The NEU does not have formal national bargaining recognition rights for support staff members, covering issues such as national pay rates. The recognised unions for this are Unison, Unite and GMB – often called the NJC unions. This is because we signed an agreement in 2017, brokered by the TUC, that cemented the position on recognition and prevented the NEU from ‘actively recruiting’ support staff into membership.
Since 2017 our support staff membership has tripled. Although we take no part in the national pay negotiations, our lively, effective workplace presence has proved popular with support staff who want to be part of a union that fights for their interests in schools and colleges. We are still growing in membership and are now probably the second biggest support staff union in England and Wales.
We do not think it is morally acceptable that we are not part of the national bargaining process. We are even more concerned about the attempt by NJC unions to put the brakes on our attempt to organise support staff. The overwhelming majority of our support staff colleagues are not in any union. We believe that this is a significant factor in the low-pay and poor conditions in the sector. We are not prepared to let this go unchallenged.
NEU has consistently approached the NJC unions with a call to work collaboratively to organise the unorganised and get every support staff member into a union. We are in ongoing discussions to see if we can get an understanding around this. But if there is no progress towards this, then a special conference has been called for 28 February in London to consider withdrawing from the 2017 agreement and to begin active recruitment of support staff into NEU.
Contact your local NEU branch for more information about our special conference.