Scottish teachers deserve a fighting pay strategy

Jim Halfpenny, EIS joint secretary, West Dunbartonshire

At the beginning of 2022, on a 53% turnout, 98% of teachers in Scotland’s biggest teaching union, the EIS, voted to reject the pay deal offered by COSLA on the unanimous recommendation of the Salaries Committee.

This led to a revised, slightly improved offer from COSLA which would mean an overall improvement in salary of a teacher at the top of the main grade scale of £13 a month. Maybe just enough for a fish supper and an extra portion of chips. For those further down the pay scale…maybe just the chips.

Despite this derisory increased offer, in reality a pay cut given the soaring levels of inflation, the Salaries Committee proposed a second ballot with the recommendation to accept, a position supported by the National Council of the EIS.

They cited “pandemic weariness” and the “simple reality” of the time a ballot process would take. The “simple reality” is that a proper campaign would energise the membership and not require two consultative ballots before an industrial action ballot, which is the current approach of the EIS.

As for “pandemic weariness”! This would be the backbone of our campaign. Workload weariness put 30,000 protesting teachers and their families on the streets of Glasgow in 2018, forcing the Scottish Government and COSLA to concede a significant pay increase…although only half of what they had stolen from us in the last ten years.

The disappointment of the membership was reflected in the eventual 45% turnout and the fact that 20% voted to reject the offer with the intention of going for industrial action.

10% pay claim

This twenty percent will be the base on which to build a successful industrial action campaign to back up our demand for a 10% pay increase this coming year.

The National Council of the EIS has now passed a motion indicating its lack of faith in the employers’ ability to negotiate fairly and committing the EIS to move to an early ballot for industrial action should this year’s pay claim not be settled by the end of October and to start building for members to be strike ready if required.

EIS General Secretary, Larry Flanagan has said, “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.”

In the face of rising inflation and decreasing living standards, a 10% pay claim will begin to appear as a modest request. Despite opposition from the Scottish government and local councils, teachers in Scotland will prepare for industrial action in the coming months.