Education Authority support staff to commence 48-hour strike action tomorrow over failure to deliver pay & grading review

Union warns of significant disruption to school transport and to some schools on first day of strike ahead of wider industrial action

Communication from Department of Education confirms that business case for negotiated commitment has still not been submitted

Almost 800 members of Unite the union working as school support staff will commence a 48-hour strike commencing at 00.01am tomorrow [15 November 2023]. Other school support staff unions – Unison, GMB and NIPSA – will join the strike on the second day in what will be one of the biggest strikes among non-teaching unions in years.

The latest action by Unite members follows a ballot which returned a 94 per cent majority for industrial action; a work-to-rule in the dispute commenced on October 23. The strike is likely to cause significant disruption to many schools given the concentration of Unite membership in school bus transport, catering, admin, cleaning, classroom assistants and other roles.

The strike is the latest development in Unite’s ongoing industrial dispute over the failure to deliver a pay and grading review to education workers as part of a negotiated resolution of the 2022 pay dispute.

Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “It is simply unacceptable that the Department of Education continues to renege on the implementation of a pay and grading review that has been negotiated by the Education Authority with Unite.”

The union understands that the business case for the Pay & Grading review was first submitted by the Education Authority to the Department of Education on 6^th February, with revised versions being sent in on 28^th March, 15^th June and 18^th September. Despite this, no request for additional funding has been made by the Department for Education to the Department for Finance for the cost of the review.

Unite regional officer Kieran Ellison said: “Responsibility for this escalation in industrial action lies wholly with the obstructive behaviour of senior management at the Department of Education whose latest communication reveals that they failed to even seek funding for the pay and grading review.”