Unite leader Sharon Graham visits Northern Ireland school support workers’ picket lines and vows to escalate campaign for improved pay and equality

Unite general secretary Sharon Graham committed her union to make an election issue of the campaign of school support workers to secure a six-year overdue pay and grading review after visiting striking education workers on the picket lines outside Mitchell House school in east Belfast yesterday.

1,500 members of Unite working as school support staff for the education authority were undertaking their third day of strike action.

The pay and grading review was instructed for implementation by the national joint council pay body in 2018 but which has been left unfunded in both February’s public pay package and the draft executive budget for 2024-25.

Addressing the workers Sharon Graham said, “The campaign waged by Unite members working as school support staff has been a heroic one. For two years they have taken the lead in demanding improved pay.

“The majority of school support staff in Northern Ireland are paid as term-time workers which means that they only get full pay for 10 months of the year. Calculated over a twelve-month period, in some cases, workers do not even receive the bare legal minimum.

That is particularly disgraceful in consideration of the vital and challenging role played by these workers in enabling children, most especially children with special needs, access educational opportunities. The failure of consecutive Stormont executives to deliver the six year overdue pay and grading is unfair and intolerable.

“We will be escalating our campaign to make this an election issue and demand delivery from the politicians – both industrially and in the communities. Education services need to be prioritised. We will leave no stone unturned in our quest to win pay justice and equality for these inspirational workers.”