When teachers strike...
When teachers (or support staff) strike, what happens in the classroom? Should supply staff be allowed to cover for striking staff?
If you are a teacher or school manager you may not know this, but the recruitment industry is governed by a set of laws called:-
“The Conduct of Employment Agencies (act 1973) and Employment Businesses Regulations (2003)”
These regulations cover supply teaching agencies as well as all other recruitment agencies and businesses. Currently when industrial action takes place schools may be forced to close, children stay at home and parents work affected. This is partly because nobody wants to be singled out as working during a strike, but another reason is that Regulation 7 of the aforementioned regulations prohibits an employment business form supplying a person to cover the duties of a person who is engaged in official strike action.
Restriction on providing work-seekers in industrial disputes
7. —(1) Subject to paragraph (2) an employment business shall not introduce or supply a work-seeker to a hirer to perform—
(a)the duties normally performed by a worker who is taking part in a strike or other industrial action (“the first worker”), or
(b)the duties normally performed by any other worker employed by the hirer and who is assigned by the hirer to perform the duties normally performed by the first worker unless in either case the employment business does not know, and has no reasonable grounds for knowing, that the first worker is taking part in a strike or other industrial action.
(2) Paragraph (1) shall not apply if, in relation to the first worker, the strike or other industrial action in question is an unofficial strike or other unofficial industrial action for the purposes of section 237 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992(1).
In July 2015 the UK government announced a consultation on their plan to remove regulation 7 from the conduct regulations.This would mean that when a small number of teachers strike from one Union, a school could potentially stay open and use supply teachers to cover the striking staff.
The positive side would be that children’s education and parents work patterns would be able to continue without major disruption, and a strike could still go ahead to demonstrate the will of the group and a show of solidarity, However, a large scale strike would usually be supported by supply teachers, and as such finding someone to work would be somewhat challenging. The practical application of any change to this law and its impact will most likely be at best limited and otherwise generally unsuccessful.
Don’t be misled that this is all about teachers though. This law covers all sectors including public services. Imagine the use of temporary staff to cover essential services such as transport, traffic management, 999 civilian services, and others such as job centre, benefits management and council services. For society in the main, some of these could be positive outcomes from the change but I suspect they would still suffer the same challenge of finding people willing to defy the industrial action.
Read the consultation brief here The consultation closes on 9th September 2015. The assessment is not just about continuation of services but reducing the economic impact of strikes.
Please add comments on your thoughts:-
- Would you expect a striking worker to be covered by a temporary?
- Would you cover a striking worker?
- Should schools be forced to close in order to make action effective?
- Did you know about this consultation?
- Were you aware of the regulations?
