The National Education Union is pushing for a legally enforceable maximum indoor working temperature of 26°C, which would force schools to halt lessons during heatwaves. The Telegraph has the story:
The union is also calling for taxpayer-funded cooling “hubs” for communities to use in “extreme heat”, and a legal right to paid time off for nominated staff to complete climate-change training.
The demands are listed in a motion submitted by the NEU to the Trades Union Congress (TUC) annual conference in Brighton, which starts this weekend.
If passed, it will become official TUC policy, which aligns the priorities of the organisation’s 47 member unions.
The proposal for a 26°C limit is backed by Hannah Spencer, a Green Party MP, who is leading calls in Parliament for a maximum working temperature. …
The NEU is the UK’s biggest education union, representing more than 450,000 teachers and school staff across the country.
The motion submitted to the TUC conference calls for a new, legally enforceable, maximum indoor working temperature of 26°C, which would apply to employees across “multiple sectors”. …
The NEU also calls for the Government to make schools “climate resilient” and introduce “a legal right to paid time off for green reps to undertake duties and receive training”. …
Ms Spencer, the MP for Gorton and Denton, is attempting to change the law in the UK by tabling her own legislation in the House of Commons.
The Maximum Workplace Temperature Bill – supported by Rebecca Long-Bailey, a Labour MP and a former shadow education secretary – would establish an independent body to advise ministers on when it was too hot to work.
Worth reading in full.
