We have waited patiently for the announcement of a support staff ballot. With the momentous news this week of co-ordination amongst the four education unions, there is a glaring omission in the fact thousands of our education workers are not being balloted yet.

Support staff are absolutely crucial to our schools. They are key to the educational experience of our pupils and they are a key component of our union. The time has come to name the date for a ballot and to let them join the strikes for pay and funding in our schools.

We understand there are issues concerning agreements between NEU and local government unions. However, we cannot allow support staff to be held back by union bureaucracies any longer. The local government unions want to maintain a monopoly over the 'right' to organise support staff despite showing no sign of attempting to organise in schools. The vast majority of support staff are unorganised and are facing a crisis of real terms pay cuts, spiralling work load and redundancies now. We should work alongside other support staff unions where we can but we can't wait for them to wake up before standing up for support staff. Our support staff should be balloted now.

We also expect the support staff ballot to be given equal priority with the teacher reballot in union campaigning - every single education worker in our schools is worth a fully funded pay rise.

Name the date for a support staff ballot and lets build true professional unity of all education workers.

In solidarity,