Dear Member
Hello everyone and Happy New Year from all at Wirral Unison. Unfortunately we are beginning 2021 with a great deal of uncertainty about the ongoing pandemic and its implications for all aspects of our lives including work.
Members may well have seen that we are expecting a statement to be made at 8pm by the Prime Minister in relation to the continued rise in infection rates. Given that Scotland has announced a full national lockdown (including the closure of schools) in the past few hours, we feel it is safe to assume that we may be facing similar restrictions in England but we will have to wait and see.
In our last email of 2020, we said that we would be reducing our updates, however, please be assured that during these times of increasing uncertainty and rising infections rates we will be in regular contact with members, providing key updates, advice and support.
Schools
The issue of schools re-opening has been the subject of much discussion recently, and we are sharing our position with all members, as it potentially affects many of you.
Yesterday Wirral Unison wrote to all members in schools informing them that Unison did not consider it was safe to fully re-open schools for at the least the next two weeks. In doing so we advised members of their rights under Section 44 and Section 100 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 not to have to work in an unsafe environment. We provided a model letter for our members to send to the Head Teacher; at least one other union took a similar approach. We know that as a result some schools have taken, what we believe to be the reasonable decision to only re-open to the vulnerable children and the children of critical workers. We believe this is a similar approach is needed in all schools
This decision was based on scientific evidence (sage-meeting-74-covid-19) in relation to the new variant. This variant increases the rate of transmission and appears to have a swifter transmission rate amongst those of school age. This new variant is more prevalent in the South East, nevertheless it is percolating to other parts of the country. Even before the full impact is felt locally we are aware that the rate of transmission in Wirral is rising rapidly. On 9 December the rate was 52 cases per 100,000, the figure is now at 393, a seven fold increase in less than a month. It is against that back drop that Wirral Unison has taken the stance we have.
This is not a decision that we have taken lightly. We are aware of the stress that home schooling can place upon those parents who can work from home. This is especially pronounced for those with young children. Wirral Council as an employer has taken a positive attitude of ‘give us what you can’ recognising the challenges that child care brings, but in practice we all know things are not so simple. Similarly we know that not all employers may take such a flexible approach.
We also recognise that not everyone is in a position to work from home, and annual leave can only stretch so far. The Government has made provision for this specifically within its furlough scheme stating that employees may be eligible if you are “unable to work because they have caring responsibilities resulting from coronavirus (COVID-19), including employees that need to look after children.” The full details of the furlough scheme are here. If you feel that you are eligible for the scheme and your employer has refused to make the appropriate provisions for you, please do get in touch with us; we do not believe that anyone should be at a financial disadvantage due to the ongoing pandemic.
Further to the above considerations, we are also acutely aware of the disproportionate impact of school closures on those children living in more socially deprived areas. We firmly believe and we argued at the time that Government should have been more proactive in supplying poorer children with the equipment and resources they and their families needed so that they could engage in virtual learning when schools closed during the first lockdown. The fact that this did not happen was disappointing but perhaps not surprising. However, the fact is that this Government has not learnt the lessons of the pandemic from the first wave; some 10 months on that is unacceptable. None of our children should be paying the price of government incompetence with their education, but unfortunately some of them are and worse still, it is often those who can least afford to.
School budgets have faced significant cuts over the last ten years and the Government now needs to reinstate this funding so that no child suffers as a result of this pandemic. Wirral Unison will continue to apply pressure both locally and nationally to ensure that the Department for Education takes seriously its responsibility to all children to enable them to learn at home, should they need to.
That’s all for today everyone. As always, please do pass our updates on to colleagues and encourage them to join Unison if they haven’t already. Here’s the link to join up! JOIN UNISON
We’ll be back in touch tomorrow with a broader range of updates.
In solidarity!
Your Wirral Unison Team
Central email: unison1@wirral.gov.uk
Telephone: 07899713498 or 0789971508
Published on: January 5, 2021