Up to 100 term-time workers in Kirklees, West Yorkshire, including education teaching assistants, behaviour support workers, welfare assistants and school secretaries, are campaigning to receive the same conditions as teachers and other support staff. The term-time workers are not paid during school holidays and although they used to be able to draw Jobseeker's Allowance during that time, the Government withdrew their entitlement in 1999.
The Kirklees branch of public sector Unison has organised a lobby of Huddersfield Council's meeting next week (Wednesday 5 September) and term-time workers are expected to demonstrate outside Huddersfield Town Hall before several spokespeople address the meeting on their behalf. They have drafted a resolution to be presented to the council asking for support in the campaign.
A Unison spokesperson said, 'The council in reality only pays us for 44 weeks of the year, yet teachers receive full pay, and other support staff are given a retainer. We have been told that we cannot receive any form of benefit even though we are technically unemployed.
'We've had enough of being underpaid and undervalued and are campaigning for a better deal. We have been collecting signatures which we intend to hand in at the council meeting. Earlier in the year we held a demonstration in Huddersfield and got a great response from the public. Since then we have met with a number of councillors and had a lot of encouragement and support. They asked us for a model statement they could support which will be debated on 5 September.
'Our members will be turning out in force to lobby councillors and several of us plan to speak to the meeting. We're confident the council will support our motion but are bringing along our banners, placards and balloons so we get noticed. We hope the council will agree it is high time term-time workers got justice.'
Patricia Street, an education teaching assistant, said, 'It is not fair that teachers, bus escorts and nursery nurses get paid during the holidays but we do not. Years ago support workers in schools just put up displays, but now we have a more challenging role. Currently we cannot afford anything during the holidays and would take other jobs, but we love our work too much to leave.'
In Northern Ireland, the setlement of a long-running dispute between term-time school staff and employers means that most nursery assistants and other school staff who are on temporary contracts will be given permanent status and full-time contracts and benefits from the beginning of the new school term in September (news, 16 August). The deal, negotiated by public service union NIPSA, applies to any staff with at least one year's continuous service by 1 April 2001.
