How will the teacher strikes affect you?

Teachers from the National Education Union have voted for more strike action in England on the 5th and 7th July which will have left lots of working parents – and their employers – wondering how they are going to manage if the employee’s child’s school is closed.

So, if an employee needs time off to look after their child because of strike action, what are the options available to employees and employers?

1. Holiday – an employee might cover the time needed to look after their child via holiday. Check any holiday policy for details of what notice is required to book leave but remember that the Working Time Regulations 1998 require employees to give twice the length of notice as the required amount of leave. So, if an employee wants 1 day’s leave, they need to give 2 days’ notice. Employers can reject the request.
2. Time off for dependants – this is unpaid time off (unless an employer has a policy of paying for this leave). This leave is designed to deal with emergency situations where childcare falls through unexpectedly. Whilst planned strike action may not fall within the remit of this sort of leave, as it isn’t necessarily an unexpected event (though schools might not know until the day who is striking and whether school can remain open), childcare provision put in place to cover the strike day which falls through at the last minute will likely fall within the right to take time off to look after a dependant.
3. Parental leave – this is unpaid time off (unless an employer has a policy of paying for this leave) and only available to those with at least a year’s service with their employer. Employees asking for parental leave must give at least 21 days’ notice, and unless an employer agrees otherwise, the leave must be taken in blocks of 1 or 2 weeks. There’s a limit of 4 weeks’ leave per year for this sort of leave (capped at 18 weeks in total). An employer can postpone the leave by giving justifiable business reasons and must suggest a new start date beginning within 6 months of the requested date.
4. Agreed unpaid leave – if the employee doesn’t have enough leave or doesn’t qualify for or doesn’t want to request dependant or parental leave, it is still open to an employer and an employee to agree that the employee can take unpaid leave. An employer can even agree to pay for the leave or ask the employee to make the time up at some other point – similar to how employers may deal with medical appointments.
5. Working from home – following Covid-19, many employees are still working from home on a full or hybrid basis. Subject to the employee’s home situation and age of their children, the employee and the employer may be able to agree that the employee can work from home on a strike day and adjust the hours of work accordingly to ensure that the employee can look after their child, whilst also working effectively; something that was regularly the case in many businesses during the pandemic when schools were closed.

Having said all of the above, what is important is that employees and employers talk about how any strike action might impact an employee and try to work together to find a solution that supports the employee, whilst causing minimal disruption to the employer and their business.