Classroom assistants in Northern Ireland will return to the picket lines today after one of their unions rejected the latest offer from management on pay and the regrading of their jobs.
Members of the Nipsa trade union will begin three days of strike action, with the possibility of another walkout next Monday as part of a 12-year dispute with the Education and Library Boards over pay and conditions.
Under the offer made last Friday, it was proposed there would be a regrading of all 7,000 classroom assistant jobs in the North, with up to half of posts upgraded at an annual cost of £3.5 million per annum.
It was also suggested there would be three new job titles: classroom assistant (general), classroom assistant (special needs) and classroom assistant (additional special needs), with new rates of pay ranging from £11,619 to £20,235 for full-time staff depending on grade and service.
Many of the assistants work alongside teachers in special needs schools.
The employers offered to allocate up to £25 million to cover the backdating of the regrading to 1995.
However Nipsa argued yesterday that the offer failed to address the key issues behind the dispute.