Unions blocking schools re-opening?

[Confusedbutheyho]

Just been off the phone to a friend who’s married to a teacher and they’re hearing a lot of conflicting news re unions.

Many are saying June won’t happen for re-opening. Is that possible that the unions veto it and stop it going ahead?

The most incontrovertible "evidence" of mismatched thinking was on TV this morning.

A mother had said she wasn't sending her children to school for fear of Covid. She said, that even one child who died was too many to risk. So, here we have our conundrum.

Chickenpox kills about 50 children a year. We don't vaccinate against chickenpox, and no-one has any issues with sending their children into school or playgroups or nurseries when chickenpox is circulating.
About 50 adults also die. In both children and adults it is generally those with immunosuppressed conditions.

Somehow, we need to get a handle on people's anxiety over Covid, especially in children.

Flax meadow listen to James OBrien on LBC you have characteristically and ignorantly fallen into an untrue narrative and have no thought about this at all

Its baffling to me that I have opposed an idea, teachers staying off work, not opposed individual teachers themselves

Been accused of being nasty to individual posters when I have done no such thing

Yet you think calling me ignorant, making a personal remark, is acceptable.

I am debating the idea that teachers should stay off work.

I think teachers should go back to work. I think the unions would be a disgrace if they tell teachers to down tools (as the old saying goes). This is my stance on the subject

I was a shop steward in my 20s BTW. In a closed shop. I took it very seriously as well but no not this. I can't support it when so many children are at risk

Flax. I understand you’re concerned about vulnerable children and the impact this has on them, and I totally stand with you on that. I have woken up in the night a good few times worrying about some children in my class. It’s just such an awful and shit situation and I wish that parents of those kids would send them in as they are “vulnerable” but we all know that vulnerable children often don’t have the best school attendance at the best of times.

It’s such a nuanced thing but please don’t think all teachers are “refusing” to work for no good reason. I’d be in tomorrow if I could, I’m still waiting to hear if my uni will let me back in. But I hear and respect the decisions of those teachers who will take industrial action. This is a time when workers need to all stand together and shout for ALL of our rights. It’s not a time for pulling people down and saying they think they’re special because they have a very vocal union advocating for them to be kept safe at work (as we should ALL have).

You think supermarket staff dont deal with this kind of thing all the time? Really?

Don't know about you, but I've never seen a makeshift field triage set up in Tesco's just beside the entrance at lunchtime with 45 puking, shitting, sweating, coughing and bleeding children each day for a month. The November-December 2019 flu and Norovirus season, accompanied by the usual nosebleeds, headaches, trips and falls on concrete playgrounds, PE lessons, dislocated fingers, a couple of cases of Chickenpox, 4 of Shingles, emotional distress, collecting regular medication, using inhalers and the odd diabetic hypo was... challenging.

Being first aid trained to deal with the occasional faint, slip or atrial fibrillation in a supermarket is significantly different to that.

I might have opposed the miners strike if it had meant children going without heating in winter, but because the strike was in the 1980s, when domestic heating didn't rely on coal so much, as it would have 20 years earlier, that wasn't the case.

Exactly - you would have blamed the miners rather than put pressure on the government to negotiate properly and fairly with them. You'd have turned on the working class rather than putting pressure on the ruling class. So in spirit definitely a thatcherite - or someone very easily manipulated by Tories into hating the oppressed rather than the oppressors.

Has MN become much more right wing anyone? I was away for years and don't remember it being so Tory-ish. Or is just that 10 years of Tory rule and messaging has shifted the whole overton window to the right?

ps flax has been told facts like teachers ARE still working etc a million times. You're wasting your energy thinking explaining facts will change anything

Oh and redtoothbrush - THANK you so much for your rational analysis of data - it's astonishingly rare to see around these parts.

MitzK you forgot worms and scabies. (Nits are child's play.)

Why do we have to wear masks and socially distance in shops and on transport but teachers are being forced into classrooms without any protection? I wouldn't do it.

Flax you are debating and people are responding to you and you simply ignore what they have said and decide we haven't come up with any solutions at all.

I listed lots of solutions and yet these have been ignored and instead you ask the same questions over and over again.

Honestly, I'm all for a debate but when people ignore what has been written and keep saying things such as no PPE in supermarkets when there are lots of posters saying this isn't the case, it gets tiring

@Flaxmeadow

But supermarket staff have to put up with thousands of people, including children, all day long.

No they don’t. There are limits of how many people can be in the store at any one time. I haven’t seen thousands of people crammed into any supermarket.

