UNISON General Secretary Dave Prentis has blasted Durham County Council over its “shabby tactics” and said he hopes teaching assistants vote to strike in their long-running dispute.

The union claimed the council was seeking to drive a wedge between teaching assistants who are members of Unison and those from other unions who had been asked to accept new contracts.

Durham County Council has been seeking to move teaching assistants onto term-time only contracts, rather than paying them for 52 weeks a year.

Following a recent ballot Unison members, who make up the majority of the workforce, will be now dismissed and re-engaged from January and only offered a one-year compensation deal after they rejected a final offer from the council.

But members of the GMB and Unite are being offered a two year-compensation deal and won’t be moved onto the new contracts until April, Unison said.

Mr Prentis said: “These are the sort of shabby tactics we’d expect from the worst private sector employers, not a Labour council.

“I hope all Durham teaching assistants vote to go on strike, the council rethinks its pathetic offer and stops behaving in such a distasteful manner.”

Caroline O’Neill, head of education at Durham County Council, said the authority risked “very costly” equal pay claims if it did not introduce changes paying staff for the actual hours they work.

She said: “All but one council regionally and many nationally have already addressed this risk and we have a legal and moral responsibility to do so.

“Given the position we were in the only thing we could do was honour the ballot results and it is really disappointing to be criticised for abiding by the outcome of this democratic process.”