Schools unions have reacted angrily to a letter to heads from education secretary Gove, advocating strike breaking during their June 30 pensions action.
His letter says: ‘We all have a strong moral duty to pupils and parents to keep schools open and the government wants to help you to fulfil that.’
Gove claims: ‘I am aware that a number of our best school leaders are already putting in place contingency arrangements to ensure that their schools remain open.’
National Union of Teachers general secretary Christine Blower said yesterday: ‘It is a legal duty for key managers in schools to ensure the health and safety of their pupils.
‘If there is insufficient teaching staff to run the school effectively and safely then the head should consider closure very seriously.
‘Head teachers need to bear in mind that staff members of other TUC-affiliated unions do not have to take on the work of those teachers who have taken strike action.’
Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) general secretary, Dr Mary Bousted, said: ‘Of course we would expect school heads to consider the health and safety of their pupils and shut their school if necessary.
‘But Michael Gove is wrong to assume that heads are not angry about attacks to their pensions and are not members of the unions planning to strike.’
She added: ‘While some heads will deeply regret the disruption, a one-day strike will have far less impact on pupils’ education than the long-term damage created by the loss of teachers and leaders if future pensions are significantly worse.’
National Association of Head Teachers general secretary, Russell Hobby, said: ‘Heads don’t need lectures on their moral duties. They’ve been keeping schools open their entire careers and will make the right choices in the coming action.
‘The coalition’s spending cuts are closing more services for children.’
The leader of the NASUWT teachers’ union, which is not taking part in the strike, has written to Gove saying ‘it is wholly unacceptable that your expectations involve exhorting schools to exploit and disregard statutory contractural provisions’.
NASUWT general secretary Chris Keates warned that seeking to ‘deploy members in the manner you describe’ could bring about a dispute with the union.
Meanwhile, the NASUWT has received formal notification from the High Court of an October 25 hearing date for its application for judicial review of the government’s decision to change the index-linking of public service workers’ pensions, including teachers’ pensions, from the Retail Prices Index (RPI) to the Consumer Prices Index (CPI).
Keates said: ‘If the judicial review is successful, it will result in a precedential decision that could see thousands of teachers in the Teachers’ Pension Scheme having the RPI link, and therefore the value of their pension, restored.’
The NASUWT has mounted the legal challenge jointly with the PCS, FBU, POA, Unite and Unison, who are lodging a claim on behalf of members in the specific pension schemes in their respective sectors.
