Received from: National Education Union
This motion was ruled out of order
Congress notes that while the majority of teachers in schools and colleges are in a union, unionisation of support staff is significantly lower. Sadly, this disparity is replicated in two-tier conditions of service.
Support staff experience the same real-terms cuts in pay as their teacher colleagues, and similar workload pressures. Three quarters of support staff report working beyond their contracted hours, 80 per cent without extra pay (NEU, 2024). Three quarters of teaching assistants say looking after an entire class means they end up teaching rather than supervising pupils (UNISON, 2024). Support staff pay rises are unfunded and often result in redundancies.
Perhaps most alarming for a predominantly female workforce, family-friendly rights, including carer and maternity leave entitlements, are materially worse for support staff compared to teachers. There is no justification for this two-tier treatment.
Collective action by support staff unions is securing redress in many employers, perhaps most notably on equal pay.
Congress believes that the problem is systemic and will only be fully addressed through collaborative effort by every union with support staff members.
Congress likewise believes that the voice of every support staff union member must be represented at the long overdue school support staff negotiating body promised by the new Labour government.
Congress calls on all education unions to work collaboratively to organise unorganised support staff, to make all support staff voices heard across the bargaining table and launch a joint campaign of collective action to bring their conditions of service in line with teachers.
National Education Union