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International School Toulouse - Injustice


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After nearly two years since Tanya was dismissed from the IST, I am pleased to announce that she has finally won her case for unfair dismissal. The result in my own case is due later next month.

The details of the decision:

The dismissal was disproportional to the fault.

The code of ict conduct does not state that personal use of emails isn't permitted

Tanya had a clean record and parents and staff thought highly of her

There was no evidence given by ist that tanya had hidden the content of the email.

Despite managent saying otherwise i had her superiors

No parents complained, on the contrary lots of parents wrote letters asking for tanya to be reinstated.

The email though of a doubtful humour was nothing more than what 13-14 olds are already are subjected to on a daily basis with tv and advertisement.

Fairly conclusive I'd say.

So will Airbus and the Directors of the school finally admit their error and reinstate Tanya?

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£20,000 payout for teacher sacked after sending a rude email to Year 9

News | Published in The TES on 10 October, 2008 | By: Irena Barker

A teacher who was unjustly sacked from an international school for accidentally forwarding a rude email to Year 9 pupils has won around £20,000 in compensation.

A French employment tribunal found that Tanya Carlile’s dismissal from the International School of Toulouse was “disproportionate” to what she had done, and ordered the school’s sponsors, Airbus Mobility, to make the pay- out.

In an interview with The TES, Mrs Carlile said her sacking and subsequent legal ordeal had made her look at “how precarious life is, especially with the internet”.

She also expressed concerns for other British teachers abroad who might be vulnerable to unfair dismissal because they did not know local employment law, belong to a union or speak the language.

The tribunal ruled that although the email had been of “dubious humour”, the pictures it contained were not pornographic and it was unlikely that 13 or 14-years-old pupils would be shocked by them.

The email, titled “Why Women don’t Take Men on Vacation”, featured six photos, including one of a fully clothed man pretending to be sodomised by a gorilla statue. Others used perspective to make holidaying males appear to have enormous manhoods. One picture showed a man in jeans and a T-shirt sitting astride a huge phallic cactus.

Mrs Carlile had immediately gone to the pupils who received the email and told them to delete it.

Only three pupils actually saw the images and there were no complaints from parents, some of whom called for her to be reinstated after her dismissal.

She also informed the IT technicians and the headteacher, and confessed her mistake.

Less than a week after the incident, she was escorted off the premises of the anglophone private school, which caters largely for the children of workers at the nearby Airbus A380 factory and charges fees of EUR16,000 a year for Year 12 and 13 pupils.

In its dismissal letter to Mrs Carlile in October 2006, the school alleged that she had attempted to conceal the true content of the email from management, something she successfully contested at the hearing.

Richard Jones-Nerzic, a history teacher and union rep at the school, was also dismissed after informing other staff of the reason for Mrs Carlile’s sacking. He will hear the outcome of his own claim for unfair dismissal next week.

Mrs Carlile, a special needs teacher, said: “The victory is knowing that I had done nothing wrong and that I had been as honest as I could be. The money means nothing as I have not been able to work for two years. No one in France would employ me because there has been this hanging over my head. I’m even renting out my house to pay my daughter’s university fees.

“I really enjoyed working at the school. The children were good, with small classes, and I enjoyed the international atmosphere. I would have liked to have stayed on.”

Mr Jones-Nerzic, who now works in Bratislava, Slovakia, said he believed the affair to be a case of “union bashing” by the International School of Toulouse. “Teachers at international schools can be particularly vulnerable in these kind of situations,” he added.

The International School of Toulouse declined to comment on the case. The school has the right to appeal against the decision.

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The International School of Toulouse declined to comment on the case. The school has the right to appeal against the decision.

The school did appeal and, I am pleased to report, lost again. This time the judge made them pay-out even more than the first time.

In addition, Cheryl Boyce whose process for unfair dismissal started this whole affair back in 2003, has with the support of the SUNDEP union finally won her appeal.

I calculate that with pay-offs and three lost court cases, Albiston has cost the IST well over 500,000 Euros since 2002. But I bet there is no-one in Airbus who actually knows this.

My own case was heard (for the last time?) a couple of weeks ago. I await the result in mid January, exactly three years after all this started.

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My own case was heard (for the last time?) a couple of weeks ago. I await the result in mid January, exactly three years after all this started.

Finally, after three years...

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La Depeche Newspaper, Toulouse

22 January 2010

International School - The martyrdom of a teacher

A teacher has won his case for unfair dismissal three years after being dismissed from the INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL OF TOULOUSE.

On the 15/1/2010, the appeal court of Toulouse condemned Airbus Mobility for having unfairly dismissed M JONES NERZIC, a history teacher in December 2006.

The decision heartened all those who have denounced for many years the mismanagement of the school.

Georges Labouysse, a former Classic’s lecturer, tells how difficult it was to set up staff representative elections. ‘The headmistress of the time refused to comply with French law, theworks inspector even had to intervene. This lady, similar in style to Margaret Thatcher, never agreed to meet us and always sent her deputy head. The union CFDT managed in the end to get representation in this school, later it became known as the SRP SUNDEP (a private school teacher union). The headmistress lost her job and was replaced by Leslie Albiston.

40 teachers leave the school in 10 years.

M Albiston carried on, according to the union, getting rid of teachers: there is even on Internet a photo of staff on which more than half of the teachers’ faces are crossed out. They were all dismissed for different reasons.

Veronique LHOTE, a lawyer in the SABATTE practice, dealt with three of these teachers. First, Mrs Boyce, the headmaster‘s Personal Assistant, went to court after being sacked on ‘economic grounds’ but she won her case for moral harassment.

Then Mrs Carlile whose ‘mistake’ was to accidently a joke email to a Y9 class. She realised straight away that she sent the email to the wrong person and corrected her blunder. She also went to inform the headmaster. The very same day, she was suspended and later dismissed. ‘

Finally, Mr Jones Nerzic whose only crime was to, at Mrs Carlile’s request, circulated her dismissal letter. The management accused him of having stolen the letter. The charismatic teacher who had initiated a Comenius 2.1 European programme called e-Help, a project that aims at training teachers to develop their ICT skills, was dismissed on the 23rd of December 2006.

4 court cases lost by the IST

So is there a blacklist of people that M Albiston has tried to eliminate one by one people who are on it?

Were the union members, only one out of 6 is left within the IST, specifically targeted?

In any case, since 2000, 40 teachers have left the school, voluntarily or not. The three teachers who were defended by Veronique L’hote won their court cases, as did the deputy head.

More relieved than happy, the teachers hope that the International school of Toulouse will comply by French Law. Mr Jones Nerzic now works in Brussels. The 40 000 Euros he won will not made up for his loss. We contacted the head teacher, M Leslie Albiston, several times yesterday but he did not want to comment on the case.

Condemned for dismissal

Dismissed, M Jones Nerzic has not yet recovered. His wife, Florence, neither. ‘We were both teachers at the IST, we had just bought a house near Toulouse, we had to move almost overnight. It was a real trauma for our 5 years old son. It was also difficult to find another job.” She describes.

A teacher worshipped by his students, admired by the parents and respected by his colleagues. His only mistake was to join a union and to defend his colleagues. ‘The story of the stolen letter was just an excuse to get rid of me. I had about 20 interviews before I got another job. We moved to Slovakia for two years and now I am in Brussels at the European School’.

The International School of Toulouse

It was created in 1999. It is a private school with excellent facilities. There are 310 students from 4 to 18. The board is set up by Airbus who finances the school through its branch Airbus Mobility. The lessons are in English. Most students are from families who work for Airbus or its subsidiaries.

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