I've recently returned to teaching in the UK after an extended stint abroad. I am horrified by how normalised unpaid overtime is here and how awfully SLT speak to teachers. In my new school it is universally accepted that you're going to work 6 day weeks and for a couple of hours after work in the evenings. Most people are doing 10-15 hours of unpaid overtime per week! It seems like a lot of this time is wasted doing low level admin tasks like recording the same information in 2 or 3 different ways or writing up your planning in beautiful colour coded documents or struggling to use websites which aren't fit for puropose.
To salt the wound, the SLT aren't even grateful. Every morning we have a whole school video call meeting which we attend in our bubbles which lasts 15-20 mins but could easily be an email. Everyday so far the meeting has included complaints and threats from the head. On the 1st day of term she told TAs that they couldn't go home until a checklist of tasks for their classrooms had been finished. It is outrageous.
I'm already looking to move abroad again or perhaps leaving teaching for a couple of years until I can move. What I cannot understand is why teaching unions aren't more active on this issue. Why aren't there unions advocating only working the number of hours you're employed for?