One hundred striking Essex school support staff will take their call for fair pay to academy chain Lift’s head office in London today, says UNISON.
Classroom assistants and other frontline support staff from special education needs (SEN) schools Pioneer in Basildon and Columbus in Chelmsford will hold a lunchtime rally outside Lift HQ in White City, west London.
They are asking for a special allowance to recognise the extra skills and responsibilities needed to support SEN pupils.
Teachers receive a payment of up to £5,500 a year for working in SEN settings, but the Lift support staff — who administer medical and personal care and deal with complex behaviours — get nothing, says UNISON.
The extra work makes it hard to hang on to staff, leading to a reliance on agency workers at greater expense and causing upset to many students who need routine and familiar faces to thrive, adds the union.
UNISON has dismissed Lift’s claims it has made a “significant” pay offer, saying what’s on the table is a complicated regrading scheme worth nothing to some staff and around 40p an hour to others.
Lift initiated talks at conciliation service Acas last week, but failed to come up with a substantially different offer, said the union.
Workers have already staged three days of strikes and are due out for the rest of the week. The union has warned more strikes are likely unless Lift increases its offer.
UNISON Eastern area organiser Bea Bartilucci said: “Lift has refused to listen to its employees’ concerns, so workers are taking their message to the company’s headquarters.
“All staff want is proper recognition for the work they do.
“It’s in Lift’s interests too, the allowance would go a long way to ending the huge turnover of staff at Columbus and Pioneer, allowing the schools to cut costs on recruitment and expensive agency staff.
“The academy chain is millions of pounds in the black. Bosses can easily afford a SEN allowance. Instead they’re forcing workers onto picket lines and disrupting their students’ education.
“It’s time for Lift to do the right thing and give staff the allowance they deserve.”
