NASUWT believes the right to strike is a fundamental human right that must be protected
Trade unions have been subject to draconian legislation that severely impacts on workers’ rights to organise and defend their rights in their workplaces and communities.
The current Government’s pursuit of a radical extension of laws that ensure a minimum service in schools is a direct attack on the profession’s right to strike and must be resisted.
Anti-trade union restrictions represent an attack on workers’ rights to fair pay, decent jobs and good terms and conditions.
NASUWT is committed to resisting any further restrictive trade union legislation and to demand the repeal of all anti-union laws, including the Trade Union Act 2016.
Teachers’ rights are under attack right now
The Westminster Government has been consulting on proposals for new minimum service level laws in schools and colleges.
Minimum service levels (MSLs) are a deliberate, direct attack on working people’s rights to fair pay and decent work.
They are a breach of the privacy of your personal data, with employers and unions expected to share information about members without your permission. This plan will mean that when you lawfully vote to take strike action, you could be compelled to attend work - and sacked if you don’t comply.
Ministers want an education MSL that would apply to 74% of pupils, resulting in the potential for the majority of teachers and other education staff being prohibited from taking lawful strike action.
The governments in Scotland and Wales have said they will not enforce minimum service levels.
Call to action
Protect your fundamental rights:
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Talk to your colleagues and encourage them to also sign the petition
Act now! Protect your rights!
Where did all this start?
The Westminster Tory Government has been planning to cap your right to strike, where once they clapped your service as key workers on their doorsteps.
Instead of listening to your concerns, they demonstrate their contempt for ordinary working people, who are struggling to prop up our under-funded education service, by fast-tracking further restrictive conditions on our right to strike through the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2023.
Following more than a decade of attrition in our education service caused by the failing policies of successive Tory Governments and months of extreme pressure across the public sector, they are intensifying their attack on working professionals who have been suffering financially and mentally due to eroded pay, overwork and fragmented services.
Further curtailing our right to strike, on top of existing anti-trade union legislation, will do nothing to fix the crises that governments have created in our education system.
Strikes are the symptom of a problem that will not go away by attacking working people’s fundamental right to strike to defend their pay, terms and conditions.
The Act was hastily concocted and could see teachers forced to cross picket lines or be sacked if they don’t, even if they have voted for legal industrial action.
We pledge to fight it every step of the way.