Dear Sir,
You will be aware the County Council voted to tear up teaching assistants’ pro rata contracts, and re-employ them on a term time contract only.
This will devastate the lives of those people who help raise standards of the most fundamental skills in some of the most deprived schools with children from the most deprived backgrounds.
And for those workers, they face a summer of unemployment, a universal credit claim with an average of an 8 weeks wait, and the prospect of DWP work programme courses to be entitled to benefits before they return to work in September.
And the people who voted for these changes are in possession of allowances which equals or exceeds these T.A’s salaries.
I say means-test our county representatives, who are mostly in office because they enjoy excellent salaries and pensions.
Had only someone on a T.A’s salary been able to afford to stand for office, we’d not have a class of shameless people taking from working people, the ideological and material powers that ought to belong to working people.
Moreover, 40 of these representatives, either didn’t think the issue worthy of turning up to vote on, or spinelessly abstained to ensure their voting record would not blemish their future political aspirations.
Working people do not need sycophantic, lily livered careerists, why don’t we means test our representatives and use the savings to pay the unsung heroes in our classrooms?
Warren Saunders
