NJC pay 2022 – members vote to accept

UNISON’s consultation of members on the NJC pay offer for 2022 for England, Wales and Northern Ireland closed last week. UNISON’s NJC Committee met on Monday 26 September to receive the results of the consultation.

UNISON members have voted to accept the pay offer, with 63.5% voting to accept and 36.5% voting to reject.

The turnout was significantly higher than in previous years – more than 10 percentage points up on last year. The Committee has also begun to discuss the pay claim for 2023, with a view to getting it agreed as soon as possible.
We now await the results of GMB’s and Unite’s consultations on 2022 pay, both of which will end in October. Branches may be aware that the National Education Union (NEU) are also consulting school support staff members on the NJC offer. Remember, the only three recognised unions for NJC pay are UNISON, GMB and Unite.

In the meantime UNISON NI is pressing ahead with the EA Pay and Grading Review. First promised as part of the NJC 2018-2020 pay award, opportunity to progress the issues were derailed by the COVID Pandemic. However, since Spring of this year UNISON has been pushing forward to secure a commitment from the Department of Education to open discussions on support service unions demands.

The absence of the Assembly and a functioning Executive has put further impediments in our way. However, we have secured agreement in principle to submit a business case to DE which could unlock discussions.

Securing the actual funding will continue to be difficult.

We will post news on developments as they arise.