Government considering change to right to be accompanied

The Education Secretary is currently examining plans to increase the rights of teachers who choose not to join a union. Consideration is being given to teachers and other education staff being given the right to be accompanied to grievance and disciplinary hearings by an external lawyer or representative of a body other than a union. This would require an amendment to the Employment Relations Act 1999.

Currently, an employee can only be accompanied by a full-time trade union official, a lay trade union official certified by the union as having experience of, or having received training in, acting as a worker’s companion or another of the employer’s workers.

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