Unite calls on four education unions to stand and strike together for improved pay

Unite officials and workforce reps have begun coordinating the union’s industrial response, due to the Stormont budget failing to provide anything for low paid education workers.

The pay and grading review that the education department was instructed to implement to tackle low pay and inequalities in 2018, is set to remain unfunded for a seventh year threatening an even worse staffing crisis in the sector.

A letter from education minister Paul Givan to the education unions confirmed that “the allocations provided do not include funding for the pay and grading review”. He also admitted that school support workers, who include special educational needs classroom assistants and bus escorts as well as education bus drivers, are “among the lowest paid in the sector and doing vital work supporting children and young people”. He ended by calling on the unions to work with his department on the issue and offered a meeting with his deputy secretary to “discuss the way forward”.

Unite regional secretary Susan Fitzgerald said: “Yesterday’s Stormont budget failed the overwhelmingly female school support workforce and it failed children. This workforce has waited six years for the pay and grading review needed to raise pay and deliver equality. Low paid education workers are being told to wait another year – but our members will wait no longer.  

“Unite will now seek to progress a common industrial response with the other education unions. The four unions need to stand and strike together to win improved pay for all education workers.”

Kieran Ellison is lead regional officer for education in Unite, he said,“ Does Stormont believe workers will not see through this blatant attempt to string them along with platitudes until the end of June, after exam season, and into the summer holiday period with no progress on pay until the next academic year? Our members will not be fooled. 

“If the parties think they can use our members’ pay and children’s education as leverage in negotiations with Westminster, then they are playing a dangerous game. By leaving workers no alternative, there’s a mounting risk that the NI executive will engineer industrial action at the height of the schools’ exam period.”