HUNDREDS of GMB members marched through Blackpool today after Labour watered down plans to improve standards of support and pay for school workers.

The leaders of Unison, GMB and Unite slammed the Department for Education’s push for the mass academisation of schools without a long-promised national framework for job evaluations and pay on Tuesday.

Unions say the lack of a framework will put hundreds of thousands of school support staff at risk of fragmented “free-for-all” employment practices and put academies at risk of equal pay claims.

GMB president Barbara Plant told the union’s conference today that the demonstration will tell Labour: “Don’t betray school support staff.”

Labour made a manifesto pledge to introduce the School Support Staff Negotiating Body (SSSNB) after the plans were shelved after it lost the general election in 2010.

The SSSNB was meant to replace the National Joint Council (NJC) for school workers and have union representation.

The council currently negotiates their annual pay increases through collective bargaining with Unison, GMB and Unison.

But government officials admitted the long-promised national job evaluation and pay framework won’t be included in the SSSNB before the next general election last month.

Ms Plant said: “It’s the multi-academy trusts which seem to have been able to exert a real level of control over the government.

“The government suddenly introduced a floor and no ceiling in pay — this means that academies retain their freedom to pay staff whatever they wish without a job evaluation or description.

“The government has shown the side they are on and it isn’t the side of workers.”

She added it was a “further disappointment” when Labour announced its mass academisation plans earlier this year.

“This will be the biggest privatisation since Thatcher,” said Ms Plant.

South London teaching assistant Kim Marshall said: “School support staff are the people who keep our schools running.”

GMB estimates up to 200,000 school support staff employed by local authorities will be privatised under Labour’s academisation plans.

Unions are campaigning to change the Equality Act so that workers can still make billions of pounds worth of equal pay claims after being transferred from local authorities into academies.

They say failing to do so would breach Labour’s manifesto promise to end the use of outsourcing to get around equal pay.