My daily rate doesn't even cover my childminder.
I am tired of this. If you are a member of Unison please speak up! Feel free to use my email as a template:
To whom it may concern,
I would like to write to you to express my disappointment regarding the ballot outcome to accept the pay offer.
As a learning support assistant, I feel massively underrepresented. We get put in the bracket of ‘support staff’, when in fact the majority of people in this bracket get paid full time, whereas learning support assistants get paid term time only. This means that although many have benefitted from this pay increase, learning support assistants have again fallen short.
If we were to be on a full time contract, then this pay rise would have been noticed and appreciated, however due to us working term time only, it is minuscule and not enough to survive on through the current cost of living crisis.
Despite being labelled as support staff, when in school learning support assistants are expected to attend all the teaching staff inset days and training activities. This shows how learning support staff are falling short, as we are put in the same bracket as admin & office support staff despite us getting paid far less and despite our role being completely different, in essence our role is actually better suited to a teaching bracket. We have a full XXX period day of face to face contact with students, and how our role can come under the same bracket as office staff is completely inaccurate.
I have worked in my role for over XXX years, and the amount of staff I have seen leave because they simply cannot afford the day to day basics is really sad. Students with EHCPs have a legal document providing funding to have a learning support assistant, so why are we made to feel so massively under valued, under appreciated and under paid? We are vital to supporting our students through their day to day school life, and I dread to think of a day where no one can hire learning support assistants because of the pay on offer, because our work is important and essential.
To sum up, every LSA I have spoken to rejected the pay offer and would have even preferred strike action. The fact we have missed out on this opportunity because we are placed in the ‘support staff’ bracket, despite our pay, work, and work conditions being on completely different sides of the spectrum, is really unfair and disappointing.
I await your response,
XXXX
Unison membership number: XXXXX