Short-notice school closures could create wider disruption

Teachers’ unions the NUT and the NASUWT are planning a one-day strike for their members on Tuesday 1 October 2013.

The North Yorkshire County Council are keeping an actively updated website at www.northyorks.gov.uk/schoolclosures

Teachers are not obliged to declare if they will be involved with the strike, meaning that many schools will not know if they are open until the day of the strike.

Adam Hartley, an Employment Partner at DLA Piper in Leeds has commented on the situation.

Adam Hartley said:

Many schools across Harrogate have announced that they will close tomorrow (due to strike action, leaving parents to make last-minute alternative childcare arrangements.

This could include taking the day off work, causing disruption to employers.

Employers may have few options to prevent this disruption; restricting annual leave will inevitably lead to significant employee relations issues and if employees are given only short notice of school closures they could well have a legal right to take emergency leave for dependants in any event.

Although the union will have given the required 7 days’ notice of strike action, it may take time for each school to confirm what the impact will be, particularly as individual employees are under no obligation to inform their employer whether they intend to strike.

To avoid or minimise potential disruption from this industrial action, it is advisable for affected employers to consider whether they can implement flexible working for employees whose children are unable to go to school due to strikes.

Employers may also need to closely monitor absence on the day of the strike in order to be able to deal with unauthorised absence.

Public sector organisations will face difficulty keeping essential services operating when staff are on strike. There are legal restrictions on using agency workers to cover for striking workers, so employers cannot bring in temporary cover from outside the organisation. Non-striking workers can be asked to cover for colleagues, but many union members will refuse to do so and employers may not be able to oblige non-striking workers to cover under their contracts of employment.

Adam Hartley added:

The potential impact of short term strike action should not be underestimated. Should strikes threaten to damage the economic recovery, the pressure on Government to make changes to the law on industrial action will increase.

Calls for tighter controls over industrial action are likely to increase if the private sector faces significant disruption as a result of public sector action.

This may be the impetus which the Government needs to seriously consider tightening up the balloting requirements for industrial action.

Update as of Monday 30 September 2013, 2.15 pm