Admittedly, Gina's petition had gathered only 23 signatures as we went to press, which is somewhat less than the 1.7m names on the petition against the road charging scheme that has attracted so much publicity of late.
However, she had already pulled in 900 signatories to a paper petition following the Professional Association of Nursery Nurses conference last year, and this one is sure to attract further support.
The implementation of the Single Status Agreement, which is meant to be individually agreed in each local authority, has led to delays and inconsistencies, with many school nursery nurses and teaching assistants ending up with pay cuts to what were already meagre salaries.
The Government has fleetingly mentioned the possibility of national pay scales, but this issue seems to have disappeared again, and a working party set up to examine pay and conditions of support staff is late in reporting its findings. We need individuals such as Gina Smith, who are prepared to should loudly, pester Government ministers and keep fighting, if anything is to change. Sign her petition if you want to keep the pressure up!
