Northumberland County Council remains locked in talks with union over ongoing schools strike action
by James Robinson · ChronicleLiveUnion officials are hopeful of potential progress as they remain locked in talks with Northumberland County Council bosses over ongoing strike action at schools in the Berwick area.
Teachers are expected to walk out this week, with three days of industrial action planned from tomorrow. However, there is a possibility that the latter days could be called off if a compromise is reached.
The council is currently pressing ahead with proposals to restructure the system in the Berwick area to a two-tier model. However, members of the education union NASUWT say plans to close Glendale, Tweedmouth and Berwick Middle Schools would put 142 staff at risk.
The union wants staff at risk to have jobs under the new system 'ring-fenced'. NASUWT's executive member for Northumberland John Hall explained the situation.
He said: "At the moment we're looking to take three days starting on Tuesday. We are still in discussions with Northumberland County Council and depending on how they go, there's a sight chance Wednesday and Thursday will be called off.
"It all depends on the response from the council regarding the application of the ring-fencing. We have a meeting this week and hopefully we will make some progress on that.
"There's a number of roles that are being filled by the recruiting schools in the Berwick partnership. The ring-fencing means the staff at risk of redundancy will be one of those new teachers - it protects them.
"However there seems to be some resistance where some of the headteachers want to go outside of the ring-fencing and advertise externally. That is unacceptable to us - they are all qualified, competent teachers."
The council has issued a statement on the strikes following the recent discussions. A spokeswoman for the local authority said: "Our aim is to secure permanent employment for all staff over the next two years. This will include recruitment, redeployment and retraining as appropriate.
“We continue to work closely with the schools and the trade unions to ensure staff across the partnership are supported during this process. There has been extensive engagement with all unions and particularly with the NASUWT and NEU who were taking industrial action in the summer term.
"These consultations have been positive and recruitment procedures and salary safeguarding have been fully agreed with all partners. In our last meeting there were no areas of fundamental disagreement and we confirmed our commitment to work together on further details. As a result, we are both surprised and saddened that despite the progress being made the NASUWT and NEU has decided to go ahead with this extensive strike action.”
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