OVER 3,000 WORKERS are to strike in Northern Ireland today as they express discontent over delays with a pay review they say is much needed.

Classroom assistants, drivers, bus escorts, catering staff, cleaning staff, administrative, building supervisors and technicians are included in the thousands taking four days of industrial action on 20 and 21 May, as well as 3 and 4 June 2024. 

This mainly low-paid women workforce are either are on temporary contracts, only work term time or are on part-time contracts. 

Unions GMB, Nipsa, Unison and Unite have come together to call for a fully-funded implementation of a education pay and grading review for the workers. 

Alan Perry, a GMB Senior Organiser, said those in non-teaching roles in education are “angry and frustrated”. 

”They have simply had enough; they’ve yet to be acknowledged for their job roles despite the Education Authority agreeing the business case for the pay and grading review dating back to 2018,” he said.

“Our members will not be used as political pawns by the NI Executive. It’s time to pay them what they are worth.”

Perry added that further delay will result in more strikes.

It’s not their first demonstration on the issue, having brought their qualms to the doors of Secretary of State Chris Heaton-Harris’s office in Belfast in January.

With no response, what followed was one of the largest workers’ strikes in Northern Ireland in recent years.