Crossing another union's picket

[BretonBlue]

Name-changed as I don't want colleagues to recognise me but does anyone experience of this?

I am doing some part-time tutoring support at a school. There is a local dispute and Union A, to which most of the staff belong, have voted to strike. The school will remain partially open on the strike day, which falls on one of my working days. I am a member of Union B and my union have explicitly told me that I cannot lawfully strike, only refuse to cover striking colleagues. There will be a picket and I don't feel great about crossing it.

Yep, a few years ago NEU went on strike. Schools were closed to children because there weren't enough teachers in, but non-NEU staff were still expected in to work.

I'm NASUWT so I went in, along with support staff and other NAS staff. You can legally be sacked if you don't go in. There were no problems from the NEU staff.

I would expect there would be quite a few people in. You can talk to the picketers and show support. Teachers are generally quite understanding of there being different unions.

I totally get why you feel this way but it's understood in teaching that people are in different unions and so not everyone will be on strike. Show solidarity by refusing to cover any striking staff, and in general not doing anything more than you'd do on a normal day. But they won't expect you to risk your job over this.