Teachers to be balloted over strike

By Andrew Hough

LONDON (Reuters) - Teachers are to be balloted on a strike over pay, their union said on Friday, a move that could result in the first national walkout by teachers in two decades.

The National Union of Teachers' decision to threaten strike action, set for late April, dramatically escalates their pay row with the government and creates another industrial headache for Prime Minister Gordon Brown in a week when more than 20,000 police officers took to the streets of London to protest pay.

The NUT confirmed that if taken, it would be the first national walkout in 20 years.

The government said if such a move were taken it would be an unnecessary disruption of children's learning.

The NUT's proposal, which will be put to teachers late next month, came after a three-year pay deal was announced by the government last week and rejected by the union.

The schools secretary, Ed Balls, said teachers salaries would rise by 2.45 percent from September 2008 and by 2.3 percent from September 2009 and 2010.

The 2.45 percent rise is higher than government's targeted Consumer Prices Index inflation rate of about 2 percent, although it is lower than the Retail Price Index -- at present 4 percent -- on which most private sector pay deals are based.

The threat of strike action is another blow to Brown, already reeling from a bitter pay row with police and after MPs accepted a below-inflation pay rise.