Unison presses for year-round pay deal

The union, which is calling for teaching assistants to be em-ployed on a year-round basis, will submit the claim this summer, but no figure has yet been set.

According to Unison, 70 per cent of support school staff are term-time workers who lose out on thousands of pounds each year because they are considered to be part-time workers. They are also ineligible for Job Seekers Allowance during school holidays because they are considered not to be looking for alternative work.

Bruni de la Motte, Unison national officer responsible for early years, said, 'They are losing out on holiday, pension and maternity pay, because they are considered part-time and don't get paid for when schools close.'

Unison, together with unions GMB and T&G, will submit the claim to local authority employers in due course with the aim of negotiating a better deal.

'We want to re-address the salary side,' Ms de la Motte said. 'We want full-year recognition for teaching assistants whether it's pro-rata or not.

It's important for pension terms that this is acknowledged.'

However, she warned that local authorities would need extra money if a deal was agreed. 'We'd need support from the Government,' she said. 'It would have to be phased in, but we would like it implemented within the next three years.'

Peter Chalke, deputy chairman for the Local Government Association, said that it was a particularly difficult time to address the issue. 'This doesn't come at a good time, when the Government has underfunded education,' he said.

'Local government won't be able to change the system we have unless central government puts money in. We are already putting more money into education than we are supposed to.'

Ms de la Motte also called for clearer job advertisements for staff, as applicants were often confused about how much they would be paid on a yearly basis. 'They need to be clear about what the actual rate is,' she said.

Unison published a report back in February, Taking the lid off term-time working in education, which said that there was still an unspoken belief that term-time work was 'just "pin-money" jobs to "occupy" mothers, even though people were not necessarily term-time workers through choice'.

* See Special Report, p10