local government - brighton council climbs down
WORKERS, FEB 2005 ISSUE
Teaching assistants in Brighton have called off further strike action (see WORKERS, last issue) after the council agreed to binding arbitration at ACAS towards the end of January.
The assistants had voted for more strikes, starting on 20 January. At first the council stood firm, saying there could be no "blank cheque", but under the threat of broader strike action it suddenly caved in.Two other UNISON branches in Brighton, fearful that a precedent might be set, let it be known that they, too, were considering strike ballots.
The teaching assistants were taking action because the council had tried to change the terms of a regrading halfway through the process. Since the regrading was taking place under a single status agreement (see features article on local government workers), the worry was that the council would take try the same trick with other workers' gradings.
Armed with a ballot result, the teaching assistants had met on 5 January at a mass meeting and voted for further strikes. Action would have included a refusal to cover classes for absent teachers and only working contracted hours. The council had agreed to go to ACAS, but not to accept the results of arbitration. Now it will.
The central issue remains. The council's attempt to change the terms of the regrading would mean that any increase in pay for the assistants would have been funded by a reduction in the number of paid weeks they would work each year.