Northern Ireland's largest teaching union has voted to join colleagues in a campaign of industrial action over pay.
More than 79% of members of the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers who voted said they were in favour of strike action and 93.7% were in favour of action short of a strike. More than 10,200 members were balloted and there was a 45% turnout.
Teachers in the province claim that up to 14,000 senior colleagues have been left out of pocket by more than £1,000 - and worse off than their counterparts in England and Wales - because of delays in implementing promised pay increases.
Pay rises were due in September 2002, but failed to materialise until a year later. Teachers were then told the increases would not be backdated.
NASUWT members have voted not to provide cover for colleagues from March 15. The union has also made it clear that strike action could follow if negotiations were not forthcoming.
The Irish National Teachers Organisation, the Association of Teachers and Lecturers and the Ulster Teachers' Union began a campaign of mainly administrative classroom disruption in January, supported by the Ulster Unionist Party, the Social Democratic and Labour Party and Sinn Fein. Eamonn O'Kane, the NASUWT's general secretary, said the ballot result was evidence of the anger and frustration felt by members over the issue of pay parity. But he added that the union was still willing to negotiate through Northern Ireland's conciliation service, the Labour Relations Agency (LRA).
"NASUWT has sought to date to avoid taking any action which could impact on pupils, but we have been left with no choice," he said.
"We remain willing to enter into serious talks with the employing authorities to seek to resolve this issue.
"Whilst there have already been discussions through the LRA, these have been largely unproductive due to the employing authorities' apparent lack of determination to address seriously our concerns."
He added: "I sincerely hope that this action can be avoided but the employing authorities should be in no doubt about the determination of NASUWT members to support this action and strike action should that be necessary."
Talks between teaching unions and the Department of Education broke down in January.
The unions claimed the teachers' negotiating committee - made up of DoE officials and union members - rejected their offers of arbitration. The DoE, however, accused the unions of dragging their feet over negotiations.
Following an inquiry and protracted talks between the two parties, a deal, which did not link pay to pupils' exam results, was finally struck in 2001.
