Stand Up for Supply Teachers

I welcomed the opportunity yesterday to second an amendment on behalf of the NUT National Executive updating the Union’s policy on campaigning to support Supply Teachers.

 Here is a video of my speech:

In speaking on behalf of the Executive, I also acknowledged that the steps taken by the Union over the last twelve months to develop a Charter for Supply Teachers have come about, in good part, thanks to supply teachers in the Union making their anger clear - and rightly so.

Supply Teachers have every right to be angry because they have been at the sharp end of privatisation.

Long before most teachers faced the ending of pay portability and threats to pay progression, supply colleagues already faced a 'race to the bottom' as agencies undercut rivals and offered employment at the lowest rates possible to maximise profits.

Supply teachers have seen their employment prospects threatened by work being offered to lower paid cover supervisors and HLTAs.

While teachers have fought attaclks on their pension scheme, agency teachers have no access to the Teachers' Pension Scheme at all.

To challenge this injustice, we have to turn that anger into action.  We have to:

• Persuade schools to employ supply staff on the proper rate for the job
• Lobby the DfE to allow access to the Teachers' Pension Scheme
• Pressurise Agencies to make sure DBS certificates are portable between different agencies and that they pay their staff properly.

To do that, we have to lobby, protest and organise. That can't be just the job of supply teachers. 'An Injury to One is an Injury to All' - it's a campaign that every Local NUT Association must take up after NUT Conference. 

The motion was passed unanimously.