Teachers’ union ‘hopeful’ of new offer to avert strike

Scotland’s largest teaching union is confident a new pay offer will be made to avert a teacher’s strike on Thursday but is still preparing to take action that will close most schools

Teachers across the country are due to stage a 24-hour walkout after rejecting a five per cent pay increase, calling for 10%.

EIS general secretary Andrea Bradley said the union was “hopeful” of a new offer and was prepared to negotiate.

“We are ready to consider a new offer as soon as it comes to us,” she said.

Deputy first minister John Swinney previously said there was no more money to fund public sector pay rises.

It followed Scotland’s largest nursing union voting to go on strike for the first time ever in a dispute over pay.

Further EIS strike dates have been set for 10 January in primary schools and 11 January in secondary schools. The Scottish Secondary Teachers’ Association (SSTA) is also considering taking strike action in the week beginning 5 December.

Ms Bradley told BBC Scotland’s Sunday Show she was very hopeful there would be a new offer having been in informal discussions with the Scottish government.

But she said that as things stood, there had not been any new offer since the previous one was rejected in September so the strike would be going ahead as planned.

“As things stand, the EIS continues to plan for a day of national strike action on Thursday which is likely to close almost all schools in Scotland,” she said.

“We are hopeful however, that over the course of this weekend Scottish government and Cosla colleagues will have been able to have arrived at an agreement around a more substantial offer than the five per cent that was rejected in the the middle of September.

“We are ready to consider a new offer as soon as it comes to us at the beginning of the working work.”

Ms Bradley said the union’s salaries committee had scheduled a meeting for Tuesday and another meeting of its executive committee planned for Wednesday.

“So we are more than ready to consider any offer that comes forward from the Scottish government and Cosla over the course of the next couple of days,” she said.

“Of course we are prepared to negotiate. We have been negotiating around this since April.”

She pointed out that when the EIS claim for a 10% increase was lodged, inflation was at seven per cent but was now at 11.1%.

“So a 10% pay award would be a one point one per cent real terms pay cut and that’s against the backdrop of teachers salaries being eroded to the tune of 25% since 2008,” she said.

She told the programme the union would not like to see any cuts to the education budget.

“Should that occur the responsibility for that will very much lie with the Scottish government, not with teachers and not with the EIS who are quite rightly looking to protect the living standards of teachers as hard-working public sector workers,” she said.

“When you underfund education it is ultimately the children and young people who will be disadvantaged.”