This month saw the start of a campaign targeting the British Council (BC). At issue is the sacking of a teacher, Marina, allegedly in retaliation for whistleblowing about health and safety concerns. Read below to get up to speed with the campaign so far – and how you can get involved!
The story so far
The TEFL Workers’ Union (IWW) entered into a dispute with the British Council and their outsourcing agency, the Impellam Group, on August 15th.
While the specific cause of the dispute was the sacking of one of our members, it relates to the fact that teachers allege that they often need to wake up in the small hours to quickly book classes, something they refer to as “the feeding frenzy”.
As teachers are employed through an agency, the insecurity of their contracts leaves them vulnerable. This meant that after Marina raised concerns about the mental health implications of the scheduling system, she alleges she was subsequently dismissed.
The campaign started with a bang: four coordinated protests in London, Leeds, Dublin, and Glasgow. Days later, IWW members in Cyprus held a protest outside the British Council office in Nicosia.
This was supported by a vigorous social media campaign, alerting both TEFL workers and trade unionists around the world that the BC’s online teachers are fighting back!
What does the BC have to say about this?
When Marina was dismissed, she was told it was for making “offensive” comments. She duly asked what these comments were but never received a response.
Since then, both Marina and the union have asked the BC to provide evidence of the offensive comments and the supposed complaints they generated.
The BC has steadfastly refused to provide any evidence and has, so far, failed to provide any information whatsoever about the circumstances that led to Marina’s dismissal.
Why is the BC using an agency anyway?
The British Council is, ostensibly, a charity. However, as the BC has moved into more profit-oriented activities, the working conditions of staff have suffered.
One major way workers have experienced this is through the outsourcing of online teachers to the Impellam group. Impellam, in turn, organises lessons in the manner of the large online teaching platforms. This move towards a gig-economy model typifies the ‘Uberfication’ of ELT exemplified by platforms such as Preply, Whales English, or italki.
For employers, the appeal of such a system is not difficult to see: teachers are not guaranteed hours and the arms-length nature of the employment relationship means teachers have fewer workplace rights and fewer ways to hold the bosses to account.
None of this makes for good working conditions and, arguably, decreases the quality of teaching. But if you’re the BC and your goal is to save money or if you’re Impellam and your goal is to make profit, it works great.
Impellam: Massive profits and sleazy bosses
The BC’s online teachers are employed by Flexy, a subsidiary of the Impellam Group. In December 2022, Impellam reported revenues of over £2.5 billion. Gross profit for the year was up nearly 20% from 2021, with adjusted operating profit up nearly 28%.
The chairperson of Impellam – and one of the company’s largest individual shareholders – is Lord Ashcroft. Lord Ashcroft is a billionaire and former deputy chairman of the Tory party. He’s been widely criticised for his non-domicile status and, subsequently, pays minimal UK tax.
An active financier of conservative causes, Lord Ashcroft has been at the centre of a number of high-profile scandals. It leaves one to question how and why a non-profit, government-funded institution like the British Council is outsourcing to a company largely owned by the former chairman of the Conservative Party whose name is largely a byword for Tory sleaze.
Media coverage
The BC is an international organisation. English language teaching is an international industry. And our fight to secure justice for Marina will also be an international one.
Here in the UK, the dispute has already been covered by the Morning Star. We’re in contact with other ELT journalists as well broadsheet journalists who are interested in the story.
More trouble brewing for the BC
Across the British Council, workers are revolting against a culture that mistreats and disrespects staff.
An employee in Dubai has won the right to a UK employment tribunal after she was sacked while on maternity leave. In Afghanistan, the teachers who were abandoned by the BC when the Taliban took over continue their fight for justice.
In Spain and Portugal, teachers have taken or are preparing to take strike action to demand a pay rise. This is off the back of BC strikes in Japan over the forced retirement of a teacher and strikes of BC diplomatic staff in the UK to push back against planned jobs cuts of 20%.
As for us, we’re now supporting a second online teacher who was sacked after falling foul of the BC’s residency requirements for online teachers. As we’ve found with Impellam before, the policies on which staff are sacked are often unclear or changed without adequate consultation or dissemination.
Show your support!
Anyone who works in ELT knows what a big player the BC is in the industry. We can and we have beat them before, but it takes solidarity, action, and funds.
Marina is taking the BC to an employment tribunal and while the BC has a well-paid legal team, ordinary workers like her don’t have such resources. But our union has put her in contact with our lawyers so she can have some legal muscle behind her for the upcoming case.
For our friends and supporters, there are two ways you can support financially.
One, make an individual donation. We’ve set crowdfunder for Marina which can be found here: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/justice-for-marina
Two, send a donation from your trade union branch or any other organisation you belong to. We can provide a template motion and Marina or someone else from the campaign will be glad to get to your next meeting to talk about the case.
Finally, while money is important, real solidarity is expressed in the streets. The British Council operates offices and schools around the world. Impellam and its subsidiaries are active across three continents.
If you want to help out, just drop us a line at [email protected] and we’ll get you everything you need to get out in the the streets to help us demand #JusticeForMarina – including some of those snazzy whistles!