by Bill Heaney
West Dunbartonshire Council was forced into closing schools on Tuesday when classroom learning assistants took strike action over their pay and working conditions.
The staff who provide personal care to children with disabilities, behavioural challenges and complex medical needs are being supported by the local government union UNISON.
Speaking at a well-attended rally outside the council headquarters in the old Burgh Hall in Church Street, Dumbarton, Lillian Macer, UNISON regional secretary, told the strikers, mainly women, that the work they do is underappreciated and not properly valued by the council.
“Stop ignoring us, value our work, listen to your workforce, listen to the members that are in schools fighting and supporting and making sure our young people in Dunbartonshire get the proper support, education and learning that they deserve.
“You didn’t take this lightly, closing those 28 schools, you didn’t say I’m withdrawing my labour at a whim. This has been years in the making, and years of the local authority not listening.
“You’re sending a clear message to the local authority that you will not stand by as predominantly women workers and be undervalued, undermined and shown a lack of respect.”
Picket lines took place at St Peter the Apostle High School, St Eunan’s Primary/Nursery, Gavinburn Primary School in Old Kilpatrick and St Stephen’s Primary School in Dalmuir.
After this, learning assistants congregated at the council’s Church Street offices, where they held signs that read “equal value,” “equal respect, equal pay.”
Mick Dolan, West Dunbartonshire secretary for the EIS teaching union, and members of several other trade unions, warned that further strike action would take place if there was no resolution to the dispute.
Mick Dolan, West Dunbartonshire secretary for EIS, raised the problems of widespread violence in schools.
He said: “The amount of abuse that you suffer daily is absolutely astonishing, off the scale and needs to be fully recognised.
“Over a year ago, I brought to the convener’s group with the management and the council that there needs to be a proper regrading and recognition of what it is that you guys are doing daily, and that’s an absolute failure to do that.
“If you’re not doing something on an absolutely frequent basis, they refuse to recognise it, and we will need to hammer home that you are a crucial part of the whole system, both in a local message and a national message.
“The Scottish Government have been pushing the inclusion agenda for years now, and you are a crucial part of that inclusion agenda. Teachers in schools cannot survive without the support that you give daily, and we recognise that you are that crucial part.”
West Dunbartonshire Council spokespeople have said they had been in conversation with the unions and are “disappointed” by the decision to strike.
West Dunbartonshire Council refused to comment and say they are sticking to their decision to boycott The Dumbarton Democrat.
Proud to have been on the picket line at 8am with the Classroom Assistants who have an unarguable, legitimate case.