The NUT remains fundamentally opposed to these plans becausethey link pay, promotion, dismissal and disciplinary procedureswith the achievement of the objectives that you will be set. Actionis still under consideration at national level to protect youfrom such use of these procedures.
In the meantime we want to support you in ensuring that unfairand unreasonable procedures are not introduced in your schoolor service.
NUT Representatives have been sent two substantial documents by the National Union to help in this process. We will be sending out some more specific local guidance shortly.
The Government requires that schools “involve all teachingstaff in developing the policy”, so you must be consultedupon it in the coming weeks.
We are arranging a training session for NUT Reps in the nearfuture, but if you need any immediate assistance, please contactthe NUT Office.
“It’s a surprising city”, say the Tourist Informationposters.
Lately, the surprises for Council employees tend to be nastyones. New readers may not know, and old readers may have donetheir best to forget, that Estelle Morris and the DfEE are nowrunning Bradford Education, and that their intention is that allof it except schools should be privatised as quickly and as comprehensivelyas possible. It seems that Conservatives, Liberal Democrats andLabour now fall over each other in the rush to applaud the acceleratingpace of these developments.
A DfEE team comes to Bradford every week, and oversees thedrawing up of an “Output Specification” for this newprivately-delivered service. We saw the first draft in July andput forward some proposed amendments. Every one has been ignored.These were not trivial issues. Some basic bread and butter thingswe asked for (not currently in the specification) were:
DfEE representatives told us that these would be matters forthe new private contractor, and that the DfEE’s interestwas only to see that legal minimum requirements were compliedwith. This is a very serious situation. No contractor will doanything that costs money unless it is specified in the contract.Doing all of the above costs a small but significant amount ofmoney.
A few rogue headteachers who believe that their freedom ofaction is unnecessarily inhibited by the existence of protectiveagreements for staff on things such as redeployment, retrainingand redundancy, and who resent having to deal with union representatives,are currently being allowed to wag the dog.
We are working hard to change this situation. We believe thatthere is a legal requirement to retain our current arrangements.
Other issues we are working on include the possible threatto pension arrangements for centrally employed staff.
Bit by bit, without proper consultation and legislation, withoutany real evidence of the benefit of doing so, the present Governmentis going well beyond its predecessor in privatising public services.
Locally, the NUT has decided to join UNISON in launching aCampaign Against Privatisation. The inaugural meeting of thiscampaign will be at
Priestley Centre for the Arts, Chapel Street,Little Germany, Bradford at 7:30pm on Thursday 5th October.If you believe that public services should be protected, nowis the time to take a stand. Please come to the meeting.
It's a familiar feeling at the end of July, but at the time of writingit was happening to teachers in a more literal way in September.
If fuel shortages are still affecting you when you receivethis newsletter, this is the NUT's advice:
Teachers’ conditions of service provide that you mustbe “available for work.” You have made yourself availablefor work if:
If you have made these reasonable efforts, you must not besubject to salary deductions.
Hundreds of teachers have this term had to change jobs in circumstances not of their choosing. It can be a very stressful experience.
Last year we organised some well-attended meetings for teachersnew to primary schools. We have decided to repeat this.
Meeting For Teachers New To Primary – Tuesday 10th October2000
Meeting For Teachers New To Secondary – Wednesday 18th October2000
These meetings are both at the
NUT Offices, 22 Edmund Street,Bradford at 4:30pm.We will organise a further meeting for primary teachers inKeighley after half term.
The meetings are to pass on concerns to NUT Officers (abouttraining needs, resources, buildings etc), and to share experiences.They are for both permanently and temporarily placed staff.
These are coming soon.
Please support the NUT candidates:
Stuart Davies (secondary) and Jim Cartwright (primary).
The first Bradford NUT General Meeting of the new school yearwill be looking at
5pm – tea from 4.30pm
Tuesday 19th September 2000