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NEWS • VIEWS • INFORMATION • ADVICE


Access to justice under threat

Rogue employers must not get away with breaking the law, the NASUWT has warned, as the Coalition Government prepares to launch a major review of Employment Tribunals.

The Coalition is reviewing the Employment Tribunal system and, given its worrying ethos on other workforce issues such as health and safety, the NASUWT is concerned that the employers lobby will be taken more seriously than the need to provide adequate protection for employees who have been wronged in the workplace.

Employer groups have been calling for an increase in the qualifying period for workers claiming unfair dismissal and the introduction of a £500 upfront fee for workers bringing a case against their employer. The NASUWT believes that the introduction of such measures would create major barriers for workers challenging their employers and seeking justice.

Employers claim that the current Employment Tribunal system is too costly and encourages too many vexatious or malicious claims. However, the facts do not bear this out. The majority of the Employment Tribunals heard last year were for multiple claims of equal pay or working time. The number of individual claims rose just 14% on the previous year. Tribunals also already have the power to strike out claims they see as vexatious.

The NASUWT believes that equal recourse to a fair, transparent and effective Employment Tribunal service is an important part of workers’ rights and diluting the regulations could irreversibly damage the careers and employment prospects of many workers.

Go online: www.nasuwt.org.uk/EmploymentRelatedCasework


Royal wedding

The Department for Education (DfE) has confirmed that schools will be able to close on 29 April, which has been declared a bank holiday for the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton. Schools that are already scheduled to be closed on that day for Easter holidays or teacher training are entitled to have an alternative day off at another time of year.

The DfE is making the necessary changes to the teachers’ contract to enable the extra holiday and has confirmed that the pay of school staff will not be affected. Primary schools are already scheduled to have an extra training day during the academic year 2010/11 and these arrangements will remain unchanged. It is expected that the devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will make similar arrangements.

The NASUWT is seeking confirmation from the respective Governments on this.


Overwhelming call to axe GTCW

Teachers have endorsed overwhelmingly a call from the NASUWT for the General Teaching Council for Wales (GTCW) to be abolished.

The NASUWT invited members in Wales to vote whether they believed the GTCW should be disbanded.

Members were asked to text ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to a vote line and 90% of the votes supported the Union’s belief that the GTCW is unfit for purpose and should be scrapped.

The NASUWT was branded as being ‘out on a limb’ by the Welsh Assembly Government (WAG) when it staged a recent protest outside birthday celebrations to mark a decade of the GTCW last autumn.

Other teaching unions in Wales have also spoken out against the NASUWT’s belief that the GTCW should be axed, but the resounding response from teachers demonstrates that the Union’s call is in keeping with the wishes of the profession.

The NASUWT believes that the activities of the GTCW add little to the status of the profession and that teachers are being forced to fund a redundant organisation that should be scrapped.

The need for the GTCW has been further called into question by the introduction of an ‘insidious’ code of conduct for teachers and headteachers.

The code does nothing to raise the status and reputation of the profession and instead seeks only to police the professional and private lives of teachers.

The NASUWT will be presenting the results of the vote to the WAG as part of its ongoing campaign for the GTCW to be disbanded.

Go online: www.nasuwt.org.uk/GTCW