Setback for union in supply agency fight

LECTURERS' union Natfhe has suffered a setback in its battle against the use of supply lecturers by colleges after an industrialtribunal last week ruled against lecturer Debra Allonby. She claimed that she had unfairly lost pension rights when Accrington and Rossendale College sacked her and other part-timers in 1996 and re-employed them through supply agency Education Lecturing Services. The tribunal found that Ms Allonby was not entitled to a pension through the Teachers' Superannuation Scheme as she was not an ELS employee. The Inland Revenue classes ELS personnel as employees for income tax and National Insurance, but ELS maintains that the lecturers it uses are self-employed in all other respects.