The Union of Women Teachers (UWT) was a trade union for female teachers in the United Kingdom.
A trade union, also called a labour union or labor union (US), is an association of workers in a particular trade, industry, or company created for the purpose of securing improvement in pay, benefits, working conditions or social and political status through collective bargaining and working conditions through the increased bargaining power wielded by creation of a monopoly of the workers. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with employers. The most common purpose of these associations or unions is "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment". This may include the negotiation of wages, work rules, complaint procedures, rules governing hiring, firing and promotion of workers, benefits, workplace safety and policies.
Female (♀) is the sex of an organism, or a part of an organism, that produces non-mobile ova. Barring rare medical conditions, most female mammals, including female humans, have two X chromosomes. Female characteristics vary between different species with some species containing more well defined female characteristics. Both genetics and environment shape the prenatal development of a female.
A teacher is a person who helps others to acquire knowledge, competences or values.
The National Union of Women Teachers dissolved in 1960, and women teachers thereafter could choose to join either the National Union of Teachers or the Association of Assistant Mistresses. The National Association of Schoolmasters (NAS), while not wanting to admit women as members, was concerned that both the alternative unions were hostile to them. As a result, in 1964, the NAS encouraged the formation of the Union of Women Teachers. [1]
The National Union of Women Teachers (NUWT) was a trade union representing women schoolteachers in Great Britain. It originated in 1904 as a campaign for equal pay for equal work, and dissolved in 1961, when this was achieved.
The National Union of Teachers (NUT) was a trade union for school teachers in England, Wales, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. It was a member of the Trades Union Congress. In March 2017, NUT members endorsed a proposed merger with the Association of Teachers and Lecturers to form a new union known as the National Education Union, which came into existence on 1 September 2017. The union recruited only qualified teachers and those training to be qualified teachers into membership and on dissolution had almost 400,000 members, making it the largest teachers' union in the United Kingdom.
The union was always small, and by 1969 had only 2,000 members, although it grew to 6,000 by 1975. Due to its small size, it worked closely with the NAS, particularly on legal and professional matters. In 1970, the two unions formed an alliance, the "Joint Two". The UWT was refused permission to join the Trades Union Congress in 1974. [1]
The Trades Union Congress (TUC) is a national trade union centre, a federation of trade unions in England and Wales, representing the majority of trade unions. There are fifty affiliated unions, with a total of about 5.6 million members. The current General Secretary is Frances O'Grady.
The Sex Discrimination Act 1975 made it unlawful to maintain a single-sex union. As a result, the NAS proposed a merger with the UWT. [1] The UWT leadership opposed this, but were outvoted at the union's annual conference. The general secretary, Penny Yaffe, left the platform in protest, along with most of the union's executive committee. They were declared by the union's president to have thereby resigned, and the merger went ahead, forming the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers. However, Yaffe founded the rival Association of Career Teachers. [2]
The Sex Discrimination Act 1975 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which protected men and women from discrimination on the grounds of sex or marital status. The Act concerned employment, training, education, harassment, the provision of goods and services, and the disposal of premises. The Gender Recognition Act 2004 and The Sex Discrimination Act 1975 (Amendment) Regulations 2008 amended parts of this Act to apply to transsexual people. Other amendments were introduced by the Sex Discrimination Act 1986, the Employment Act 1989, the Equality Act 2006, and other legislation such as rulings by the European Court of Justice.
