Education Minister welcomes end of pay dispute by school support workers in Northern Ireland

An agreement has been secured to resolve a long-running dispute over pay and grading for school support workers, Education Minister Paul Givan has said. The minister said school support staff would now receive a “significant investment in pay”.

Thousands of non-teaching support staff have been involved in industrial action as part of the dispute with employers over pay and grading.

The non-teaching staff – including bus drivers, classroom assistants and cleaning and canteen staff – took part in three days of strike action in May.

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Mr Givan said trade unions had now accepted a pay and grading agreement. He said: “I am pleased to be able to confirm that all the education support staff unions have accepted the proposed agreement to resolve this long running pay and grading dispute.”

Unions GMB, Nipsa, Unison and Unite had been undertaking individual consultations over the summer months.

Mr Givan added: “The resolution of this dispute will provide relief to our school support staff who will appreciate the benefits of this significant investment in pay.

“They deserve to be paid appropriately for the extremely important work they do, and the restructured pay scales will also improve the recruitment and retention of staff in the future. I welcome that all forms of industrial action have now ceased.”

While teaching unions in Northern Ireland accepted a pay offer earlier this year, agreement was not reached at the time with support staff.

Unions had said support staff are among the lowest paid workers in the education sector, stating many are paid less than the current national minimum wage.

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