Con Dem education secretary Michael Gove today told the Commons in a written ministerial statement that he was abolishing the School Support Staff Negotiating Body because it "did not fit well with the government's priorities for greater deregulation". http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/oct/28/teaching-assistants-pay-body-scrapped
The decision sets aside years of painstaking work by local authority employers, unions and others to establish bargaining arrangements for school based staff in England. Protracted delay in launching the new body under the previous Labour Government served up an easy target for the reactionary Con Dem’s.
Christina McAnea, Unison's head of education, said: "This is a bitter blow to the mainly women – overwhelmingly low-paid, hard-working and loyal – support staff in schools. We will be consulting our members on taking industrial action as a matter of urgency. The coalition's consultation process was a sham. It was obvious the government had made up its mind, right from the beginning, that school support staff are not worthy of national pay and conditions.”
http://www.unison.org.uk/asppresspack/pressrelease_view.asp?id=2028
