Low-paid school support staff miss out on up to £3,860 every year thanks to ‘punishing’ term time only contracts Labour conference will hear today [Wednesday].
Support staff, which includes catering and administration staff are only paid for 44 weeks a year – and can’t claim benefits during the school holidays – while teachers are paid a salary for the entire year.
GMB analysis shows if school support staff were paid for the full 52 weeks of of the year, their wages would increase by up to £3860.
Labour has pledged to reintroduce the School Support Staff Negotiating Body and one of GMB’s first demands will be for school staff to paid for the whole year.
The figures will be revealed at Labour Conference today [Wednesday] GMB is moving a motion on making work pay in public services.
James Wilton, Teaching Assistant, said:
“Term time only contracts are utterly unjust.
"It leaves school staff feeling like second class citizens in their own places of work.
“Teaching assistants and other school staff struggle to get by on poverty pay, while the schools themselves rely on their good will to operate.
“They go above and beyond to improve pupils’ lives, despite not being paid for eight weeks o the year.
"Reinstating the School Support Staff Negotiating body is a vital step in the right direction, but it must be used to end the scourge of term time only contracts.”
