To think teaching unions aren’t actually particularly helpful to teachers?

[Easterrabbits]

So I know I’m probably going to be deemed goady or purposefully provocative here and that’s not the intention, but I’d genuinely like to know about this.

I’ve been teaching a pretty long time now - since the early 2000s - and when I used to use the old TES forums, the same story with only slight variations would crop up again and again: someone would be bullied and unfairly targeted at school and the advice would always be to involve the Union. But then when the union was involved it would almost inevitably lead to a settlement agreement / agreed reference but often with the persons career prospects damaged or impacted as a result. I don’t think I ever heard of one story in nearly twenty years where a teacher was able to successfully fight threats of capability, and judging from a Facebook group I am a member of, this is still the case.

I am all for a pay rise (who wouldn’t be) but I am not confident at all the union are going to be able to successfully negotiate it, especially given questionable activities elsewhere - further details on this thread.

I can’t pretend to be an expert here. I just feel that after failing to successfully address bullying, seeming to support an end to exclusions, some mad behaviour with drag queens I don’t feel at all confident that they are going to be able to hold the government to account and get a decent and funded pay rise. I think public perception of teachers could be damaged as a result.

I guess in short I really don’t have a lot of faith or confidence in the unions generally. The NEU are good at blasting and trumpeting but don’t DO much and the NASUWT are more moderate but not necessarily particularly helpful if you do actually need their support.

I’ll prepare to be flamed now … [smile ]

I remain exceedingly grateful for the union support I received when I was teaching. I don't know where I would have been without them.

They certainly don't do much to help public perception of teachers and were actively harming it during covid lockdowns

I've some really useful support from the NASUWT in a dispute with my school.

We also took some joint union action as a school that had a reasonable outcome.

As far as I can tell, the NEU conference is always a bit batshit, but at least this year they banned the No Exclusions lot from having a stall there.

And the NEU have certainly been effective in rallying people to the pay dispute action with tens of thousands of teachers switching unions to strike.

With the NAHT and the ASCL also overwhelmingly rejecting the pay offer, the media are going to have a hard time painting it (as they have been trying hard to) as the NEU rabble-rousing. The headteacher unions are hardly 'militant' and generally far too compliant. Even they have had enough of this shitshow of a government who don't care about education.

One of the unions you named was instrumental in me being allowed back (once I was declared healthy enough) after an extended period of absence - the trust I work for were being deliberately obstructive.
I didn't even have a rep with me in my final meeting, but thanks to the regional rep I knew my stuff (and had already hinted that I'd had advice from my union due to the terminology I'd used in a previous communication). I returned to work the same day as the meeting.
I suspect there is far more that goes on behind the scenes that you are aware of (I had no clue how useful they could be).

If it wasn't for union support I wouldn't be here now.

It’s good to know that the unions are sometimes helpful, although in at least one case on here I’m unsure as to what they actually did, but even so, there are hundreds and thousands of teachers who don’t seem to have received much by way of individual support and that does seem a worry to me, as I guess what I’m saying is that if the unions are unable to successfully challenge discrimination or similar, how can they negotiate pay at a national level?

I don’t think they are rabble rousing at all @noblegiraffe i guess I just wonder does it perhaps look a bit stopped clock is right once a day? Hard to know.

if the unions are unable to successfully challenge discrimination or similar, how can they negotiate pay at a national level?

I suspect that you didn't think anything would come out of the negotiations. They got an offer of a funded £1000 for every teacher in the country, plus 4.5% next year, which they desperately tried to prove was funded.

I mean, it was a shit offer which was roundly rejected, but you have to admit that it wasn't nothing.

