Nursery nurse members of Unison in Scotland have stepped up the campaign for their first pay review in 15 years.
Nursery nurses lobbied their employers' organisation, the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA), in Edinburgh last Thursday (29 May) as they continued waves of strike action across the country.
Unison members are in the third week of a rolling programme of industrial action for a pay and regrading review, which will spread to a different area of Scotland each week in an attempt to minimise disruption to parents and children.
Barbara Foubister, a nursery nurse and Unison's Edinburgh branch chair, said, 'We want direct and meaningful talks with our employers, not through the media.
We want no talk of local job evaluations that do not exist, and we want a fair basic wage for nursery nurses across Scotland. After 15 years we are completely behind this claim.'
She added, 'We recognise that inconvenience cannot be avoided, but parents understand that this is not just about pay, it is also about the future of pre-school education and care.'
Nursery nurses from Unison branches in Edinburgh, the Lothians and the Scottish Borders took part in two days of industrial action on 28 and 29 May. They met at Edinburgh City Chambers before demonstrating outside the COSLA offices.
On 21 May Fife council closed all 17 of its nursery centres and 65 nurseries within local primary schools as a result of a one-day strike by Unison.
But Fife senior education manager Ken Greer stressed that although the strike had gone ahead, the council's education service was continuing to hold a series of meetings with Unison in an attempt to resolve the dispute locally.
The council began local talks with the union in April, in addition to monitoring national negotiations with COSLA.
Mr Greer added, 'Unison has also indicated that, because we are continuing local negotiations, Fife members are not currently planning any extension of strike action.'
Carol Ball, chair of Unison's nursery nurse working party, confirmed that strikes would continue, with nursery nurses from Inverclyde, South, North and East Ayrshire, Shetland and Orkney taking part this week (3 and 4 June).
She said that, to minimise disruption for parents and children, strike action had been arranged to take place in a different area each week for five weeks, culminating in an all-out strike by nursery nurses in all 32 local authorities across Scotland.
Ms Ball said that many parents supported the nursery nurses. 'We value their support and hope it will continue. It is with regret that we find ourselves in this position.'
She added, 'It's taken us 15 years to get here and we're finally making ourselves heard.'
Meanwhile, a COSLA spokes- person confirmed that a meeting with Unison was scheduled for Tuesday, 3 June.
In addition to industrial action, nursery nurses throughout Scotland are continuing to boycott duties that have been added to their responsibilities since their last pay review. These include observation, recording assessment, evaluation, planning, and clerical, cleaning and janitorial tasks, as well as any work outside normal working hours.