Dear TEFL Union,
As fellow trade unionists, and members of an education union that represents teachers and support staff, we send our solidarity to the TEFL Workers’ Union and, in particular, to the language school EF workers facing possible redundancy.
The largely non-union TEFL sector represents some of the worst exploitation of education workers anywhere alongside massive employer profits. The founder of EF, Bertil Hult, was named in the Panama Papers, and is worth an estimated 6 billion dollars while employing staff on zero-hours contracts, with no paid prep time or paid sick days. As we all face the physical dangers associated with the coronavirus, it is unacceptable that EF, with its massive wealth, would consider mass redundancies at a time like this.
We support the efforts of TEFL Workers’ Union to support employees to prevent these redundancies and to ensure a safe workplace with secure conditions of employment.
In solidarity,
UCU Glasgow Branch Committee