Cifriana - On Strike!

Discussion in 'Taylor's Tittle-Tattle - General Banter' started by Clive_ofthe_Kremlin, Jan 3, 2021.

  1. Clive_ofthe_Kremlin

    Clive_ofthe_Kremlin Squad Player

    As I may have mentioned, my partner, Cifriana is also a minimum wage key worker. She is a cleaner at the local primary school. Of course she is a UNISON member too. The union have advised their staff not to go back. She's due in tomorrow morning from 0700 to do some pre-opening cleaning and she'll go in for that OK, but not anymore if/when the school reopens to all pupils from Tuesday.

    UNISON have provided a model letter to send. I've amended it a little bit because as she is the only brown person (staff, pupil or parent I think) in the whole school, they have taken absolutely no consideration of the extra risk she faces as BAME, at an 'at risk' age and with mild asthma. That also applies to the remainder of the Kremlins if she brings it home with her.

    Meanwhile, 4Cyclones is due to start back at his (different) primary school on Tuesday. I suspect that the schools will be closed, irrespective of the wishes of the Etonian Scarecrow and his Tory chums, but if not it will be a very hard decision to send him or not. I think not. What are other parents doing?


    Dear Lady Frogmore,

    Re: Health & Safety

    I am writing to you following the increase in transmission and infection rates currently recorded across England. I am very concerned about this and the dangers it presents to me and my family. I am of an ethnic group which the government and the Department for Education has identified as being at disproportionately higher risk from COVID-19 (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-54907473). I also suffer from mild asthma and am in an age category more at risk from the disease. I am concerned that I do not know whether the school's risk assessments related to the virus pandemic have taken these vulnerabilities into account and whether they have sufficiently identified the unique threats that BAME workers face. Has it been considered whether the risks to health are too great for workers to be in those roles?

    You are, I am sure, aware that you have legal duties to protect the health, safety and welfare of your staff and pupils. Those duties arise under the following legislation: -

    • Sections 2 and 3 of the Health & Safety Act 1974

    • Regulations 3 and 8 of the Management of Health & Safety at Work Regulations 1999

    • Regulation 4 of the Personal Protective Equipment at Work Regulations 1992

    • Regulation 4 of the Workplace (Health, Safety & Welfare) Regulations 1992

    • Regulation 7 of the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002
    The most recent advice from SAGE is that schools should not open in January other than for children of key workers and vulnerable children. This is because the scientific advice is that it is not safe for schools to open. There are new variants of Covid-19 that are highly infectious and infection rates have increased significantly since schools closed.

    I appreciate that measures have been in place since September to allow the school to open but according to SAGE those measures may no longer be sufficient. They state in their most recent report: -

    The introduction of Tier 4 measures in England combined with the school holidays will be informative of the strength of measures required to control the new variant but analysis of this will not be possible until mid-January.

    Based on the above I do not believe that it is safe for me to return to Gasworks Lane Primary School after it has reopened to all pupils.

    If I do attend Gasworks Lane Primary School after it has reopened to all pupils, I believe that this will present a serious and imminent danger to my health and safety.

    I am therefore writing to inform you that I am exercising my contractual right not to attend an unsafe place of work. I believe that not attending work in the current circumstances is an appropriate step for me to take for the following reasons:
    1. The dangers that are preventing me from attending work are the risk of contracting coronavirus and or spreading coronavirus to others. As detailed above, I am a black worker with other vulnerabilities who is disproportionately at risk from the virus.


    2. The person(s) I am seeking to protect are myself, my family, our pupils, their families, my colleagues, their families and members of the public.

    3. I believe that this danger is serious because coronavirus infection is potentially fatal and has already resulted in more than 73,512 deaths in the UK with a significant up surge in recent weeks.

    4. I believe that, if I were to attend work, the danger would be imminent because before Christmas the highest infection rates were in children of school age, and the new variant may be more transmissible amongst students than previously.

