Criticising the Rep

In theory, the school union rep is elected annually and no doubt there are schools in which this actually happens. More frequently the rep turns up at the meeting and announces they can no longer do the job for family/workload/sanity reasons and calls for volunteers to take over.

Everybody sits on their hands.

The rep is persuaded to stay on for another year. Often there is applause.

One of the growing number of headteachers who are union members was invited by mistake to a government seminar for heads. The speaker, a master of the flip chart, made a list of the problems which heads have to contend with. One was “the union rep.”

The union head innocently asked how this problem should be dealt with. They were told “load them with more and more work until they shut up.” Other heads laughed at this excellent joke.

The union head did receive an apology after the event but the attitude which led to this faux pas is still unfortunately with us.

There is another role in the union, that of criticising the rep. This is one for which there is no end of volunteers.

Did anyone deduce from this that I ended up being the union rep? It was, in fact, a very positive experience but there was a downside as I have indicated.