LONDON - Hundred of thousands of teachers and education staff across the United Kingdom will vote later this month on whether to carry out strike action in search of higher pay and more funding, education unions announced on Tuesday.

Britain’s government faces a series of votes from public sector workers, including nurses and junior doctors from the state-funded health service, on whether to strike over pay and working conditions.

That comes after widespread strikes already this year on the transport network and across a range of other sectors, from refuse collection to barristers, as soaring inflation squeezes workers’ pay packets.

Teachers and members of the NASUWT union and the National Education Union (NEU) said ballots would open on Oct 27 and 28 respectively and close in January.

NASUWT said it wanted a 12 per cent pay award. Members of NAHT, which represents school leaders will also begin a formal ballot on industrial action in England and Wales, the union’s general secretary Paul Whiteman.

“It is almost unprecedented for the relentlessly reasonable professionals I know our members to be, but we have no choice but to move to a formal industrial action ballot,” Mr Whiteman said at the Trade Union Congress (TUC) Conference on Tuesday.

The threat of industrial actions comes as the government is about to embark on a programme of “eye-watering” public spending cuts to balance its books after committing billions to support Britons facing a huge rise in energy costs.

The NEU has 450,000 members in England, Wales and Northern Ireland and said they would carry out national ballots of around 300,000 teachers and support staff members in England and Wales.

“The Government’s refusal to fully fund the meagre pay rise for 2022/23 is the final insult,” the joint general secretaries of the NEU Kevin Courtney and Dr Mary Bousted said in a statement. REUTERS