Received from: NASUWT
Congress notes that the Covid-19 pandemic exposed how much of the UK economy is based upon low-paid, insecure and intermittent employment, often through employment businesses or umbrella companies.
Congress further notes that the education sector is one of the sectors identified as having the fastest growth in insecure work.
Congress deplores the growing trend towards the casualisation of work, precarious employment and the use of umbrella companies, who make substantial profits and are largely unregulated, whilst depressing the pay of supply teachers.
Congress believes that this trend has brought into sharp focus practices whereby supply teachers have been furloughed under the coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and have been paid at only 80 per cent of the national minimum wage.
Congress calls on the General Council to:
i. lobby the government and parliamentarians for specific legislation to ensure that workers have the right to decide whether or not to be employed through an umbrella company
ii. press for a licensing scheme to monitor and review compliance of employment businesses and umbrella companies operating in education
iii. campaign for public procurement rules to be strengthened so that public sector bodies are prohibited from using employment agencies and umbrella companies that fail to meet minimum standards.
NASUWT