Teacher unions will not fall into line with Cosla’s offer of a 1 per cent pay rise for local government employees, the country’s largest union has signalled.
Drew Morrice, EIS assistant secretary, told TESS that the EIS was in the process of finalising its claim after talks with the other unions. Last week, the union attacked the local authorities’ umbrella body, Cosla, for “bypassing” the formal negotiations structure of the Scottish Negotiation Committee for Teachers.
The EIS has also published research it commissioned from Stewart Research on teachers’ earnings, which shows that in real terms, the weekly wages of Scottish teachers declined from around #163;583-#163;597 in 2003 to around #163;525-#163;546 now, depending on which measure of inflation is used.
Using the consumer price index (CPI), teachers in 2012 were 6.5 per cent worse off than in 2003, while under the retail price index (RPI) they were 12 per cent worse off.
The report, Teachers’ Earnings in Scotland, offers mixed findings. “Looking at public-private sector differences in Scotland alone, on average earnings, Scotland’s teachers have lagged behind Scotland’s graduates in the private sector since 2006,” it says.
But it adds: “Teachers have earned more, on average, than Scotland’s graduates in the public sector since 2009. On median earnings, however, teachers earn more than graduates in both sectors throughout the period.”
In the UK, teachers with a master’s earn more in terms of mean and median earnings than those without one. But the report finds that while there is some indication of a master’s earning premium for Scotland’s teachers, the sample size was too small to be reliable.
