The nursery nurses, who work in schools, day nurseries, community nurseries and special schools, are threatening to strike in support of their claim for a pay and grading review after talks with their local authority employers failed to resolve the situation. Carol Ball, chair of Unison's nursery nurse working party, said, 'Local authorities are actively trying to prevent a successful outcome, but we're sure their tactics won't work.
The nursery nurses are very focused on achieving a fair pay and grade structure.'
She said North Ayrshire council had challenged the legality of the first ballot on two points - that it was unable to readily identify the members to be balloted, and that it had not seen a ballot paper three days prior to a ballot commencing, which is the required notice period. A spokesman for North Ayrshire Council said, 'The ballot failed to comply with the timetable required.'
The initial ballot was scheduled for 8 to 22 April. But on 17 April all 32 councils were told that the new ballot period would run from 25 April to 9 May. Ms Ball said that if members voted in favour, 'a rolling programme of strike action' could start from 16 May.
Unison has called for its nursery nurse members to decide whether they are in favour of industrial action or on action falling short of going on strike. Ms Ball said, 'This would include their withdrawing from certain key tasks that they didn't have to carry out 15 years ago.'
She added, 'Nursery nurses have not had their pay reviewed for 15 years and they have been trying to progress this current claim for 18 months. We are further enraged by this stalling tactic being used by our employers. Our employers have pulled out all the stops in order to delay our action, on a fair and legitimate claim, at this particular time.'
But the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (CoSLA) has rejected Unison's request for a national pay claim, arguing that the nursery nurses'
pay and conditions should come under the single status agreement which covers all council employees and which means that each local authority carries out its own job evaluations. However, the single status agreement has been subject to delays for more than a year; it was originally meant to have come into effect by April 2002.
Unison wants nursery nurses to be regraded with a nationwide pay scale because, Ms Ball said, 'They deliver the same service wherever they work.'
Commenting on Unison's decision to ballot its members, a spokeswoman for CoSLA said, 'We're very disappointed that they've chosen this course of action.'
On 25 April a fourth meeting of the working party set up by CoSLA took place with representatives from Unison and the trade unions the GMB and TGWU. Following the meeting, Ms Ball confirmed that the members' ballot was to go ahead as planned.
A protest march and rally organised by the Fife branch of Unison in Scotland was scheduled for last Saturday (26 April) in Dunfermline as part of the nursery nurses' campaign.
