Barnsley nursery workers strike over Reform council privatisation plans

The 33 women demonstrating outside a nursery in the South Yorkshire village of Grimethorpe had never been on strike before. Passing motorists sounded their horns in support as staff at six nurseries run by Barnsley council walked out over a decision by the authority's Reform UK leadership to hand the facilities to private companies.

The workers, all members of the GMB union, say the transfer will seriously damage the support they give to vulnerable children and hit their own pensions. Feeling runs so deep that turnout in the strike ballot reached 100%, with every single member voting for the walkout.

"For low-paid working women to take a stand is significant," said Victoria Austin, a GMB regional organiser. She said the nursery teams went above and beyond in their roles and "the council should be singing that from the rooftops". Instead, she said, the authority pressed ahead with a "massively detrimental" privatisation, telling staff about the impact on their pensions only 36 hours before the transfer was due to take place.

The plans were first drawn up under the previous Labour administration, whose councillors had assured nursery staff that their pay and benefits, including pensions, would stay the same. Reform took control of the council at the local elections in May after half a century of Labour leadership. Austin said the new administration was "not interested" in the workers' fight and was "wanting to build a legacy around balancing the books".

Some local people see the transfer as an example of heavy-handed slashing by Reform councils, which has also included closing care homes and cutting social care. "As an elected council, their priority should be not letting children get left behind and doing the right thing by communities," Austin said.

The workers and the union believe the transfer has been badly handled. One nursery now stands shuttered after the council deregistered it with Ofsted so that a private provider could register, only for that provider to pull out.

The council said there was no legal duty for local authorities to run nursery services and that the change would "reduce the amount of council tax payers' money needed to support the nurseries". It said that once legal advice confirmed staff were no longer eligible for the local government pension scheme ahead of the transfer, "that information was shared quickly with staff and trade unions".

William Brown, the leader of Barnsley council, said: "We're disappointed that GMB members have voted in favour of strike action. The decision to transfer these nurseries to another provider was taken to protect jobs and retain these services for families." He said extra provision had been made for families across the three strike days and that the council was continuing to engage with the union.

For Kimberley Darlington, Emma Jones, Lucy Kolconko and Charlotte Hawe, who work at Darfield nursery, the dispute is about more than being moved to a lower-value pension. Hawe said: "We're often the first point of contact. I've arranged lots of food parcels for families who need them." Kolconko has taken families to visit the doctor when needed, while Darlington recalled going out to a house "to show a parent how to play with her Send (special educational needs and disabilities) children, she just didn't know".

The nursery workers say they have taught a three-year-old child with special educational needs to walk and helped a family living with a rat infestation and mouldy walls get help from their landlord. They fear such work would be impossible in a private setting, where staff can each be responsible for five children over the age of two rather than the four they look after in Barnsley. "We just won't have time to do these things. We've done all this work and the council has turned on us," said Kolconko, a senior nursery worker.