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Demonstration Derby City Council Derby Homes Events News Newsletter Schools UNISON Young Members

Annual General Meeting – Friday 24 February 2017 – 7pm

Reminder – Our Annual General Meeting will take place at the Derby Irish Club, 11 Beckett Street, Derby, DE1 1HT on Friday 24 February 2017.
 
The meeting for UNISON members only will commence at 7.00 pm and a buffet will be available from 8.00 pm. There will be a quiz and some entertainment until late with partners welcome after 8.00 pm.
 
Speakers at the meeting will include Adrian Morgan, UNISON Regional Organiser, Nicole Berrisford, Branch Secretary will talk about future plans for Derby City Branch.
 
The meeting will also provide you with the opportunity to meet local Officers, Workplace Stewards and other UNISON Members and to put forward your views on the organisation of UNISON locally and take part in your union’s democratic process.
 
Full documentation including agenda will be available at the meeting. Please try your best to attend. The AGM is the most important date in our calendar annually. Those who attended last year gave the branch really good feedback. So come along! It’s YOUR union! Have YOUR say!
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Campaigns Demonstration Derby City Council News Newsletter Schools UNISON

School Support Staff Update – Derby City Council caught out promoting “fake news”

Derby City Council spokesperson, Councillor Lisa Eldret was yesterday caught out promoting ‘fake news’ regarding the Labour Group’s willingness to enter negotiations with school support staff in the City.

UNISON Derby City spokesperson and teaching assistant Becky Everett said:

“I’m really sorry to hear the Council intentionally misleading people about the negotiations. At the very least, our community deserve to know what the Council are doing. On 6 separate occasions last night, the Council said they wanted to ‘sit down and talk’ despite having cancelled two meetings in two weeks with UNISON, after previously walking away from the ACAS negotiations. If finding a solution really was the ‘priority’ that Cllr Eldret says it is, they wouldn’t have done that, would they? Even if Lisa Eldret isn’t available why can’t the leader of the Council, Ranjit, meet with us?  We have always been ready to talk, but we need a willing partner if we’re going to find a solution that puts an end to this dispute.”

In an interview with the BBC Radio Derby drive time show last night, Cllr Eldret was asked to respond to the news that 7 school support staff had visited London to push Jeremy Corbyn to intervene in the dispute. She said:

“We want to sit down and find a solution”
“If they [the Teaching Assistants] were in Derby we could be sitting down and having a conversation”
“We want to sit down and talk”
“We are always willing to sit down and talk”
“We will only solve this by sitting down and talking”
“I’d urge UNISON and … come to the table”

Those statements follow the Council’s decision to cancel two meetings over the last two weeks and their continued reluctance to enter meaningful negotiations over the course of the last 9 months, including those mediated by the dispute resolution service ACAS. Despite criticising school support staff for lobbying MPs in London, the Council have finally agreed to meet UNISON today.

The school support staff dispute is now entering its 9th month, following the decision of Derby Council to impose new terms and conditions on school support staff across the City. As a result staff are losing around 25% of their pay, on average around £94 per week. Derby City UNISON have remained ready to talk throughout the dispute with a view to finding a solution so that staff can go back to work, protect the education system in Derby and end the disruption to the community.

Here is the Head Teacher’s briefing sent out to all Head Teachers across Derby, outlining UNISON’s current position.

UNISON Schools Team

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Campaigns Demonstration Derby City Council Derby Homes Events News Newsletter Schools UNISON

School Support Staff take their campaign to London – Wednesday 15 February 2017

Our School Support Staff today took their campaign to London, delivering hundreds of letters to the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, asking him to step in to resolve their long running dispute with the Labour led council in the city. Dianne Abbot Labour Shadow Home Secretary also showed her support for their campaign.

Teaching Assistant Becky Everett said:

‘We went to London today to ask Jeremy Corbyn and the leadership of the Labour Party to help us. Ranjit Banwait and the Labour Council in Derby need to listen to Jeremy when he says Labour will support working people. We’ve lost 25% of our pay, we’re all struggling and we need Ranjit to reverse the Council’s decision to cut our pay. We thought that if he wouldn’t listen to us, maybe he’d listen to the Leader of the Labour Party. Jeremy has already said he’s on our side, so hopefully he can step in.’

Seven school support staff from across Derby travelled to London to deliver letters to Jeremy Corbyn, John McDonnell, Angela Rayner, Grahame Morris and Iain McNicol. Those letters called on the leadership of the Labour Party to step in to resolve the ongoing school support staff dispute in Derby. The dispute, which has been going on since June last year, began when Derby Council took the decision to cut change the terms and condition of school support staff in the City, with the effect of cutting their pay by around 25%.

The letters to the Labour Party leadership said:

“We are writing to urge you to intervene with your Labour colleagues in Derby, to live up to the real values of the Party, and to ask them to urgently resolve this dispute.

The Labour led Council in Derby are the only local authority to have cut the pay of school support staff in the way that they have. Please help us to resolve this dispute so we can go back to work, keep our dignity, and serve our community.”

#getbehindthem
UNISON