Supply/Agency Teachers and a Two-Tier Workforce

One of the resolutions for annual conference deals with supply/agency teachers.

It reads as follows:

Conference deplores the development of a two-tier workforce within teaching, with agency and
some other supply teachers, home tutors and other peripatetic staff denied their full employment
rights, and in the case of agency teachers, their rights to national pay and pension entitlements.
Conference regrets that many teachers are engaged by Local Authorities on ‘casual’ or short
term arrangements in circumstances in which they should be treated as permanent staff.
Conference also notes with regret the growth of teacher agencies within the sector, with some
supply teachers being forced to seek work through agencies.
Conference notes the success of work undertaken by many divisions to require Local
Authorities to meet their responsibilities in relation to more vulnerable teachers, and applauds
those representatives who have been able to negotiate with their Local Authority for improved
security for such sectors of the teaching workforce.
Conference notes the failure at EU and national level to agree legislative measures to improve
the position of agency and temporary workers, and deplores the Government’s failure to give
full support to such proposals.
Conference notes the establishment by the TUC of the Commission on Vulnerable Employment
as well as other initiatives designed to collect evidence across all sectors of the workforce on
the problems caused by the denial of proper employment rights.
Conference calls upon the Executive to campaign vigorously to end the development of two-tier
teaching workforce by:
1. Continuing to promote and support strategies to enforce teachers’ rights to national pay
and pension rights and full employment protection;
2. Enhancing the promotion, support and publicity given to negotiating strategies at local
level seeking to provide security and decent pay for supply and peripatetic staff;
3. Seeking agreement at national level on recommended contractual arrangements and on
the ways in which relevant services are organised so as to ensure full employment rights
for all affected teachers;
18
4. Maintaining the Union’s support for the campaign for a Trade Union Freedom Bill and
other legislative measures seeking to end a two tier workforce;
5. Seeking to ensure that in the further changes related to cover such work is undertaken
by qualified teachers;
6. Maintaining the Union’s work to protect Overseas Trained Teachers and other vulnerable
groups;
7. Seeking support from the TUC for a lobby of Parliament for a campaign to end the twotier
workforce; and
8. Working with European trade union bodies, ETUC and ETUCE, to take forward the
Union’s campaign objectives.
Executive




A full list of resolutions for annual conference can be found here