    5. I will be happy to return to the workplace once SAGE is satisfied that the R rate has decreased, scientific advice has been produced on safety measures required to make schools more “Covid secure”, risk assessments have been updated (particularly with regard to my vulnerabilities as detailed above) and any necessary further safety measures implemented.
    In the meantime, I am willing to attend school to work as scheduled tomorrow morning (Mon 4th January 2020) as the school will not have opened to all pupils. Additionally, I am of course willing to carry out any of my duties or alternative agreed duties at my grade that can be undertaken from my home, and to be in school supporting provision and the learning of key worker and vulnerable children where necessary.


    Yours sincerely,


    Cirfriana María López de Santa Isabel y Pérez Kremlin (Mrs)
     
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  2. GoingDown

    GoingDown "The Stability"

    Haven't you heard? It's all a hoax. Stop being lazy and do some work ffs.
     
  3. zztop

    zztop Eurovision Winner 2015

    Re the last sentence, how can she be in school to support key workers and vulnerable children, but not other children? Do all children not deserve the same protection in terms of a properly cleaned school?
     
  4. Clive_ofthe_Kremlin

    Clive_ofthe_Kremlin Squad Player

    That's copied from the model letter. The answer to your first question is - she can't. The answer to the second question is - Yes. But not at risk of dying.
     
  5. WatfordTalk

    WatfordTalk First Team

    Good on her. Hope her school is supportive
     
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  6. zztop

    zztop Eurovision Winner 2015

    So, if it isn't true then the last paragraph shouldn't be included, should it.
     
  7. zztop

    zztop Eurovision Winner 2015

    Cleaners at my local school have left by the time the children arrive, so if that's the case at other schools, then I am struggling to see the logic.
     
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  8. Lloyd

    Lloyd Squad Player

    It should be illegal for any 'key worker' to strike during this time of national crisis
     
  9. I Blame Pozzo

    I Blame Pozzo First Team

    The Borough of Broxbourne has one of the highest infection rates in the country at 1120.
    I have emailed the head of our closest primary partner saying I am not returning whilst numbers are so high or until play outside. ( I have four half hour groups with fifteen children in each).
    She has said the school is only open for key workers' children,not surprising given the infection rate in Hoddesdon. However all she wants really is a screenshot of my safeguarding certificate for her records. She has the access to my coach secure area and had rejected the previous screenshot I sent her. Her downtrodden secretary is off,probably traumatised by this woman who talks incessantly but NEVER listens. She has the file in the school office but says she's not going in there. I picture a Chernobyl situation although I have long suspected that she is a troglodyte in electronic terms and is incapable without Sue.

    In another local school many of the staff contracted Covid as the head mixed the bubbles as she didn't want to bring in an extra teacher. The school shut the next day. One teacher has only just come out of hospital with pneumonia brought on by the virus.

    I fully understand why parents and any staff at a school do not want to rush back.

    Very worrying.
     
  10. WatfordTalk

    WatfordTalk First Team

    Door handles, railingse etc need to be sanitised regularly throughout the day, cleaners are in school for most of the day now.

    Your local school should be doing more to protect its teacher and students, if that's the case.
     
  11. zztop

    zztop Eurovision Winner 2015

    The Unions ha
    Yes, but they wait until rooms are empty. So they clean the classes before the kids arrive, at break times and lunchtimes. Cleaners are not going round cleaning when the kids are still in the classrooms - they are kept separate.

    Having said that, if staff members are suffering from other illnesses, then they shouldn't be expected to work if it puts them at extra risk, and I am sure Cifriana will be able to get a note from her doctor confirming her asthma.

    In the meantime, my grand-daughters school in Nottingham has had about a third of their classes closed due to the unions telling teachers the schools are unsafe, and the teachers going on strike. Current local covid rate is abut 290. There has not been one Covid case in her year since schools went back last summer but both classes are closed.

    The rest of the teachers will have to take on extra children now to cover, of course.

