Members of the Kirklees branch voted to accept the council's offer on 23 June, following nine days of strikes in April and May that involved more than 140 nursery nurses and affected up to 70 nurseries and nursery classes. Members had voted for another one-day strike and Unison had threatened to ballot all 7,000 of its council worker members to walk out with them if their demands were not met.
Paul Holmes, Kirklees branch secretary, said, 'This settlement makes Kirklees' nursery nurses the best paid in Yorkshire and probably the north of England.'
He added, 'The nursery nurses stuck together and are a credit to the union.
They have received a pay rise which is justly theirs. I hope this sets an example for other local authorities that the years of under-paid and under-valued staff in schools are over.'
He described the conclusion of the dispute as 'a beacon settlement' and predicted that the issue of pay for nursery nurses and support staff in schools would be increasingly on the agenda as they take on extra duties and responsibilities.
Jill Hinchliffe, Kirklees Unison's nursery nurse steward, described the result as 'positive', but added that she felt nursery nurses were still undervalued and that there should be a national pay and grading structure.
The settlement means that nursery nurses at the bottom of the pay scale will see their salaries rise from 11,361 to 13,581. The top rate of pay rises to 15,933 from 13,863. They will also receive a minimum of 450 in back pay backdated to 1 October 2002.
The new deal brings nursery nurses closer in line with classroom assistants, who can earn up to 15,000 following an agreement with the council in November last year.
Meanwhile, in the London borough of Tower Hamlets a strike by more than 100 nursery nurse members of Unison has entered its third week, following the local education authority's decision to change contracts for nursery nurses in schools from 52 weeks to 'term-time only'.
Picketing took place outside schools across the borough last week and a mass rally with parents and children was held outside the town hall last Friday (27 June). More than 1,500 parents have signed a petition in support of the nursery nurses.
The local education authority agreed to a pay rise in April last year, following a regrading exercise which put nursery nurses in schools on the same level as nursery nurses in local authority children's centres. But in October the LEA made the decision to change contracts.
Jean Geldart, branch secretary of Unison in Tower Hamlets, said 'Prior to that we assumed that the contracts would stay the same and that we'd just get the new grade.'
Members at a meeting following Friday's rally rejected the council's latest proposal, which, in addition to 'term-time only' contracts, proposed to create a senior nursery nurse grade, assist those nursery nurses who want to move into teaching and help find jobs for nursery nurses in holiday playschemes.
Ms Geldart said that school nursery nurses urged the union back to the negotiating table and proposed that their job description be re-evaluated again separately from that of other nursery nurses.