Membership of the National Education Union (NEU) is open to everyone working in education.
We believe that significant improvements for support staff in schools will only occur when – like teachers – most of them are in a union. Most support staff are not in any union. This must change.
We do not want to take members from UNISON, GMB or Unite. We want to work with them to organise all support staff who are not already in a union.
Collective bargaining
Currently national pay and conditions for support staff are negotiated between the Local Government Association (LGA) and Unison, GMB and Unite. The NEU is not formally recognised to take part in this process.
We hope that this changes, but our priority is to have an effective presence in every school and college in England and Wales.
Our reps seek to work with school reps from the recognised unions wherever possible. However, we believe that any lack of effective workplace representation from any other trade union should not be a barrier to NEU reps raising the collective concerns of support staff members.
For schools there is a clear logic to engaging with NEU reps, even when the NEU is not formally recognised, as a mechanism for resolving matters informally and preventing the escalation of issues into formal grievances or industrial action.
We can always ballot members if they call for industrial action as part of a work dispute. Workers have the right to take part in official industrial action and during official industrial action, workers are protected by industrial action law.
An employer must apply improvements to pay, terms and conditions negotiated collectively to all workers regardless of whether their union is recognised by the employer.
Individual representation
Individual workers, whether they are teachers or support staff, are entitled to be represented in a grievance or disciplinary hearing, or when facing dismissal by redundancy, by their NEU representative or a fellow worker where they have made a reasonable request to be accompanied. A chosen representative does not need to be from a recognised trade union. The statutory right to be accompanied is governed by section 10 Employment Relations Act 1999.
Members may also be able to rely on an enhanced collective agreement or local policy that applies to all staff in the workplace. Many employers will have extended this right to representation to informal and earlier stages of processes too.
Stronger together
From representing members in the workplace to organising on issues such as redundancies, maternity, and job creep, the NEU supports members in coming together to take action, and our members are achieving real improvements. We need you because every member makes a difference, and winning together brings us closer to the respect and conditions we deserve.