NEU and the NJC unions

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Document England Support staff

The National Education Union (NEU) is the biggest education union in Europe and the union with the highest number of reps in schools in England. We were founded on the principle of professional unity – having one union for all education workers. This is because we believe that all educators share common interests – to defend and improve their working conditions and the learning conditions of the children and young people they teach – and the best way to advance those interests is by working collectively.

While we are recognised to bargain collectively on behalf of teachers, the NEU is not recognised by the national employers to bargain at national level on behalf of school support staff. We were not part of the negotiations that led to the 3.2 per cent pay agreement this year.

The recognised unions which negotiate with the employers at national level are Unison, GMB and Unite (known as the NJC unions). When the NEU balloted members in 2023 to demand government funding for a decent pay rise, the NJC unions complained to the TUC and the NEU was fined over £150,000.

The NJC unions’ position is that the NEU should neither be able to actively recruit support staff nor have a “seat at the table” to negotiate on their behalf. We do not believe this position is tenable. The NEU represents 63,000 support staff members – significantly more than Unite and approximately equivalent to the membership of GMB – and we therefore believe we have a valid case to be part of these negotiations.

This is not a parochial position. School support staff represent a hard-working, low-paid, predominantly female workforce and, at the moment, the majority are not members of any union. We believe that it is important that these workers are unionised, organised and have access to effective trade union support and representation at every level. It is because of our workplace campaigns and action on behalf of all school staff that the NEU support staff membership has more than doubled in recent years and continues to grow.

We believe that unions acting together in unity will make support staff stronger. We believe that efforts to organise support staff would be much more successful if all four unions worked collaboratively to organise the unorganised. We want to see all support staff workers in unions, fighting together for dignity and fairness.

For saying this, we have again been disciplined by the TUC and have been instructed to post a statement, which you can read below.

So long as we are part of TUC, we will abide by their rulings. But we do not believe that unions fighting each other is productive. It is certainly not in the best interests of support workers. 

We want to work collaboratively with sister NJC unions. A summit has been called for the end of November to see if there can be an amicable resolution between all parties. We sincerely hope that this will produce an agreement to work together in a mass recruitment and organising campaign.

We have called a Special Conference for February 2026 where we will consider the outcomes of the TUC summit and what to do next in light of them. But one thing is clear: we will not stand idly by while support staff endure ever worsening conditions.

Censure for NEU to publish

In 2017, following the merger of the founding unions of the NEU (ATL and NUT), the NEU voluntarily entered into an agreement with the unions recognised for bargaining with local government - Unison, GMB, and Unite - known as the NJC unions. This agreement explicitly acknowledged that the NJC unions are the recognised unions for school support staff and collectively bargain on behalf of those workers. In signing this agreement, the NEU committed to not actively organise or recruit school support staff, to avoid undermining existing bargaining arrangements and to ensure the three recognised unions could continue  to win for school support staff.

Trade unions that affiliate to the TUC agree to behave in accordance with a set of principles that govern their relationships with other unions. These rules are not imposed on unions but developed by unions themselves to manage their interactions and strengthen collective power. As a federation of unions, the TUC rules are designed to reduce inter-union competition and focus the movement on organising un-organised workers. They also prevent existing recognition and bargaining agreements from being undermined. These rules reflect the shared needs and priorities of the trade union movement and help build the collective strength of all affiliated unions, enabling them to more effectively win for workers.

In 2023, a TUC Disputes Committee, made up of members of the TUC’s General Council, found the NEU to be in breach of both the 2017 voluntary agreement and the TUC’s rules. In September 2025, following complaints by the NJC unions, the committee found that the NEU continued to be in breach of these rules. This breach has been damaging to joint union working, undermining existing collective bargaining structures, and hindering our collective ability to advance the interests of all education workers.

We have a shared ambition to grow our movement and fight for the best outcomes for all workers in our schools. While the NEU has a significant membership amongst school support staff, and workers may join the union of their choice, the NJC unions represent more than 400,000 school support staff, and are the recognised unions for these staff. The NEU is not the recognised union for school support staff and will not be part of the School Support Staff Negotiating Body (SSSNB). 

The Disputes Committee reaffirm - in line with the agreement reached between the NEU and the NJC unions in 2017, and the 2023 TUC Disputes Committee Award - the NEU should not actively seek to organise or recruit school support staff.

The Disputes Committee has also asked the TUC general secretary to convene a summit between the NEU and the NJC unions in order to reach an agreement on a final version of principles for joint working that will be recommended to their respective memberships.

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