MILITANT teachers are hatching a last-minute strike plot to disrupt the full re-opening of schools, we can reveal.
Hard-line union activist Martin Powell-Davies is backing industrial action ballots on the eve of all kids returning to class.
In a rallying call, he says school chiefs will be “failing in their responsibilities” on health and safety grounds by opening their doors if Covid cases don’t drop dramatically.
The executive body of the 450,000-strong National Education Union has been called on to back his plans.
Powell-Davies, who is campaigning to be deputy general secretary, believes there should be a phased transition to a full re-opening.
He is demanding class sizes of just 50 per cent and that school openings are triggered only once there are falling local infection rates.
He said: “If those decisions are not met then employers will be failing in their duties. They will be creating a serious and imminent risk in not taking action to prevent it.
“They may do that, we can’t fail our responsibilities.
“That’s why if those rates and those steps are not met then we have to say we ballot across the employer so that if a spike does occur by Easter, we will be there with an industrial action ballot ready to protect our members and our communities.”
Powell-Davies will take part in a virtual meeting today with one of the union’s campaigning factions.
The Education Solidarity Network is discussing how to use its “collective strength” to oppose a “reckless full return” in a week’s time.
The intervention by Powell-Davies comes after Boris Johnson said kids will return on March 8 – the first stage of his plan to ease national restrictions.
The strike threat was widely criticised by MPs and campaigners last night as many pupils have spent as little as 60 days in the classroom since the first lockdown last March.
Powell-Davies has called the PM’s re-opening plan “completely reckless”.
He added that it was a step that “risks a surge” in infections and yet another lockdown.
He was once called the angry “young” man in the National Union of Teachers leader race and he makes no secret of his hard-left stance. Teachers and pupils at secondary schools will be tested for Covid when they go back.
Experts on the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies have warned the R rate, which tracks how quickly the virus spreads, will be pushed back above 1 with the re-opening.
But chief medical officer Prof Chris Whitty said last week: “It’s universally accepted there are huge advantages for children to be in school from a health point of view, mental and physical, as well as from educational and a life-course point of view.
“We have a natural firebreak in the Easter holidays and these five weeks to work out how things are going.”
