EIS leader ‘hopeful’ of new deal to stop strike
PUPILS could be saved from huge disruption if the Scottish Government makes an improved pay offer, a union boss has said.
The general secretary of Scotland’s biggest teachers’ union the EIS has said she is ‘very hopeful’ a new pay deal will be offered before school staff walk out this Thursday.
EIS chief Andrea Bradley said recent ‘informal discussions’ have given her hope the strike can be averted – despite Finance Secretary John Swinney repeatedly insisting there is no extra money.
Announcing the planned strikes earlier this month, Miss Bradley warned that teachers were growing ‘increasingly angry’ as she condemned ‘unjustifiable dither and delay’ from the Scottish Government and council umbrella group Cosla. However, speaking on BBC Scotland’s Sunday Show yesterday, she said she was ‘very, very hopeful’ that Cosla and the Government will improve on the 5 per cent offer rejected in September.
She said: ‘I have been in informal discussions with the Scottish Government and I am hopeful that something that will be worth considering by our salaries committee will be forthcoming at the beginning of the week.’
Miss Bradley insisted the EIS was prepared to ‘consider a new offer as soon as it comes to us’, with a special meeting of the union’s salaries committee now scheduled for tomorrow, ahead of a meeting of its executive committee the following day.
She said: ‘Teachers should have had a pay increase in their bank accounts on April 1, this is now the middle of November and we have had nothing – zero – by way of a pay award against a backdrop of rising inflation.’
With the EIS previously demanding a 10 per cent pay hike, she stressed the union was ‘prepared to negotiate’ even with inflation now at 11.1 per cent.
The schools crisis adds to fears of a winter of discontent, with nurses, ambulance staff, railway workers, university lecturers and civil servants also set to strike.
University and College Union members will start to work to rule from Thursday.
On Friday, ambulance staff including paramedics, planners and administrators who are Unite members will begin continuous action short of strikes, including an overtime ban, while GMB members in the Scottish Ambulance Service will launch a 26-hour strike on Monday.
Meanwhile, the latest strike by train drivers’ union Aslef will continue on Saturday.