A £500m surplus in the school support staff pension pot, used to raise teachers’ salaries, could have been used to hand every teaching assistant in the country more than £1,000 each, Labour Conference heard on 30 September.

If the share-out included all 800,000 non-teaching school staff in the country, it would work out at £600 each. That’s almost a 3.3% pay rise for the school staff on the lowest pay. This would include catering staff, caretakers and admin workers.

The Department for Education announced last week that the £500m surplus in the pension fund teaching assistants, catering staff, school caretakers and other workers pay into would go to fund a pay rise for teachers.

School support staff have the lowest pay among workers in education. Many have term-time-only contracts, leaving their annual salary as low as £12,000 per year.

GMB Union has a motion opposing the move at Labour’s Annual Conference in Liverpool.

GMB president Barbara Plant will tell Labour Conference:

This Labour government has made a shameful choice.

It was decided that the surplus in our pension pot would help the government fend off strike action by teachers over their pay.

Let me be clear, all workers in schools deserve properly funded pay and pensions. But instead of increasing central funding to do it, Labour used disgraceful divide-and-rule tactics.

£500m savings from support staff pension contributions could fully fund a 3.3% pay rise for the lowest paid school staff.

It is unfair, unjust, and our members are rightly furious.

Featured image via the Canary

By The Canary

From Canary via This RSS Feed.