Inglaterrra: Teaching assistants could take industrial action

Teaching assistants in England are to be consulted by the GMB union over a campaign of action in a row about terms and conditions – a move that raises the prospect of coordinated industrial action by teachers and other staff.

The annual conference of the GMB in Bournemouth agreed to support efforts to retain «hard-fought» terms and conditions of school staff, including a campaign of industrial action if necessary.

The NUT teaching union is balloting its members over strike action against threats from academisation, deregulation of pay and funding cuts.

‘We will not stand by’

The GMB union said schools continued to be privatised, leading to the threat of cuts to the terms and conditions of staff. It is campaigning against schools being turned into academies.

An agreed motion read: «We will not stand by and let this Tory agenda dismantle our members’ terms and conditions brick by brick, class by class, where schools will be left with no alternative but to compete against one another.»