William Stewart, the T&A's Education Reporter, examines the difficult decision teachers will have to take in the near future.

IF THE rhetoric from the teaching unions' annual Easter conferences is to be believed, the profession is reaching breaking point.

For the first time since the late Eighties, pupils and schools across the country face the looming prospect of widespread industrial action.

A barrage of new initiatives in education has led to threats on several fronts.

The National Union of Teachers (NUT) is to ballot over a one-day strike on the controversial performance-related pay (PRP) programme. The largest and most militant of the unions, it has also voted to back local industrial action, including strikes, if members are asked to "snoop" on each other over PRP.

The National Association of Schoolmasters and Union of Women Teachers will ballot over a national "work to rule" in protest at escalating paper work. This is in addition to its continuing campaign against the Government's policy of the greater inclusion of disruptive pupils in mainstream schools.

That is the national picture - the situation is even more acute for Bradford schools.

The NUT has voted for local strikes where privatisation, like the scheme proposed for the district, leads to a change in members' pay and conditions.

Not only that, but all the teaching unions have just begun an official dispute with Bradford Council over language support staff who face possible redundancy under the schools re-organisation.

The last national teachers strike over pay was in 1986, followed by walk-outs over the education reforms brought in by the Conservative Government in 1988. The Nineties have been relatively quiet, so why are teachers so angry now?

Bradford NUT secretary Ian Murch said: "It is because they expected a lot from the present Government and they don't think it has delivered.

"They had hoped there would be a period of stability whereas in fact there are more new initiatives under Labour than the Conservatives and many are badly thought through."

But will industrial action actually work against a government determined to raise standards in education by any means necessary? Teachers are already being labelled as whingers and are unlikely to win any battle conducted through the media.

And like nurses or firefighters, any action they take runs the risk of damaging the interests of not only their employers but of large numbers of ordinary people - parents.

Julie Sewell, of Lidget Green, has a 13-year-old daughter at Queensbury School. She disagrees with PRP and thinks it might actually damage children's education.

But she said that although she knew teachers had to make a point, she didn't think industrial action was the answer.

Roz Helstrip of Wrose, who has two children at St Walburga's Catholic Primary School in Shipley, said: "I can sympathise with the teachers, they have got an uphill battle.

"But I don't really think industrial action is the right way to go because the children could suffer."

So what else can they do? Stuart Herdson, joint Bradford secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, recommends negotiation.

His union is opposed to the way PRP has been brought in and his leader Peter Smith has described privatisation proposals in Bradford as political gimmickry. But it has no plans to ballot over industrial action.

"You have to push us a long way before we go down that line," said Mr Herdson. "We are more pragmatic, we would rather talk than jump."

And convenor of Bradford Upper Schools Head Teachers, Richard Moore warns that industrial action could backfire for teachers.

"I think we are still recovering from the industrial action that took place in the Eighties," he said.

"The teachers scored an own goal because they were unable to change the Government's mind. I would be very distressed if we were to go back into that situation."

An education spokesman from Bradford Council said: "We are aware of the issues raised by teachers' unions and these will be discussed within the existing consultation process."

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