People who crowd in, there is no social distancing in shops and supermarkets, it's impossible.

There are floor markers; staff policing social distancing; people generally behaving themselves; one way systems. So again, you’re talking rubbish.

People who hold their credit cards in their mouth while fumbling around.
It’s contactless...or you put your card into the machine reader yourself. I haven’t handed over a card to a cashier in years.

People who pick produce up and put back on the shelf constantly and no on knows what any of their hygiene practices are.
Cashiers/staff have been provided with gloves and hand sanitiser on every till.

Handle cash all the time.
Hand sanitiser on every till and most places only accepting card/contactless.

Have people getting close and breathing on them.
Some places have screens between staff and customers. Where screens aren’t used, customers have to queue away from staff and even at the till, there is a minimum distance between the cashier and the customer.

Supermarket staff have been spat on by shoplifters and drunks, who are not often known for being in good health or practice good hygiene, and angry customers.
This sadly can be applied to nurses, doctors, transport workers and even teachers. It is disgusting and not unique to supermarkets.

All with no PPE
Gloves; masks allowed if the cashier chooses to wear. Screens. Visors provided to M&S staff.
None of which is advised for a member of teaching staff.

But hey, you’ve been told all this time and time again...but say something enough and eventually you’ll believe it I suppose.

Has MN become much more right wing anyone? I was away for years and don't remember it being so Tory-ish.

No, not where any other topic is concerned. Some people just want their children back at school at whatever expense.

Oh, not sure about that DB : you opened a clap our carers or furlough thread lately??

@DBML exactly. These things have been said over and over and over again.

Posters honestly only seem to be reading the posts that they agree with and then send a 'hear hear!' messages when they haven't actually read the thread at all.

I haven't seen any teachers who have said they won't go to work. WE ARE ALREADY IN! And we have been since 20th March.

I haven't heard any unions saying they will be balloting their staff to refuse to open either so where on earth are people getting this from?

I honestly give up.

Flax the more you labour the analogy the worse it gets. Teachers back with 15 children is the same as opening supermarket doors to all without limits in terms of person to area squared. Again, why is there a different rule for teachers? Because the solutions the union propose involve either more money or less people in at once, and you don't seem to like those solutions.

Exactly - you would have blamed the miners rather than put pressure on the government to negotiate properly and fairly with them.

Opposing strike action that would have put children at risk is not the same thing as opposing all strike action. I said I would probably have opposed action if shortages of coal meant children would have had no hearing at home. But this was not the case in the miners strike in the mid 80s

You'd have turned on the working class rather than putting pressure on the ruling class.

Nope you couldnt be more wrong. But if you want to go down that road of argument, teachers are middle class not working class. Supermarket staff are working class. If you care so much about the working class, consider them

So in spirit definitely a thatcherite - or someone very easily manipulated by Tories into hating the oppressed rather than the oppressors.

Teachers are not the oppressed for Gods sake

The miners, and their communities of which I as a part, were oppressed and had been for centuries.

What part of "I vehemently opposed Thatcher" dont you understand?

I supported the miners. Absolutely I did and so did half the country but If you think the country will support teachers staying off work then you're very much mistaken.

The teachers are not the miners of the 2020's. Any comparison is barmy

Has MN become much more right wing anyone? I was away for years and don't remember it being so Tory-ish. Or is just that 10 years of Tory rule and messaging has shifted the whole overton window to the right?

It's the teachers and their unions, who are being right wing, ironically. By that I mean they are not being community minded. Not considering a communitarian left wing approach. Being individual minded and there "is no such thing as society" and all thst

ps flax has been told facts like teachers ARE still working etc a million times. You're wasting your energy thinking explaining facts will change anything

But refusing to go back into school buildings as a whole group. Even though many measures are being taken, right at this moment, to make them safer

Tel me. How long can teachers refuse to do this? There might never be a vaccine for this virus or at least not for years. What then?

Hi all,
We have made some deletions on this thread but really it feels like it's just going round and round and getting nowhere so we think we're going to call a halt to this one by closing the thread.

From the information I've had from my union it's all about the conflicting evidence related to schools and other workplaces as stated previously by posters.

Offices - side by side, 2m apart, shields between desks, one way systems, covid secure guidelines and fines

Transport/shops - social distance. Where this isn't possible wear a face mask.

Other industries such as manufacturing - 2m social distancing, covid secure guidelines and fines for not following it, PPE where you may be in contact. One way systems etc.

Schools- social distancing and PPE isn't needed