Around 3,000 nursery nurses went on the march in Glasgow last week, and the continuing waves of action in Scotland show just how determined Scottish nursery nurses are. A rolling programme of action will be pursued over the summer by 1,000 workers.
Determination to get results seems to have worked in Kirklees, where strike action has helped to gain nursery nurses a good settlement, backdated to October. We can expect to see action in other areas soon.
Optimism about the end result of negotiation should be held in check, however. The ability of schools and local authorities to pay higher salaries is limited, especially with the current school budget crisis. In Tower Hamlets, an agreed re-grading is not proving affordable and attempts are being made to change nursery nurse contracts to term-time only. The Government needs to examine this issue on a nationwide basis, instead of leaving councils to make individual decisions, if it seriously wants to attract more early years staff and raise standards of childcare.
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