Unison, which represents 130 of the 154 nursery nurses in the London borough, has already instructed them not to provide unpaid cover for the planned absence of teachers.
The union's Greenwich branch secretary Onay Kasab said that a ballot on industrial action would follow consultation with regional officials. He added that the union was not contemplating isolated days of action or initially an all-out stoppage, but would probably organise strikes over four or five days.
He said the dispute stems from the refusal of the council to pay nursery nurses in full following a regrading exercise in which the union and management agreed new job descriptions.
Mr Kasab said, 'We have agreed a new job description. It is in line with the Remodelling the Workforce agenda and includes all the things that nursery nurses have been doing for years, such as the cover for teachers, and have not been paid for.'
He said the council had agreed that the nursery nurses, who were previously at level 3 on the local authority pay scale, should now be on pay scale 5.
However, he added that the council was now switching them to term-time- only contracts, increasing their hours from 32.5 to 35 a week and freezing the special educational needs allowance.
Mr Kasab said that if the regrading was met in full, nursery nurses, who could earn a maximum of 16,400 a year before, would now be receiving around 20,000 a year. But the introduction of term-time contracts would mean they would receive about half the increase.
He said Unison had challenged the council to name one other group of local authority workers whose job had been evaluated and upgraded, only for them not to be paid properly for it.
A spokesman for Greenwich Council was unavailable to comment.