I’ve paid a union membership for my whole career (nearly 8 years) and have never needed them for anything. I’ve finally crumbled and had to go off with WRS as the anxiety teaching/the management at my school were causing me had made me reach a point life wasn’t worth living - not in a suicidal way, just in a ‘I can’t continue like this’ type way. I’m pregnant and have been dragged in for meetings, been bullied at the meetings and spoken to so horribly that I left the last one shaking and crying. I posted on the Facebook group that I think you’re most likely referring to and everyone was so horrified and supportive. I contacted my union and they couldn’t have been less helpful. I didn’t even bother replying to the message I received as it really didn’t offer any help at all 🤦🏼‍♀️ Luckily I don’t actually care that much about my teaching career prospects as I’m getting out as soon as my baby is here but I’ll always remember how horribly I was treated at one of the most vulnerable times of my life

Definitely wasn’t nothing and hopefully will go up.

I actually thought the opposite when pay rises were agreed in Scotland and wales, so can’t believe ours is comparatively so shit, but I am just mulling it all over after seeing another post about being bullied out, Union no support and I thought … seen this before … so who knows. We’ll have to watch this space. I just don’t have much faith in the unions.

So sorry to hear that @DarlingG , I think for a lot of people they feel so alone when there’s no support forthcoming. My ‘event’ if you like was over ten years ago but it made me feel so scared and isolated.

I hate to say it, but all those cases you have read about may have teachers who do have capability issues and a payout was the best outcome any union could have negotiated.

I think we all know there might be some cases where capability was an issue but the point is it doesn’t really seem to matter. Even in cases where pretty blatant discrimination or bullying was taking place, the unions didn’t seem able to take much if any action.

Surely you need to know the details? Did the teachers want to stay in the same school or did they decide in the end a payout was better?
I would not want to return to an employer that had bullied me and tried to sack me if I could get a good payout. Working somewhere like that destroys your confidence.

I've been the employer in HR disputes involving teachers and their unions.

I find the reps to be very reasonable and professional. Where a school has behaved properly, they will tell their member that, even when it's not what they want to hear.

When a school has dealt with things badly they basically set out to deliver what their member wants. In most cases that will be to leave with a pay off, but they also work towards a resolution when that's what the member wants.

This is my experience too.

I was a head teacher but previous a union rep.

I saw both sides.

If a school has acted fairly there is nothing a union can do.

I had the union in when my old school announced they didn't want part time teachers any more and then started targeting us all. Regional rep came to see me and told me that he had more workload from that school than all the others combined. He told me the best thing I could do was leave. I did, but I really think they should have been done for constructive dismissal as it kept happening to people after I left. The SLT there was poisonous and i would leave my current school if any of them arrived there.

But the school can make operational decisions and provided they follow due process, what is it you think the unions should have done?

My BIL was bullied and if it weren't for the union, his life would have been a living hell.

He did leave, with his reputation fully in tact and a big fat pay off by way of an apology.

I also work for a union that supports a lot of teaching support staff and we do a lot for them, so YABU 😛

Same here.

The problem with capability cases is that most times the staff member tries to obfuscate the capability by claiming bullying or other unfair treatment. So often managers giving non-positive feedback is all it takes for a complaint of bullying to be made. Sometimes the manager may be clumsy and even cruel in the way they deliver the feedback but none of this means that the employee doesn’t still needs to improve.
If employees showed enough of an improvement then they wouldn’t be sacked. But if they just argue bullying (and don’t improve) then really the only option. is compromise or a dismissal.

I think the unions are very good on an individual basis and can be very supportive, however, on a national basis and with regard to public perception of teachers I think the teaching unions are a disaster.

But you can behave ‘properly’ and also unfairly. So for example, you can observe a teacher and say the lesson was poor and that the teacher needs support with eg behaviour management without acknowledging that it’s a dreadful class across the school.

Obviously, it isn’t the case that only competent teachers are targeted for capability and bullying. But the system isn’t designed so that you can win it, whether you are competent or not.

Isn't that the same as poor performance proceedings everywhere? The in built assumption that if you can't do a good job it's your at fault not the design of the job.

The union would investigate that though, if the teacher told them they were being treated differently to others having the same problems with the same classes.

But they don’t @HelpsHeal , I’ve never once seen someone describe that happening.

@rattymol no idea, I mean, I’m specifically talking re teachers here.