DANIEL KEBEDE voiced defiance today as he revealed the TUC has opened an investigation into the National Education Union (NEU) over it breaching a ban on organising school support staff.

In his closing speech to his union’s annual conference in Brighton, the NEU general secretary said the TUC had put the union “on trial” for breaching the agreement with GMB, Unison and Unite.

He said: “And conference, for the crime of choosing progress over decline, unity over sectionalism, and workers at the centre of our movement — how do we plead?

“It was one of my proudest moments as your general secretary to see you exit the unworkable and unjust TUC-brokered agreement of 2017 that restricted our ability to organise school support staff.

“And we will organise these colleagues — fully, proudly, and unapologetically.

“As the second largest school support staff trade union, there is no moral justification for our exclusion from national bargaining arrangements,” he said.

“And there is no moral justification to say we cannot organise support staff members on workplace issues.”

Mr Kebede said that he would “never” advocate leaving the TUC, “but if the trade union movement is to survive, let alone thrive, it must respond to the rapidly changing world of work.

“We have broken with an outdated agreement, but I do think we should seek a new agreement with sister unions.

“I do not believe in competitive trade unionism. I do not believe in poaching.

“What I do believe — what I believe deeply — is that there is another way. A way rooted in co-operation. A way where the NEU, GMB, Unite and Unison work together to organise the unorganised.”

The TUC was contacted for comment.