Shameful rise of the compensation culture

WITH reference to your article about claims by teachers for compensation (Yorkshire Post, April 16). this reminds me of my early days in the surveying profession about 40 years ago.

The first day I went out to work, on £3 per week, I was mugged for the rent bag and thrown into the canal at Reading. It never occurred to me to claim any compensation – I was more concerned at being back at work on time and not losing my job.

After that, I suffered several assaults, usually as a result of refusing to pass a builder’s work on a client’s contract.

On one occasion, my employer sent me to London with a lease which, it seems, some third party wanted to get hold of and I was very badly beaten up in being relieved of it. I suffered a fractured skull, broken ribs, cracked ankle and a number of broken fingers, but I was back at work the next day, again for fear of losing my job.

I have even been “kidnapped” as part of trying to persuade me to alter a report and just recently, I was quite badly knocked about by a bunch of young Muslim boys leaving a mosque claiming that the street where I had been working was a Muslim-only area.

Never once did it occur to me to claim compensation from anyone. I accepted that whatever had arisen went with the job. If I didn’t like it then I would have to find another job and that might not be too easy.

Teachers and the NUT should be ashamed of themselves if what you have described is standard practice.