In Italy similar proposals from the Berlusconi government recently provoked a general strike. How about an "Italian" spring? Andy Richards, Chair Brighton and Hove UNISON (pers cap) Teaching Assistants working for Brighton and Hove City Council have been taking strike action since November against a quite shameless attack on their terms and conditions by the Council.
The TAs, members of UNISON and GMB, agreed to new job evaluations earlier this year. The evaluations gave them a grade which started to recognise the skills and commitment which TAs bring to the education of children, but the Council then decided to claw this back by cutting the number of weeks for which TAs get paid, thus completely negating the new grades.
Currently, TAs in Brighton and Hove are 98 per cent lowpaid women workers whose average take-home pay is £9000 pa. Their work in supporting teachers is crucial to children's education.
By contrast, on the day of the first strike, a council meeting confirmed a new Chief Executive in post (salary £145,000) and councillors voted themselves another Increase of 2.5 per cent on their allowances, taking their own annual pay bill to over 2900,000 a уваг.
The TA's have had three days' solid strike action since late November and another is planned for 6 January, just after the start of term. Every strike day has been characterised by pickets, rallies and marches, and a huge proportion of those on strike are involved in strike activities.
We have also been visited by a large number of delegations from other branches, who recognise the national implications of this dispute. UNISON United Left General Secretary candidate Jon Rogers has also been in attendance.
Councils all over the country are engaged in "remodelling" their education workforces, and Brighton and Hove has become a major testing ground for how this is implemented -If the employer gets away with its approach here, it will try the same tactics in other places.
We have also had support from the local NUT branch, which is telling members not to cover TAs' work. The dispute also has implications for other Brighton and Hove Council workers - this was meant to be the first phase of the "single status" exercise locally, a massive task involving the re-evaluation of every post in the council.
If it can go so badly wrong with this first group of workers, what is going to happen to the rest of us?
The attitude of the council has been to portray the TAs as idiots being misled by their "politically-motivated" union leaders, and to misrepresent the nature of their pay offer. All the evidence however is that the Council is losing the battle for public opinion.
The local paper ran a "textin" and over 90 percent of respondents supported the strike and the only pro-Council letters the paper has published have been from various council officers and politicians. This despite the fact that each strike has closed around 40 schools, causing problems for working parents in particular.
Council leader Ken "Crisis what crisis?" Bodfish has seen fit to take an extended business trip to India rather than hang around to try to get a settlement of this dispute -another surefire PR triumph for the council.
The TAs appreciate the messages of support which have been flooding in, so if you can get your own organisations to send these in they will be gratefully received. As it could be a protracted battle any donations would also be appreciated.
Send your donations and messages of support to: Brighton and Hove UNISON branch, Town Hall, Brighton East Sussex BN1 1JA Tel: 01273 291 611
Fax: 01273 291 613