On Tuesday 27 March, facing the threat of a solid strike, management at Central Foundation Girls’ School in East London backed down on their threat of compulsory redundancies.

Support staff at the school had voted by a huge 94% in a legal ballot to take strike action. The following is a report written before the management backed down.

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The strike is to take place on Wednesday and Thursday (28/29 March) next week. The redundancy threat came about as a result of a restructure of the admin department. The restructure is a blatant attempt by school management to remove certain people from their posts and replace them with someone else.

Unison’s response was immediate. It was to try to negotiate with the head to carry out her restructure in a different way and to tell her that any compulsory redundancy would be met with strike action. The union asked the head to consider direct assimilation and were told no even before the new job descriptions were written. There was a clear ulterior motive in the process from the start. When the new JD’s were written there was a high degree of similarity between the old and the new jobs. But the head still refused moving staff across from one to the other. Her reason was that two new elements had been written in to the JD’s: Every Child Matters and the need for an e-competent school.

The union argued that, on the first issue, this would mean that any worker in the country who came into contact with children could be sacked and made to reapply for their job. On the second, most employers who wanted to upgrade their e-skills offered training not the sack!

The union asked for ring-fencing of jobs and were at first told no again. The head later reconsidered under pressure. But ring-fencing is no guarantee of getting the job. The interview process was an insult to the women who have worked for the school for many years. The school knows them and their skills well. Yet they had to endure an in-tray test, a telephone test, a computer test, an interview by a panel of students and an interview by school management.

It was no surprise to the union that at the end of this process, six workers were without a job. It had been clear from the beginning that this was the intention. There is now a bizarre situation in the school where posts previously carried out by the admin staff are still there and vacant and the admin staff were still there and without a job. By this time the Unison members had received their remarkable ballot result. In an attempt by the head to stave off strike action she decided to offer alternative employment to the unsuccessful candidates.

A woman admin worker of 7 years who was on a scale 4 was offered a student supervisor’s job (glorified midday supervisor) at scale two with her pay protected for just one year. She is supposed to accept this and watch someone else walk in to her old job!

This insulting offer has served to harden the resolve of the Unison members and has also served to add to the already high levels of support of the teachers. Over 30 NUT members voted by show of hands to say that they could not in all conscience cross a picket line.

Unless a better offer is made before Wednesday, the strike will go ahead. Please come and support us at CFGS Harley Grove E3 (opposite Bow Road Tube). Send messages of support to CFGS Strikers c/o Union, 60 Southern Grove, E3 4PN.