Time and again, the promises of online teaching schools fail to materialise. If we want to make things better, we need to hold online schools to account. And that will take a movement of teachers, for teachers.
The reality of online teaching
Whether we call it the gig economy, Uberfication, or platform-based learning, the move towards online teaching has already had a massive impact on the ELT industry.
To its proponents, online teaching provides flexibility and the ability to work from home. Online teaching companies breathlessly promote themselves as lucrative ‘side hustles’ that let you ‘be your own boss’ and ‘choose your own hours’.
The reality, for many, is vastly different.
Online teaching work pays significantly less than traditional classroom teaching; with some roles even being advertised at less than the minimum wage.
Most online teaching gigs are “freelance”, a nice little euphemism for insecure self-employed contracts. Freelance teachers lack basic employment rights (access to disciplinary, grievance, and redundancy procedures) and lose out on financial benefits like annual leave, pension contributions, and statutory sick leave.
This is fine if you’re genuinely self-employed: seeking out your own students, setting your own prices, deciding what you want to teach. But, for most online platforms, this is far from the case. There is often a set rate of pay and expectations about how much work you will pick up and what hours you’ll be available.
Worse yet, many of these online platforms are based outside of the UK, meaning there is little to no legal recourse if you’ve been mistreated or even if you don’t get paid.
So what can be done?
Let’s be honest: in an industry where pay routinely fails to keep up with the cost-of-living and permanent contracts become increasingly less common, online schools lead the charge when it comes to declining conditions.
These problems won’t be fixed by picking up more hours, moving to another platform, or complaining on the internal forums.
Rather, we need to mobilise within and across teaching platforms and bring demands for change directly to the companies. We need to be willing to use all the tools at our disposal: petitions from workers to managers, social media campaigns, legal challenges. We need to build to the point where teachers can coordinate non-teaching days where they collectively agree to not take on classes until things get better.
These platforms are designed to avoid the most basic accountability from their teachers and to deny us our most basic employment rights. We should have no illusions about what it will take to achieve change.
Luckily, unions have already had success holding these platforms to account. But it’s always taken a willingness to stand together, speak out, and take action.
A few years ago, we were contacted by a group of teachers at the Overseas Teacher, an online school. Alongside a number of issues, they were concerned that they were listed as self-employed and were losing out on holiday pay and pension contributions.
The teachers, who’d already formed a network amongst themselves to raise their issues, were able to receive legal support from the union. We brought an employment tribunal claim seeking to challenge their self-employed status.
Through the court case, public campaigning, and negotiation, the workers were ultimately able to recover the money they’d lost due to being “self-employed” and change the policy so that all current and future teachers would be directly employed.
In Germany, our sibling union, the FAU has a campaign at Learnship to demand change. With a growing membership at the company and a dedicated union rep to support them, workers have raised issues of pay and conditions while the union has raised the public profile of the workers and their cause.
It starts and ends with us
Changing the online ELT industry won’t be easy, but the first step to getting there is. If you work at an online school, speak to your workmates.
Management doesn’t make it easy to make those connections. You might not know the names of your fellow teachers or, even if you do, you may not have a way to contact them.
As a union, we’ve devised some ways that you may be able to get management to open up a little bit and share contact info. We won’t be sharing these methods publicly, but if you’re interested in taking those first steps, drop us a line at [email protected] for a chat.
Consider setting up an invite-only Facebook group so you and your workmates can support each other, get advice from the union, and discuss how to grow your campaign. Start a Twitter or Instagram account targeted towards other teachers at your company. Post about the issues you face at work and encourage others to reach out.
Building up networks isn’t always fast work, but it’s not hard work. Take small steps to reach out to your workmates. Keep building that momentum and confidence until you can begin raising issues together.
A reminder, in all of this, to avoid putting a target on your back. The movement to #MakeTEFLaCareer needs organisers, not martyrs.
Don’t be a loudmouth. Be the diligent teacher that others come to for support and advice. Raise issues collectively – as a group – ensuring everyone chips in. When everyone is a troublemaker, no one is a troublemaker.
Finally, join the union. Being a union member means that if you do have a problem at work, you have support. If we have other members at your school, we can put you in contact.
Plus, it contributes to the wider movement to hold online employers to account. One of our big targets is the British Council where we are supporting online teachers and IELTS examiners. A growing membership amongst online teachers bolsters this fight. And if we can win at the British Council, we show employers across the online world that they, too, can be held to account.
If you work in the world of ELT – traditional teacher, online teachers, or in an administrative or support role – the TEFL Workers’ Union has got your back. If you have a problem at work, want to know more about the union, or want to get involved, drop us a line at [email protected].