I concur with your letters (TES, December 5) concerning the lack of National Union of Teachers’ support for members who since 1996 have formed the bulk of teachers calling the UK workplace bullying advice line and its website at www.bullyonline.org
Each experience bears the same hallmarks: support by local NUT officers is good but once the case moves up a level the member finds their case frustrated and access to legal services to which the member is contractually entitled is denied. This is in contrast to the seemingly unlimited legal resources made available to members who are headteachers and local education authority officers.
Whilst expressing “delight that LEA officers are members of the union” the NUT refuses to justify the conflict of interest and it is left for bullied and stressed teachers who are in conflict with fellow NUT members from their education department to wonder if they have mistakenly joined the National Union of Treachery.
Tim Field Executive director The Field Foundation PO Box 67 Didcot, Oxfordshire
