Carol Ball, chair of Unison's nursery nurse working party, said that the union and employers remained at 'stalemate' as the rolling programme of strikes initially agreed for five weeks was drawing to a close. Ms Ball said plans for future action would be discussed at this week's meeting of Unison's national industrial action committee.
Ms Ball added that if the dispute continues into the summer it could 'massively affect the training of new nursery nurses' all over Scotland, who would be starting courses at the beginning of the next academic year.
Student nursery nurses usually undertake placements of two days a week at a nursery.But as training is one of the additional responsibilities currently being boycotted, Ms Ball said this would have repercussions for the future employment of new nursery nurses.
Planning and development tasks are also affected by the boycott. Ms Ball said these could include areas such as curriculum planning, which could ultimately affect the long-term quality of provision. Evaluation, assessment and recording of children's development are other tasks currently not undertaken.
Ms Ball said, 'It is increasingly frustrating that Scottish employers seem prepared to accept continuing disruption to young children's education rather than making a fair offer to deal with the unfairness of nursery nurses' pay and responsibilities.'
Strikes were planned for this week on Tuesday (17 June) and Wednesday (18 June) in Falkirk, Sterling, Perth and Kinross, Dundee City and Fife.
Nursery nurses in South Lanarkshire were also due to strike on Thursday (19 June).
Two-day strikes took place on Wednesday and Thursday last week, involving more than 2,000 nursery nurse Unison members from Glasgow, Renfrewshire and East Renfrewshire, East and West Dumbartonshire, North Lanarkshire, Dumfries and Galloway and Highland. Rallies of nursery nurses took place in Glasgow and Motherwell on Wednesday and members of the Highland branch lobbied Highland Council in Inverness on Thursday.
An all-out nationwide strike involving 5,000 nursery nurses is set for 24 June with a major demonstration taking place in Glasgow, including an address by Dave Anderson, the new national Unison president.
