A TRADE Union leader has branded a council immoral and wrong over proposals to change County Durham teaching assistants’ contracts.

Unison general secretary Dave Prentis visited Durham ahead of a rally with the county’s teaching assistants.

The union is balloting members over proposed strike action following Durham County Council’s decision to to change contracts so teaching assistants are paid during term-time only.

Mr Prentis said: “I think people in the North East have always fought injustice and unfairness.

“This is one of the most blatant cases of injustice and unfairness I have come across. People from the North East will not stand for it.

“Industrial action is never easy, it’s something we have to resort to because what they are doing is immoral and wrong and our members have a sense of justice. They will stay together to fight to have decent pay.”

Mr Prentis was due to speak at the rally at Durham Miners’ Hall, in Redhills, in Durham City, on Thursday night.

The council has said the move will bring them into line with other authorities and will reduce the legal risk of disputes over equal pay from other employees.

Teaching assistants say it will result in them losing up to a quarter of their salary.

Mr Prentis said: “Taking 25 per cent away is absolutely diabolical. The teaching assistants are really thinking about whether they can afford mortgages and rents and their futures.

“We’ve tried taking to the council but we’re not getting anywhere.

“It’s what you would expect in the private sector. This is not something we would expect from a Labour council”

Unison, which represents around 1700 of the county’s 2600 teaching assistants, is urging them to vote for strike action.

Following a recent ballot, Unison members will be dismissed and re-engaged from January and offered a one-year compensation deal after they rejected a final offer from the council.

GMB members voted to accept the council's offer of a two-year compensation deal.

The county council said it had engaged in extensive discussions with trade unions, two consultation exercises and talks at Acas to resolve the dispute before the ballot.

Head of education Caroline O’Neill said: “We are really clear that neither the teaching assistants, the trade unions or the council want to be in this position and we have tried really hard to mitigate the impact of changes linked to paying staff for the hours they actually work”.

She said that council had faced “an extremely complex situation” given that GMB members had voted to accept the offer.

Ms O’Neill added: “We have agreed to GMB’s request to honour the result of their ballot. GMB members will therefore receive the two years compensation commencing from  April 2017.

“Unison members voted by majority to reject the offer and with regret we have no choice but to respect that decision and to progress with the dismissal and re-engagement.

“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.”