EIS ballot: Vote yes to strike for 10%

Jim Halfpenny – West Dunbartonshire EIS joint secretary

EIS members are balloting for strike action. The demand by the EIS is for a 10% wage increase. The 5% offer from the employers is an insult. We worked through the pandemic to maintain education.

As the former general secretary Larry Flanagan pointed out: “Scotland’s teachers have worked themselves into the ground over the past two years, often at great cost to their physical and mental health, to seek to ensure a continuing high-quality education for Scotland’s young people amidst the Covid pandemic.”

Workload remains excessive while more and more is demanded with fewer and fewer resources. In response, teachers are offered a derisory pay increase which is nothing short of a substantial pay cut. This cannot be allowed to continue.

The National Council of the EIS has clearly indicated its lack of faith in our employers’ ability to negotiate fairly. COSLA has deliberately dragged out pay negotiations as they try to weaken any industrial action response by EIS members. This will not succeed.

Teaching is a majority female profession. Pay decline is impacting on teachers relative to other graduate professions and contributing to the overall gender pay gap. Teachers want to see gender pay justice for the profession.

Teachers’ pay needs to attract the best graduates to allow schools to provide quality education, alleviate the effects of poverty and give every young person a good and equal chance to thrive. Teachers’ pay needs to add up, if it is to help boost teacher numbers.

Inflation soars

The latest government inflation figures from the ONS show that in the last year, retail prices (RPI) have risen by 12.3%. However, teachers, like the rest of the working class, don’t live in a world of average inflation. Families are being impoverished by the rise in gas prices (95.7%), electricity (54%), petrol and diesel (114%) and basic food (over 20%).

The demand by the EIS for a 10% wage increase, which initially seemed modest, is now looking like a pay cut. While teachers, and other frontline workers, did essential work throughout the pandemic the rich and privileged were making huge profits at our expense. 

Centrica, the owner of British Gas, announced half-year profits for 2022 are up 500% to £1.3 billion. BP’s half-year profits in 2022 are £11.9 billion, double that of 2021. Shell’s half-year profits in 2022 are £17.3 billion, up from £8.7 billion in 2021

EIS President, Andrene Bamford is correct to say, “The cost of living crisis was created by unscrupulous and greedy capitalists. We did not cause it, and we will not pay for it. A wage increase that does not rise with inflation is a pay cut. It’s as simple as that.”

All strike together

There is no doubt that the Scottish Government and local councils intend to continue carrying out the Tory party’s programme of vicious cuts and attacks on working people and their families.

All of this has raised the prospect of national coordinated strike action across all sectors against the cost-of-living squeeze and the corrupt and crisis-ridden Tory government. The EIS should play its part in that campaign for national coordinated action.

It would be a serious mistake on the part of COSLA and the Scottish Government if they fail to understand that teachers in Scotland will not shrink from defending themselves and Scottish education. Let them be clear…teachers are preparing for industrial action, for nothing less than 10%.