School support staff need new union deal

The TUC has threatened its fourth largest union, the National Education Union (NEU), with what they call “a partial suspension” from the organisation. The ruling made by General Secretary Paul Nowak follows an investigation into an alleged breach of rules by the NEU.

It is the latest development in a long-running dispute about the increasing numbers of school support staff opting to join the NEU and the negative reaction to this of Unison, GMB, and Unite, which are the only unions officially recognised for the purposes of bargaining on the NJC for support staff. Since the creation of the NEU in 2018 support staff have been eligible to join it, though a joint framework was agreed in 2017 which required that the NEU would not actively recruit or organise support staff. Nor would it seek national bargaining rights.

Despite these restrictions, the intervening years have seen a dramatic increase in support staff membership of the NEU. In part this is down to the fact that the NEU is a more industrial union, focused only on the education sector and with active union reps in schools and colleges. The NEU’s more active and front-footed response to Covid and falling real pay have also drawn in thousands of support staff. It is estimated that there are well over 60,000 support staff members in the NEU, much more than Unite and very likely more than GMB.

In February this year a NEU special conference voted to abandon the 2017 agreement. This was the result of a long campaign by support staff in the union and their allies, including AWL activists who advocate industrial unionism as the most effective model for organising workers. The decision to withdraw from the previous agreement was taken in the full expectation that there would be a response from the NJC unions and a likely sanction from the TUC. So, there can be little surprise about this latest move.

Directive

The detail of the TUC ruling is, however, interesting. It issues a directive to the NEU requiring it to “pause its active recruitment of school support staff and commit to a TUC-convened process to establish a new joint framework”. Unless the NEU confirms compliance with this by Friday 26 June it will be subject to a “partial suspension” which removes the NEU from positions on the General Council and Executive Committee and the right to submit motions and amendments to Congress 2026. It will not apply to lay reps on regional councils, trade councils or equality structures.

The ruling also makes a direction to the NJC unions, though. It requires them to “engage meaningfully with the NEU in a TUC convened-process to develop a new framework for school support staff representation. It goes on to say that the new framework “must respect existing, long-standing arrangements while also practically reflecting the reality that a significant number of support staff have chosen to join the NEU”.

In the often ambiguous and evasive language of the TUC, this is an acceptance for the first time that the NEU is a force in support staff representation and that the 2017 agreement is no longer an effective way of dealing with it. That, at least, is real progress.

The NEU leadership will now be deciding whether it’s worth complying with the directive (pausing active recruitment and any ballot of support staff) in order to be part of the process of developing a new framework which recognises its role in representing tens of thousands of support staff. That’s a decision that needs to be discussed across the union, especially among support staff members. It’s also a discussion that needs to be aware of the dangers of a filibustering by NJC unions who would prefer to prevent rather than pause the NEU’s organisation of these workers.