Staff at Isle of Wight primary schools threatened with closure could take part in possible strike action, unions have warned.
5 trade unions, representing thousands of school workers on the Island wrote to the Isle of Wight Council’s cabinet yesterday (Tuesday), urging them to call off a ‘potentially catastrophic’ decision to close 5 primary schools – a decision set to be finalised tomorrow night (Thursday).
The email, signed by Duncan Morrison (NEU) Mark Chiverton (UNISON), Mark Dickinson (NASUWT), Dom Kingsmill-Stocker (NAHT) and Liam Cumming (GMB), says closures would affect ‘thousands of children’s lives’, make ‘hundreds of staff redundant’ and damage ‘perhaps irrevocably, five communities on the Island’.
The axe looks set to fall on Arreton St Georges CE Primary School, Brading CE Primary School, Cowes Primary School, Oakfield CE Primary and Wroxall Primary School.
It’s said unions are currently ‘in the process of initiating indicative/consultative ballots for industrial action’, following member requests.
Representatives of the 5 unions have said in their letter:
“Since we last wrote to you, the full council has discussed the school place planning issue but, in its indicative votes, it failed to give a clear mandate to proceed with the proposed closures.
“It is clear that, should you decide to proceed, the decision will rest entirely on cabinet members and since you were unable to persuade the council at large it follows that it would be inappropriate to proceed with the current proposals.
Article continues below this advertisement “We reiterate that we believe that the selection of the schools, the initial consultation and the report put to cabinet based on that consultation are all flawed and open to legal challenge.
“We are in agreement with the rationale laid out by the Diocese of Portsmouth in their letter and believe, as they do, that the consultation process has not been of sufficient rigour, has lacked detail and transparency, has made factual inaccuracies and conflated these at times with others and has not undertaken the necessary due process for any decision to be able to stand.”
The memo asks the cabinet to ‘instigate an immediate review’ to examine the ‘proper resourcing of education on the Island’ to ‘protect and improve’ children’s education. It also calls for a report created from the review to be given to full council for a debate on its recommendations.
Any future plans should be ‘discussed and negotiated’ with unions ‘in good time’ to protect members’ jobs and the ‘skills and professionalism they deliver’.
Close down the unnesseccary schools, make the
teachers redundant and then they won’t need to strike.
The Government keep telling us there are plenty of
jobs out there.
So not only will they have a nice pay off, they can get
a job elsewhere.
Your really don’t give a toss about people do you. Peoples jobs, kids education in a school they feel safe in, wow you are on par with Putin and Trump. Hope you lose your job soon, then you might know how it feels. Ah but then again you probably are sat at home on the dole and all you do is act the powerful keyboard warrior.
The council will close them regardless of strikes, petitions etc, Jordan and Bacon are enjoying the chaos they are causing, and they know they can’t be voted out this year, bloody ridiculous. Bacon is good at telling porkies, and Jordan barely knows what day it is.
We got very little help when they stopped our winter fuel allowance or is that long forgotten