Union. Talks with ministers broke down last night as government spokespeople spoke to the Daily Telegraph about growing fears that some union leaders were “hell-bent” on holding “crippling” strikes.
But Mark Serwotka, the PCSU’s general secretary, described the meeting as “a farce” and said that the government had shown no interest in negotiating seriously on the dispute’s “key principles”.
Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude and Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander later issued a statement calling on workers not to strike while talks were ongoing as both sides had a responsibility to see them through.
“Public service pensions will still be among the very best, with a guaranteed pension which very few private sector staff now enjoy. We can assure the public now that we have rigorous contingency plans in place to ensure that their essential services are maintained during the strike action on Thursday,” they added.
But it appeared that both sides in the teaching dispute were also indulging in bullying tactics to try and sway the situation in their favour. Last week, Education Secretary Michael Gove wrote to school heads and governors telling them that it was their “moral duty” to break the strike, while at the weekend he told parents that they could volunteer to help keep schools open.
The NUT, meanwhile, distributed guidance to 21,000 head teachers earlier this month, warning that they could be in breach of employment regulations by attempting to keep schools open and so should undertake a risk assessment to ensure that lunch breaks could be suitably supervised and all lessons covered.
