FE shutdown as thousands of lecturers strike for pay justice

By Socialist PartyScotland reporters

Scotland’s college lecturers took part in a hugely successful day of strike action on Thursday 17 March. Lively and large picket lines were organised by EIS – Further Education Lecturers Association (FELA) members. Thursday was the first in a planned 32 days of further strike action between now and the end of June in their fight for fair and equal pay for all lecturers in Scotland.

There were around 60 picketing at the West of Scotland College Campus in Paisley. Over 60 strikers were picketing at the Dundee and Angus college campuses. Students also joined the lecturers at a number of colleges to show their support and solidarity.

At City College Glasgow, where students joined staff on the picket line, one lecturer told the Socialist, “There was a 99% vote for strike action here and people have never been more involved in the union.”

After a morning on the picket lines, hundreds of trade union members headed for Edinburgh to protest at their treatment at the Scottish parliament.

Further strike action is planned for two days next week, followed by three day a week strikes after the Easter holidays.

angry

Lecturers are angry and rightly so. Angry at years of pay freezes and now an imposed 1% “pay deal” for this year. Especially angry at the scandal of lecturers in some parts of Scotland being paid more than £12,000 a year less that others doing the same job in a different college.

The legacy of locally negotiated pay and terms and conditions has led to a huge discrepancy in the wages and working conditions of lecturers across the country. Not for the six-figure salaries paid to the college principles of course.

Yvonne Cargill from Dundee and Anhus college and the chair of the EIS-FELA said: “The question I want answered is that MSPs represent constituencies around Scotland, but every MSP gets the same salary – why don’t we get fair and equal pay as well?

After pressure from the union the Scottish Government and Scottish Colleges management agreed a return to national bargaining over pay and conditions. Yet nothing has been done to change the unfair and unequal pay in the FE sector.

Larry Flanagan, the EIS general secretary commented: “Some colleges have refused to take part in negotiations at all, highlighting the non-delivery of a national bargaining process that was promised to lecturers by colleges and the Scottish Government. The recent threat by colleges to impose their unfair offer on lecturers was the final straw, and has forced EIS-FELA members into this strike action today.”

88% of lecturers voted in favour of strike action. EIS-FELA is demanding equalisation of wages and terms and conditions across Scotland and a fair and decent pay deal for all.

cuts

Also driving the anger of the trade union members is the increasing workloads and cuts to college funding that is turning the job of adequately teaching and supporting students into an impossibility. Lecturers talk time and again about the cuts to contact time with students, the cramming of course delivery into less fewer weeks and lack of time for support.

One lecturer on the picket line in Dundee explained to the Socialist that “some courses that were delivered in 38 weeks have now been cut to 34 weeks. There is no time to help those students who need support and further assistance.”

FE colleges, currently run by management on a cost-cutting business model, play a vital role in training and eduation for hundreds of thousands of overwhelmingly working-class youg people in Scotland. These cuts and the attacks on college staff require a united fightback of students and the college workforce.

This is directly related to cuts to funding to colleges by the Scottish Government who have continued to pass-on Tory funding cuts to public services in Scotland.

Between 2011 and 2014, cuts to college funding led to more than 150,000 fewer students at college in Scotland in 2014. Hours of learning were cut by almost 10 million while staff numbers have also dropped by 7,000.

Socialist Party Scotland calls for MSPs and councillors to refuse to implement Tory cuts and set no-cuts budgets, building a mass campaign to fight for the money stolen in austerity by the Tories in Westminster.

Trade union members jobs, wages and terms and conditions are under attack like never before. It’s essential that a coordinated campaign of strike action by the trade unions is built across Scotland to defeat the austerity juggernaut.

TUSC

It will become ever more clear that a political alternative must be built to those politicians who are playing pass-the parcel with Tory cuts. Socialist Party Scotlandis part of the Scottish Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC).

TUSC’s central policy is 100% opposition to austerity through no-cuts budgets. We demand that all MSPs and councillors back a no-cuts policy and pledge to vote against all cuts. Scottish TUSC will be standing candidates in the Scottish elections on this platform, alongside a wide range of anti-austerity and socialist policies.

The struggle against cuts needs to be linked to the building of a socialist alternative to a failing capitalism in whose DNA is rooted in- equality and savage austerity.

Today, the bosses’ system – the rule of profit above all else – it incapable of taking society forward. All it offers is growing inequality, poverty and environmental catastrophe. It has to go. We say:

• Pay the lecturers
• Equalise pay and terms and conditions for staff across all colleges in Scotland – no wage cuts
• Students build support for the striking lecturers
• Stop and reverse the cuts to FE funding
• A living bursary and grants for all students
• For a Scottish Government that fights austerity instead of implementing it.