Teachers vote to strike if government presses ahead with plans for local pay Michael Gove has asked the teachers' pay body to look at making pay more 'market-facing'. The National Union of Teachers has resolved to strike in defence of national pay and conditions if the government goes ahead with plans to introduce local pay. The education secretary, Michael Gove, has asked the School Teachers' Review Body - which deals with pay and conditions - to look at the possibilities for making pay more "market-facing" and how to "strengthen the link" between pay and performance. The NUT unanimously backed a motion at its annual conference in Torquay to ballot for a national strike if the government goes ahead with the plans for further "pay flexibility," which come on the back of a two-year pay freeze and pay rises capped at 1% for a further two years, and which the union says is a further step towards the fragmentation and privatisation of state education. Anger at a phalanx of government policies which members see as a wholesale attack on public services and the profession led to one delegate calling for the union to mobilise to help topple the "dictatorial" government before 2015. Delegates vowed to act to defend national pay and conditions, arguing that teaching is a national service locally delivered and national rates should be maintained. Eddie Ritson, a member of the union executive, said career progression should be based on "entitlement," with a pay system offering progression at all stages of a teacher's career. Gawain Little, from Oxfordshire, said moves towards localised pay were "inextricably linked" to the "assault on our pensions, the aggressive promotion of academies and free schools, and the dismantling of local authorities," driven by a desire to make it easier for the private sector to deliver education services. The NUT is opposed to academies and free schools, which have greater freedom to change teachers' pay and conditions and are accountable to the education secretary rather than their local authority. He cited Danny Alexander, the chief secretary to the Treasury, who said the aim of the pension reforms was "to make the new pensions substantially more affordable to alternative providers." Little said: "This government has a strategy to drive down pay, undermine our terms and conditions and to break up our education system. We need a strategy to defend our members and the generations of children who will pass through our schools. The NUT also unanimously backed an amendment calling for the union to build campaigning alliances at local level with other unions and anti-cuts groups. Tony Dowling, from Gateshead, told delegates the country was living under "an unelected dictatorship of the Tory government" with Gove given "carte blanche to do what he likes." He said: "We can't wait until 2015 to get rid of this government. By then education, the NHS and many other services that we cherish will be destroyed. He cited the uprising in Egypt last year, which toppled the government through mass resistance, adding: "I think those are the lessons we need to look to." He said: "We need a national strike of the union, of our union and other teaching unions and the trade union movement in general to force back this regional pay and to make sure we don't have to put up with this dictatorial government any longer." Speaking after the debate, the NUT general secretary, Christine Blower, said: "The NUT is completely opposed to the government's plan to attack national pay and conditions arrangements for teachers. Our headteacher members are only too well aware of how difficult it would be to establish their own pay system for their school. Not only would it take an inordinate amount of time, local pay bargaining in some 25,000 separate schools would create unnecessary bureaucracy, complexity, cost and potential inequity. Depressing public sector pay in areas where there is generally lower pay would only serve to further depress local economies. Cutting the real and relative value of teachers' pay will make teaching as a career much less attractive. It will certainly also inhibit the movement of teachers around the country. The NUT will seek to work alongside other teacher unions to defend teachers against any proposals to attack national terms and conditions. A Department for Education spokesman said of plans for local pay: "We're approaching this in an open-minded way and are well off putting forward any concrete proposals. It's a bit overblown to threaten 'mass resistance' when no union knows what it is actually resisting. The national pay scales remain in place. We've asked the independent expert pay review body to look at all the evidence for and against making pay better reflect local job markets - as the private sector does. We will look very carefully at what it reports to us in the autumn and consult with the profession in detail. Strike action is also being threatened by the NASUWT teaching union after delegates voted to step up their campaign against "concerted and ideologically driven attacks" on pensions, pay and workload issues, as well as concerns over what they see as a serious threat to state schools from privatisation and "predatory interests." The motion, passed by the NASUWT on Saturday at its annual conference in Birmingham, stated that in the face of a "vicious and unjustified assault on teachers, it will be essential to intensify the industrial action campaign."