Over £1 million back in the pockets of our lowest paid: School Support Staff

Barnet UNISON is proud to announce that over a five-year period of constant chasing and negotiations we have managed to reach agreements with schools and some employers e.g. Barnet & Southgate College, Capita, ISS, BELS to ensure that Term Time Paid staff received some backdating money they were owed by their employer not using the correct formula to calculate their pay.

Barnet UNISON wants to thank colleagues at London Region and UNISON HQ for supporting the campaign to claw back some of the money that was owed to our members.

The Term Time Pay claim started because of UNISON pursuing several local authorities over their failure to use the correct formula for calculating pay of term time staff in schools.

Barnet UNISON quickly wrote to over 50 schools in Barnet seeking meetings and the opportunity to talks to our members about the campaign. We also discovered some of the outsourced contractors were using an incorrect formula and we pursued those organisations to correct the error and to negotiate back pay.

 

“As soon as UNISON established that term time only staff (TTO) were being incorrectly paid due to a flawed formula being applied in calculating the amount of holiday pay entitlement members were receiving we commenced on going meetings with management to rectify the situation. After several years of negotiations, we resulted with a positive outcome and agreement that the College would apply a new and correct formula to calculate their holiday pay entitlement.  I was pleased to announce to my TTO UNISON members that a settlement had been finally agreed and that all the College’s term time staff would receive back pay to 1 September 2019 ( 3 years) which resulted in approximately £200,000 total back pay deal for TTO staff. I informed my members that this was not compensation, that it was backpay as they had been underpaid for the work that they had already done.  This is a good example of why it is important to join UNISON as it provides collective strength and means we can talk to the employer to negotiate and improve conditions in the workplace.” Christalla Tsattala Barnet UNISON rep of members of staff working for Barnet & Southgate College.

 

“It was a massive team effort across the UNISON family with support and advice from both regional and national colleagues. School support staff are some of the lowest paid members we have in our branch, and they are totally committed to their work and the children they support. It was important that our branch took on this campaign and we would recommend any other UNISON branch thinking of doing the same to go ahead. We are in a cost-of-living crisis which is hurting our low paid members every penny we have helped put back into their pockets makes all the work worthwhile.” John Burgess, Branch Secretary, Barnet UNISON.

 

Background:

Term Time Pay members meeting – February 2021

https://www.barnetunison.me.uk/wp/2021/02/19/term-time-pay-members-meeting/

 

Update on the Barnet UNISON Term Time Pay Campaign – 2020

https://www.barnetunison.me.uk/wp/2020/12/09/update-on-the-barnet-unison-term-time-pay-campaign/

 

Term Time Pay Drop-in meetings: February 2020

https://www.barnetunison.me.uk/wp/2020/02/07/term-time-pay-drop-in-meetings/

End.