Appeal Court rules on teachers’ strike loss

The Court of Appeal has ruled that the daily pay teachers lose when on strike must be based on 1/260th of annual salary, not 1/365th of annual salary.

The issue arose in Hartley v King Edward VI College [2015] because teachers are contractually obliged to work both directed time (time spent at school) and reasonable undirected time (time spent beyond the school day, for example preparing lessons, writing reports and marking).

The Court of Appeal concluded that under the teachers’ written contract terms, the undirected time did not count when working out their daily rate of pay, even though they were contractually obliged to perform it.

The key message of this case for striking workers outside the education sector is that working out a day’s pay depends on what the contract says about working hours.

www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2015/455.html