Pay dispute leads to strike at special needs schools

Teaching assistants and representatives from the NUT and UCU on the picket line

Staff at the Horizon and Downsview Specialist Educational Needs Schools went on strike on Tuesday 26 March amid an ongoing pay dispute with the schools’ management.

According to Unison, the public sector trade union, the Stoke Newington schools are continuing to flout the pay agreement for teaching assistants that was jointly reached by trade unions and the Hackney Learning Trust, resulting in a loss of potential income of £2,300 a year.

The two schools provide education to children with the highest level of special educational need in Hackney and operate from a single site on Prince George Road.

Despite the cold weather, participation in the industrial action was emphatic – 50 members of staff formed a picket line and every affected Unison member was on strike.

In a further show of solidarity, representatives from the National Union of Teachers and the University and College Union attended to support the striking teaching assistants.

Hackney Unison Branch Secretary, Matthew Waterfall, said: “The strike demonstrates the strength of feeling amongst the workforce. The school management teach our children about fairness and equality but then refuse to pay teaching assistants a fair wage for the work they do. We will take further action to secure the right rate of pay for our members.”

According to Hackney Unison, the management team has decided unilaterally not to implement an agreed pay rate for teaching assistants on the basis that it cannot afford to pay staff correctly, despite the schools having recently recruited additional staff and spent resources on consultancy services.

When questioned about additional staff and consultancy fees, a spokesperson for the Hackney Learning Trust responded that: “The school has an established and agreed staff structure which it is fulfilling.”

Hackney Unison suspects the schools of foul play and has been quizzing them over the alleged use of temporary agency employees to cover the staff shortage in a bid to undermine the strike action, which would constitute a violation of agency conduct business regulations.

Hackney Learning Trust has refuted these claims, stating instead that agency staff were contracted to cover some of the posts left vacant by the eight members of permanent staff who were unable to attend for a variety of reasons on Monday. The HLT has said that in most cases the agency staff will continue to work at the schools for at least the rest of the week.

The site remained open during the strike and despite many parents being advised to keep their children at home, reports from the scene suggested that around one in ten students attended.

The industrial action is the culmination of a dispute that began in March of last year. Hackney Unison voted for the strike in January following what it has argued is the management team’s continuing refusal to implement the pay deal established by an objective job evaluation process known as the Single Status scheme – an initiative to standardise pay and conditions for support staff across the borough.

A spokesperson for the Hackney Learning Trust said that the HLT has “approved a rate as part of the Single Status scheme” and that “the same rate applied to all support staff at all specials schools in the borough”. Unison claim that Horizon and Downsview are the only special schools in Hackney yet to bring the agreed pay rate into effect.

A spokesperson for the Hackney Learning Trust stated: “While agreements have not been reached with all staff [on the outcome of their pay evaluation], overall agreement rates have been very high,” adding that: “As a result of the rationalisation of pay within the two schools, approximately 50 per cent of affected staff have received pay increases, even on the disputed grades that have been implemented.”