NIPSA Education members to protest at Secretary of State’s Office Erskine House 20-32 Chichester Street Belfast BT1 4GF Wednesday 25th October – 12:30pm
NIPSA, the largest union from the non-teaching workforce in Education, representing over 8,000 members across the Education Service will take part in a protest today to highlight the impact of the austerity budget imposed on the Department of Education and Education Authority and call for an immediate resolution of their Industrial Disputes.
Alan Law, Assistant Secretary commented:
“NIPSA members have recently voted in their thousands delivering a huge mandate for Industrial Action. This is in the context of the failure to resolve outstanding matters in respect of Pay and Grading, Job Evaluation, Pay Differentials and to protect budgets which impact on service delivery.
The Secretary of State imposed a budget on the Education Authority which deprives it of over £200m of funding. This is an impossible ask for any public organisation to deliver. The Education Authority’s chief executive is on record confirming this would require over 6,000 redundancies. This budget will destroy the education of our young people. It deprives schools of vital resources and plays politics with the future of the those most in need.
NIPSA calls for an end to these austerity measures and to have a rational, needs based approach to the funding of vital public services. It is essential that funding is delivered to ensure a reformed pay structure can be implemented and all industrial disputes ended.
NIPSA members begin their industrial action on Monday 6th November and join colleagues from the Education Welfare Service and Accounts Payable functions who are already engaged in industrial action.
I have held meetings with hundreds of NIPSA members in recent weeks and they are angry about how they are being treated and have demonstrated in their vote of 96% for Action Short of Strike Action and 89% for Strike Action that they will not be ignored”.