More Scottish school strike dates to be announced

As reported by the BBC, Scotland’s teachers are to announce more strike dates for next year, the EIS union has said

The first full strike in Scotland’s schools for nearly 40 years will take place on Thursday.

It comes after what the union described as an ‘insulting’ revised pay offer from council body Colsa was rejected.

Scotland’s largest teaching union has already announced additional strike dates for January and said industrial action in February is now planned too.

The EIS also warned further strikes in December could not be ruled out.

Education Secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville has described the pay offer on the table as fair and said the EIS demand of a flat 10% rise for teachers was ‘unaffordable’.

Colsa made a fresh proposal on Tuesday which would see rises of up to six point eight fiver per cent for some teachers earning less than £40,107.

But EIS general secretary Andrea Bradley told BBC Good Morning Scotland the proposal was a “blundersome move” and had “served to significantly add fuel to the fire in terms of our members anger about how they have been treated over pay”.

She added: “A cheap deal with teachers is simply not going to cut it.

“We had assurances last week from Scottish government and Cosla colleagues that they were doing their utmost to find new money. They simply have not done that.

“The EIS has announced two days of strike action in January and it is now inevitable that further days will be announced tomorrow, so we will looking at strikes throughout the months of January and February and it really depends what happens at the negotiating table as to whether they can be averted.”

Asked if there would be any strikes before Christmas, Ms Bradley said there were no current plans but the union “wouldn’t take it off the table”.