HAVING two children is an asset for Christina McAnea as she tries to influence the Government’s school workforce reforms.

The Unison senior national officer for schools and colleges is helping fight the case for proper pay and conditions for support staff.

And the experiences of her son, six, and daughter, 11, show her it is worthwhile. “People make assumptions about low-paid workers and that makes me angry,” she said.

“My children both went to nurseries. The nursery nurses we experienced were committed professionals and did a fantastic job.

“When my mother died it was very upsetting for my daughter, but support staff give a lot of extra help to children at times of need .”

Ms McAnea was born in Glasgow in 1958 and grew up in Drumchapel, one of the biggest council estates in Europe. Her father was an Irish Catholic from County Monaghan who worked as a labourer; her mother was a school cleaner and dinner lady who left school at 14.

“She was an incredibly well-read and intelligent woman who encouraged me to stay at school,” says Ms McAnea. “She was keen to see education as a way out of poverty.”

Ms McAnea was top of the class at school but got married at 17. After a few years in a tax office, however, she decided to study English and history at Strathclyde University.

Already in the Communist party - she had joined at 16 after hearing an impassioned speech by shipyard strike leader Jimmy Reid - she took her first trade union job at 24, working for the GMB.

After five years as GMB tribunals officer, then assistant legal officer, she became women’s officer at Nalgo. This became Unison after a merger in 1993. She has taken a variety of roles there since.

She left the Communists in the early 1980s, disillusioned with growing factionalism, and joined the Labour party a few years later. She remains a Catholic and is bringing her children up in the faith. Her husband runs a Mencap project.

Ms McAnea says she still gets a buzz from the cut and thrust of national negotiations.

Leaders of the teacher unions say it is clear she is “outraged” by the pay and conditions of support staff but describe her as a “straight-down-the-line person” - who is good fun when off duty.

Eamonn O’Kane, general secretary of the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers, said: “She’s got what it takes to be a good trade union official - outgoing, sociable, fairly extrovert, but clearly determined. She is not someone to be pushed around just because she is pleasant.”

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