Nursery World - Discord at Unison over workload pay

The leader of Britain's biggest union has warned that Government plans to enhance the role of teaching assistants by restructuring the school workforce will be unworkable if they are not adequately funded. Dave Prentis, general secretary of Unison, warned at its annual conference in Brighton last week, 'If the money's not there the changes won't happen.'

Dave Prentis, general secretary of Unison, warned at its annual conference in Brighton last week, 'If the money's not there the changes won't happen.'

Mr Prentis said the union, which was a signatory in January to the Government's workload agreement, would continue to challenge 'the scandalous abuse of term-time working' and be 'keeping faith with the tens of thousands of teaching assistants who joined our union in the last year'.

Discontent over the Government's failure to fund the agreement and Unison's decision to back it surfaced at the union's local government conference early last week. A series of motions condemned the leadership for agreeing to the proposals. One motion said, 'It appears that Unison has agreed to its members increasing their duties and responsibilities, but has not established any safeguards or improvements to their terms and conditions.'

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