    The unions tried this in the summer, then in September, and now again. I suppose they have to try and keep themselves relevant.

    Shameful.
     
  12. Lloyd

    Lloyd Squad Player

    I shudder to think of the chaos that would very quickly ensue if nurses, the police, supermarket workers, delivery drivers, warehouse operatives, the staff of Majestic Wine etc etc decided to go on strike because they think their workplaces are a health risk. We need to respond to this with an iron fist before other 'key workers' get similar ideas
     
  13. WatfordTalk

    WatfordTalk First Team

    Less cases of covid in a school with classes closed? Huh.

    What part of the union's actions is shameful? What is their sinister motive other than wanting their members and their families to be safe?
     
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  14. WatfordTalk

    WatfordTalk First Team

    Do any of those jobs involve spending 7 hours a day indoors in a room with 30 unmasked individuals?
     
  15. zztop

    zztop Eurovision Winner 2015

    Its the same as it was last spring and summer, they want to score political points, they even admitted as much back then, in internal memos that said they should take every opportunity they could of the crisis.
     
  16. WatfordTalk

    WatfordTalk First Team

    To what end?
     
  17. Clive_ofthe_Kremlin

    Clive_ofthe_Kremlin Squad Player

    You think they're making it up about two new mutant strains that are far more infectious then?
     
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  18. Keighley

    Keighley First Team

    Marxist revolution, m8.
     
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  19. Keighley

    Keighley First Team

    Who are largely asymptomatic, so won’t self-select and not turn up, nor do they properly understand the need to socially distance (at least at primary level).
     
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  20. WatfordTalk

    WatfordTalk First Team

    Trust me it's just as bad at secondary! Hugging, kissing, wrestling, handshakes, fist bumps, sharing food, all commonplace.
     
  21. Maninblack

    Maninblack Reservist

    And that's just the teachers!
     
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  22. WatfordTalk

    WatfordTalk First Team

    Wahey!
     
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  23. Bwood_Horn

    Bwood_Horn Squad Player

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  24. WatfordTalk

    WatfordTalk First Team

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  25. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

    Won’t affect you then, unless there is something ‘key’ about your occupation you forgot to mention. :)
     
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  26. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

    This nonsense from Johnson at the weekend about the schools being ‘safe’ is one of the most dishonest things he has come out with and that’s a long list.

    We know that children are unlikely to suffer serious ill-effects, though it has happened. However, their teachers, other workers and most importantly the vulnerable people in their lives are at more risk.

    We are in the eye of the storm, has often been said. It’s not necessarily going to be a long one, but right now it’s a major threat to individuals and the ability of the NHS to cope. Does he not believe this? He says it. It’s apparently his policy.

    And we know that a lockdown and/or decision on schools is inevitable. Just get on with it for once.
     
  27. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

    Pupil - Is Mr Brown here Sir?
    Teacher - No, he’s wrestling Mr Smith in the gym. Hi fives!
     
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  28. It should be illegal for a government to be this ******* useless. But there you go.


    PS But what about Corbyn? There, saved you the bother.
     
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  29. Lloyd

    Lloyd Squad Player

    The amount of tax I pay each year people should be outside their houses bashing theirs pots and pans every evening to thank me and others like me for funding our 'key workers'
     
  30. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

    I hope you are not mistaking people who make money from things with people who make money from doing things.
     
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  31. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

    Tbf Corbyn’s just about the antithesis of a key worker right now.
     
  32. UEA_Hornet

    UEA_Hornet First Team Captain

    Just because you spent a fiver at Timpsons?
     
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  33. Otter

    Otter Gambling industry insider


    With a new national lockdown all but certain, it's likely all schools will be shut after today.
     
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  34. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

    So Unions bad, but if Boris does exactly the same thing tonight him nice man?

    Maybe what it needs is someone to suggest a lockdown while wearing Union Jack pants and moaning about the French?
     
  35. WatfordTalk

    WatfordTalk First Team

    Boris is just scoring political points
     
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