HOME | IMC UK | Editorial Guidelines | Mission Statement | About Us | Contact | Help | Support Us

SouthCoast Indymedia

Brighton and Hove teaching assistants turn out in force to strike

Kate | 11.12.2004 15:40 | Social Struggles | South Coast

Hundreds of Brighton and Hove teaching assistants took a third day of strike action on Friday 10 December as their battle for better pay intensified.

Brighton and Hove special-needs teaching assistant Simon Parker, 30, spent part of the hour before Friday's strike and protest-march fighting with his partner about money. He will strike on the planned day of action in January, as well, if Brighton and Hove council doesn't accept assistants' concerns about a proposed new pay package.

Like the hundreds of assistants who took strike action on Friday, Simon Parker was furious at council plans to reduce the number of paid weeks in assistants' contracts by five. He also thought that assistants were desperately in need of better wages generally.

'I don't necessarily think we should get the same as teachers, but we need to something that we can live on. You do spend a lot of time teaching, as well as the assistant's work. If I could have a pay increase, I could live with that.'

Smon Parker takes home about £1200 a month at the moment, but not all of it comes from the assistant's job: he has two cleaning jobs as well. He works as a special-needs teaching assistant for the main part of the day, and as a school cleaner for several hours before and after the assistant's job. 'We're up against it,' he smiled wryly, as he described the domestic hostilities with his partner again. 'We're so skint.'

Simon Parker said that he was getting angrier. He and his partner had just had a baby, and were often tired and irritated. The 750 teaching assistants who began yesterday's march outside the Brighton Town Hall in Barthlomew Square were equally annoyed.

They kicked the morning off by shouting and blowing horns and whistles for Children, Families and Schools Director David Hawker - a person that assistants like to refer to as Hawker the Talker, among other memorable titles. David Hawker didn't show, though - 'he's hiding, he's hiding, he's hiding in there,' people shouted, pointing at the Town Hall - so they took the march downtown.

This was the third day of strike action. Union organisers estimated that there were at least as many strikers as there had been on November 25 and 26 (about 750 a day), and that they expected as many again on the next planned day of action in January.

Brighton and Hove Unison Branch Secretary Alex Knutsen said that the strike action would escalate if the council refused to negotiate, and that the council needed to note that. The council also needed to note that messages of support and donations were flooding in from union branches around the country: he read out of a list of branch donations of at least £500.

Alex Knutsen said that donations from union branches around the country had made it possible to pay strikers during the strike action 'so that you will not suffer over Christmas.'

The strikers were furious at a front-page Brighton and Hove Argus anti-union story which said that the strike had caused children and parents to suffer and that described the donations as a Christmas 'cash bonus' for strikers. 'Are you from the Argus?' they asked reporters they saw on the march. 'Get out if you're from the Argus.' Assistants average a take-home salary of £9,000 a year, and 98% are part-time women workers.

Striker Christine Mihocic said she found the council's ethics difficult. She has worked as an individual-needs assistant for four years, and takes home about £850 a month for her part-time job. 'It's not part-time, though,' she said. 'I'm supposed to work until 3pm, but I often work until five. You don't just leave at three.'

She doesn't get flexitime, and said that living on her present income was a challenge. 'I've got a 17-year-old daughter who is at college. I mean, you have to support them.' She felt that the council was trying to pretend it was acting fairly by re-evaluating assistants' job grades.

She said the proposal to reduce the number of paid weeks for assistants proved that the council had no intention of improving assistants' conditions, nor of acknowledging that they made a contribution. 'What are we meant to do for those weeks? Is the council going to give us a job for those weeks off? No.'

Simon Parker said that he 'loved special-needs' work - 'we do numeracy and literacy, and I just started working on digital technology with the kids' - but that he'd prefer not to have two other jobs to support it. 'The fact that they (the council) want to take paid weeks away is not exactly for our benefit,' he said.

Brighton and Hove teaching assistants will strike again on January 6, 2005.

Kate
- e-mail: kate@unwish.com
- Homepage: http://www.uul.org.uk

Comments

Display the following 2 comments

  1. Don't Care Crew — zed
  2. care workers — kate

Publish

Publish your news

Do you need help with publishing?

-->

Kollektives

Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World

Other UK IMCs
Bristol/South West
London
Northern Indymedia
Scotland

South Coast [navigation.actions2016]

South Coast [navigation.actions2015]

South Coast [navigation.actions2014]

NATO 2014

South Coast Actions 2013

G8 2013

South Coast Actions 2012

Workfare

South Coast Actions 2011

2011 Census Resistance
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Occupy Everywhere

South Coast Actions 2010

Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands

South Coast Actions 2009

COP15 Climate Summit 2009
G20 London Summit
Guantánamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
University Occupations for Gaza

South Coast Actions 2008

2008 Days Of Action For Autonomous Spaces
Campaign against Carmel-Agrexco
Climate Camp 2008
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Smash EDO
Stop Sequani Animal Testing
Stop the BNP's Red White and Blue festival

South Coast Actions 2007

Climate Camp 2007
DSEi 2007
G8 Germany 2007
Mayday 2007
No Border Camp 2007

South Coast Actions 2006

April 2006 No Borders Days of Action
Art and Activism Caravan 2006
Climate Camp 2006
Faslane
French CPE uprising 2006
G8 Russia 2006
Lebanon War 2006
March 18 Anti War Protest
Mayday 2006
Oaxaca Uprising
Refugee Week 2006
Rossport Solidarity
SOCPA
Transnational Day of Action Against Migration Controls
WSF 2006

South Coast Actions 2005

DSEi 2005
G8 2005
WTO Hong Kong 2005

South Coast Actions 2004

European Social Forum
FBI Server Seizure
May Day 2004
Venezuela

South Coast Actions 2003

Bush 2003
DSEi 2003
Evian G8
May Day 2003
No War F15
Saloniki Prisoner Support
Thessaloniki EU
WSIS 2003

IMCs


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech