NUTs

Top nomination for Britain's scariest trade union has to be the NUT. Annually they get together and enjoy a giant petulant whinge, blaming the ills of the educational world on everyone but their members. We watch grown men and women stand up and shout obscenities at invited speakers to their conference and shudder at the thought that these are the same people entrusted with preparing our young for adult life.

Now 48,217 of these fine individuals have voted for a one-day strike over pay on April 24th.

They demanded a 10% pay increase in a year when police and nurses are making do with 1.9%. Their latest manifesto, published in December 2007, additionally calls for "£1,200 for every teacher to be spent on training of their choice and guaranteed one-term sabbaticals for all teachers, every seven years, to conduct research on effective teaching".

Strike threats are nothing new - though the real thing hasn't happened since the 1980s - in 2002 and 2003 the union, during a public spending splurge unprecedented in British history, decided it was a good time to front up to the government.

So, as the nation tightens it belt, how poor are teachers? In 1997 a graduate entering the profession could expect to start on £14,280 - now that figure is £20,600 outside London rising to £25,000 in central London. Since 2002, the pay structure is narrower - a change even the NUT welcomed - so teachers can see their salaries increase faster. And then there is performance-related pay, which is predictably opposed by our friend, Europe's largest teaching union. These are, no doubt, some of the reasons that other teaching unions have welcomed the pay deal: the NASUWT, Association of Teachers and Lecturers and the Association of School and College Leaders.

Teaching is a difficult and important job. Given that British people report thinking education is a top priority, it seems sensible to back that up with incentives for bright people to get into the profession. But the NUT is being unreasonable. I'd like to argue that the strike will damage children; but a day without the creative input of a money-grabbing NUT member is unlikely to scar anyone.