Today (Saturday) at a meeting of the National Education Union National Council, the NEU will launch a major national campaign to improve the pay and conditions for support staff members in the independent sector.
NEU annual conference at Easter heard the call from members working in independent schools to actively recruit and campaign for collective bargaining rights for support staff in private schools.
The union will seek to recruit and build independent school support staff membership to secure their statutory rights to trade union recognition and to support workplace collective bargaining.
Support staff pay in independent schools can be poor and many years of the cost-of-living crisis has further eroded living standards. We know that many support staff are forced to take on additional work to make ends meet.
It is not only pay that is an issue; other terms and conditions such as sick pay are often greatly inferior in comparison to teachers for no justifiable reason. This should not be the case. Through collective action change does happen. Support staff members at an independent school were aggrieved that their sick pay was a meagre six days compared to 60 for teachers, and through the NEU successfully campaigned for pay parity.
Commenting on the campaign, Daniel Kebede, General Secretary of the National Education Union, said:
“Support staff are the backbone of every school yet for far too long, independent sector employers have taken their support staff for granted.
‘The NEU is committed to improving support staff pay and conditions. We are the biggest union in the independent sector with over 34,000 members.
‘We will use our strength to organise and campaign for support staff in the independent sector.
‘There is a growing consciousness amongst our independent school members, both teachers and support staff, that the best way to defend their terms and conditions, pensions and pay, is through collective action.
‘The National Education Union is a modern trade union. We don’t divide & separate, by role or grade. In the independent sector, we organise by workplace. We stand as one.
‘When teachers and support staff stand together, we make a difference.