Statement on the Covid inquiry module on children and young people
Shavanah Taj, General Secretary of TUC Cymru, speaking on behalf of schools unions said:
"Throughout the pandemic, education staff always put the interests of children first. In fact, they regularly placed children's safety and welfare ahead of their own and their families. Members of the education profession were totally dedicated to local children's learning and well-being. They worked extremely hard in exceptionally trying circumstances. Many school staff went above and beyond their duties - for example by delivering food packages to children at home. From the start of the pandemic, school staff went to hubs and schools to care for the children of other key workers. They couldn't isolate safely at home, as other workers could.
"Throughout the pandemic, the main focus of the education profession and its unions were to protect children and to secure children's education. Staff put their health and risk.
"We welcome Mark Drakeford's statement yesterday at the Covid inquiry that during the pandemic education trade unions were 'dedicated to the interests of the children that they served.'
"Education trade unions are the education profession. Education trade unions engaged positively and constructively with the Welsh Government and local government throughout the pandemic. We were proud to work in social partnership. Unions committed time and energy to working with the Welsh Government and were focused on solutions and ensuring the wellbeing and education of children and young people."
NOTES
1.
On the matter of relations between education trade unions and the Welsh Government, the following exchange took place today at the Covid inquiry:
Sam Jacobs, a lawyer representing the TUC: "In places in this module there have been references to a suggested conflict between the interests of education staff on the one hand and the interests of children on the other. Considered as a matter of broad principle, would you agree that decision-making in a pandemic is not about the rights of staff versus the rights of children, it's about the necessary and optimum response of society as a whole, and that challenges need to be seen through that lens."
Mark Drakeford: "I would entirely agree with that, and I want to be clear that I never believed that our trade union colleagues - whether it's the teacher unions or the non-teacher unions - ever came through the door not alert to the needs of the children they were working so hard to serve. We had some very specific instances where we took a different view to some of our trade union colleagues, but nobody should think that that is some general reflection that suggests that those individuals and the members they represented were anything other than dedicated to the interests of the children that they served."
2.
TUC Cymru has published video testimony from Angharad Simpson <https://gbr01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.y…; a teaching assistant and Angela Butler <https://gbr01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.y…; , a former teacher on their experience of working in schools during the pandemic.
3.
The unions in schools which have endorsed this statement are ASCL, NAHT, NASUWT, NEU, UCAC and UNISON