I’m a former teacher & going to lose £250 today because of the school strikes – they’re completely wrong
A FORMER teacher and father-of-two is furious at the mass teacher walkout happening today, which will cause chaos for schools and keep millions of children at home.
Paul Long, who now works as an education consultant, says he will be £250 out-of-pocket as he takes a day off work to look after his two primary-school aged kids.
As part of "Walkout Wednesday" - the biggest day of industrial action in a decade - 120,000 teaching staff will go on strike alongside NHS, rail and other service workers.
Teachers across England and Wales that are part of the National Education Union (NEU) will walk out today in a dramatic move which will see 23,000 schools disrupted.
The sudden lack of educators is expected to cause chaos in schools, forcing some to shut and others to adopt sized" classes of 60 pupils to cope with the absent teachers.
Education Secretary Gillian Keegan and union bosses failed to reach a solution in negotiations on Monday.
read more on UK strike action
The NEU are arguing for an above-inflation pay increase for teachers, but ministers argue that this is unaffordable and likely to just deepen inflation. The Department for Education instead is offering a 5 per cent pay rise.
Although Mr Long is sympathetic to the reasons for striking - saying "they have got a genuine cause" - he slams the educators for getting "their audience completely wrong".
The father-of two says: "I will have to not work. I will have to take an unplanned day off work and that means that the money I would've earned on that day won't be made, and that's going to be in the region of about £250.
"But to put this in context that's not £250 that goes into my pocket. From all of that I've got to pay my own holiday pay like any self-employed person does, I have to pay my own sick pay," he says.
Most read in The Sun
Other parents are fuming at the confusion the strike is sowing as some teachers have refused to clarify if they will or won't be striking until the morning of.
"Everybody plans their work time and their childcare around the school dates," explains Mr Long.
"And when we've planned all of that, and then you get a sudden change, then it becomes a problem.
"A school closes for a snow day because it's unsafe, that's fine, we've got to take that on the chin - this is a school closing because a national union has chosen to take a strike, and it's having a big financial impact on us for three Wednesdays."
The strike action is expected to be its most disruptive today as 500,000 workers take part in "Walkout Wednesday" in scenes likened to a general strike.
