Unison calls for Executive help

Striking nursery nurses have urged the Scottish Executive to intervene in their dispute with local authorities over pay and conditions.

Around 4,000 nursery nurse members of Unison walked out on 1 March in the latest stage of action that has led to the closure or disruption of nursery schools and classes across Scotland.

The union said the dispute was damaging the childcare initiatives introduced by the Scottish Executive, including many of the additional duties now carried out by nursery nurses.

Unison general secretary Dave Prentis and president Dave Anderson addressed a rally of around 2,000 nursery nurses and their supporters in Glasgow on 5 March. Mr Prentis said, 'This dispute won't go away. The sooner the employers get out of denial on this issue, the better. And they aren't the only ones. The Scottish Executive needs to intervene in this dispute before it's too late.'

But a spokesman for the Scottish Executive dismissed the suggestion. 'Pay and conditions are the responsibility of employers and it would not be appropriate for the Executive to intervene in ongoing negotiations,' he said.

The spokesman added that the strike was 'not in anyone's interests' and welcomed the fact that last Friday a ninth local authority, Clackmannanshire Council, had reached a local settlement with the nursery nurses.

In recent weeks a bitter war of words has erupted between Unison and the employers' representative body, the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (CoSLA), intensifying as more councils made agreements to resolve the dispute locally. Unison wants a Scotland-wide regrading of the nursery nurses' jobs.

Unison has also claimed it has evidence that some councils had asked childminders and teachers to cover for the striking nursery nurses and that parents had been intimidated.

Joe di Paola, Unison Scottish organiser for local government, said, 'Parents have complained that they have been threatened with loss of a nursery place unless they bring their kids across the picket lines. This is clearly part of the CoSLA plan to "increase the robustness of their press strategy", as they put it.

'Rather than trying to score publicity points, why don't these often large councils use their weight to move CoSLA? Or are they the problem?'

Speaking on behalf of CoSLA, Councillor Frank Russell, chair of the employers' side of the Scottish joint council, urged Unison to abandon the national action and negotiate locally. He said, 'It is bizarre that the general secretary and president of Unison are up in Scotland at a rally seeking the Executive's intervention when pay and grading is dealt with at the local level in England and Wales.'

The nursery nurses have faced accusations of neglect from angry parents over their decision not to exempt special schools from industrial action.

Edinburgh Council said that half of the city's 14 special schools were affected by the strike. One parent, who has a child attending a special school in Edinburgh, told Nursery World that she could not support the nursery nurses because of the disruption being caused to the education of severely disabled children. 'I am afraid that as a parent of one of these children, I can no longer associate the words "caring" or "professional" with the nursery nurses,' she said.

But Carol Ball, chair of Unison's nursery nurse working party, said the majority of parents still backed their campaign, including parents of children with special educational needs, whom she stressed were not being put at risk.

'There are a couple of angry parents, but there are parents who are still supportive,' she said. 'It's not a matter of trying to justify this. All children are being affected by this dispute.'