For many
years now supply teachers have had to rely on work supplied to them by
agencies. As we all know there are good agencies and bad agencies, but even the
better agencies take a cut of our pay, which is rightfully ours. In 2017 for example, £821 million was spent
on supply teachers across the country, but £271 million, nearly £1 in every
three, went to the agencies. We all know this isn’t right, but can we do anything
about it?
Well, there
is something we can do. The NEU in the
Northern Region is in the process of developing a cooperative for supply teachers, in
conjunction with the office of Jamie Driscoll, the North of Tyne Mayor and local
authorities and conversations are taking place with some of the big multi-academy
trusts. You would be a part owner of
this agency and as a result you would keep 90% of what the school pays for
you. The other 10% would go to the
cooperative to help it to both keep going and expand its work and to help
provide both teachers’ pension funds for you and high quality CPD.
The coop would also give you a sense
of real control over your working life, instead of being at the whims of
dubious market forces and having to haggle over the phone with an agency.
The main features of the coop will be
as follows:
• 1. Service
provision that ensures public funding for education stays within the public/not
for profit sector
• 2. An
agency that is more locally economically generative meaning money would stay in
our region, where it is much needed, instead of leaving it.
• 3. Delivers
reliability of service and quality supply staff & results in lower costs to
schools, so benefitting the education of the children of our region.
• 4. Delivers
fairer remuneration, better terms and conditions and continued professional
development for supply staff
• 5. Multi-stakeholder
approach and a democratic structure equally representative of needs of schools
and supply staff
This is a
great opportunity for you to be part of a really positive new initiative by
your union, which sees teachers working in solidarity to the benefit of
all. And while it will initially only
involve schools north of the River Tyne, the intention is for it to be extended
across the region as soon as possible.
It is also envisaged that we will have a worker from Coops UK to help us
with this exciting development.
In the
second half of the 19th century, when the cooperative movement
really took off in Britain, following the success of the Rochdale Pioneers in
1844, the Northeast became the region in Britain, with the highest number of
cooperative members per head of population. It seems therefore highly
appropriate that such an initiative as this teachers’ coop should begin in our
region. Again, we can lead the way and
in so doing bring you better pay and conditions, a bigger say over your career
and a brighter future.
We are
making progress towards the establishment of the coop, so please join the WhatsApp group to learn more about this and for discussions about other
supply issues.
Peter Sagar February
2020
