Teachers at the fee-paying Howell’s school in Cardiff will go on strike tomorrow, Thursday 10th February, in a bid to defend their pensions and stop ‘fire and rehire’ tactics by management.
It will be the first of four days of coordinated strike action which has been announced by the National Education Union (NEU) at the independent school. The other three days will take place on 1st, 2nd and 3rd March
Howell’s in Llandaff is in The Girls’ Day School Trust, a network of 23 independent girls’ schools across England and Wales. All sites will take part in the coordinated strike action, which is the first in the Trust’s entire 149-year history.
The dispute centres on the Trust’s attempt to remove its teaching staff from the Teachers’ Pension Scheme. If this were to go ahead, the union says that teachers will on average be at least 20% worse off when it comes to their annual pension.
The resulting vote for strike action by workers was overwhelming – 95% of teacher members in the NEU at the 23 schools voted in favour of strike action on a turnout of 84%.
David Evans, Wales Secretary of the National Education Union Cymru, said that the Girls’ Day School Trust had no justification in its plan to slash the pensions of its teaching staff.
“Members are angry and determined to defend what is rightfully theirs,” he said. “Be in no doubt that this is an attack on members’ terms and conditions of employment. The threat of ‘fire and rehire’ before so much as a word of consultation is all the evidence you need.”
The Trust has also served a Section 188 (‘fire and rehire’) notice on the union in September of last year, a move that threatens workers with the sack if they don’t agree to worse contractual terms.
In the notice, the Trust stated that “…where agreement cannot be reached during the consultation and the GDST changes an employee’s terms and conditions by issuing contractual notice and re-engaging affected employees on the proposed [reduced] terms of employment, such a proposal would fall under section 188 of the above legislation…” The NEU says that the notice was issued prior to any consultation taking place.
In a bid to build support for teachers, the union is encouraging GDST alumni to back the workers. On Tuesday, the broadcaster Samira Ahmed hit out at plans to reduce teacher pensions and said she supported those taking strike action.
David Evans from National Education Union Cymru said that the Trust had made no compelling argument to make the change to staff pensions “because they do not have one.”
He called on the Council of the Girls’ Day School Trust to unconditionally withdraw the proposal to leave the Teachers’ Pension Scheme now if they wanted to avoid escalating strike action.
“Members will not be waiting for the Trust’s final decision in late February. That will be too late,” he said.
