THE head of a teaching union has called for private schools to have their charitable status removed if they continue with “fire and rehire” policies.
Speaking at the Nasuwt teaching union’s annual conference in Birmingham, general secretary Patrick Roach criticised “bad bosses who believe it’s OK to threaten teachers with the sack in order to drive down their wages and living standards”.
Teachers at the Girls’ Day School Trust (GDST), a group of 23 private schools, went on strike earlier this year over their schools’ withdrawal from the Teachers’ Pension Scheme.
In March, the GDST said that teachers would be able to stay in the Teachers’ Pension Scheme if they are already part of it, although new teachers would not be, and withdrew the threat of pursuing “fire and rehire” policies.
Dr Roach said that among private schools, there was a “growing list of shame”, including the GDST, where schools were “vying to strip teachers of their pension rights, without the slightest justification for doing so”.
He added that Nasuwt had asked the Department for Education to issue guidance to schools advising against the use of so-called “fire and rehire” policies and to publish information on schools and colleges that had used this policy.
Dr Roach said ministers had refused to do this, and that it was “not good enough” for Prime Minister Boris Johnson to say that the use of fire and rehire was unacceptable “whether in independent schools or the shameful actions by bosses at P&O ferries”.
He called on the Independent Schools Council, a leading body of private schools, to help Nasuwt deal with the issue of “gun to the head” employment practices.
“But, if they won’t, and if these schools continue their shoddy treatment of the workforce, then the public seriously needs to question whether these schools should continue to benefit from public contracts or tax subsidies,” he said.
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