School support staff from Swansea are to meet with low pay experts today (Wednesday) to explain how they are struggling to make ends meet.
The meeting, organised by UNISON Cymru, is part of the Low Pay Commission’s evidence gathering as it considers the next rise in the national minimum wage. Commissioners will meet with the school workers at the union’s Swansea offices this afternoon.
School support staff work as teaching assistants, cleaners, lunchtime supervisors, caretakers and administration staff, with many earning little more than the minimum wage says UNISON.
Unlike teaching colleagues, school support staff are paid term time only, they also lack a career structure with transparent pay and conditions, uniformly applied across the country.
The union wants to see a special negotiating body set up for school staff in Wales to help ease the recruitment and retention crisis in education, which it says is directly linked to low pay.
Swansea school support worker Jan Murray said: “We get a buzz supporting children and knowing how valuable our work is to their education and happiness. Support staff are vital to a school’s success, but many are trapped on low pay.
“Parents would probably be shocked to learn many school support staff are on wages so low they have to rely on benefits. Government, councils and schools must invest in the whole education workforce.”
Chair of the UNISON Cymru school support staff forum Sara Allen said: “A school in Cardiff has set up a food bank especially for its support staff, that’s how bleak things are.
“Many support staff are having to take a second job just to make ends meet. Some teaching assistants can’t get a loan for buying a car because their wages are so low.
“Today’s meeting with the Low Pay Commissioners has been arranged so the experiences of school staff can be heard at the highest levels.
“Years of underfunding for schools and below inflation pay awards for staff have created a recruitment and retention crisis in Welsh schools. People are put off from jobs in schools because they know they can find better wages working in supermarkets.”
Notes to editors:
– School support staff in Swansea will meet the Low Pay Commissioners in UNISON’s Swansea office this afternoon (Wednesday).
– School support staff are paid for term time only, heads and teachers are paid for their summer holidays. Support staff are only paid for the time they’re in school – 9 months, but this is disguised by being averaged out into 12 payments in the year.
– UNISON research found one in six school support staff had used food banks in the past year
– UNISON is the UK’s largest union, with more than 1.3 million members providing public services in education, local government, the NHS, police service and energy. They are employed in the public, voluntary and private sectors.