Scottish teaching unions have unanimously rejected the offer of a 2 per cent pay rise for this year, saying it is “completely inadequate” and that they will ballot for industrial action if councils do not “move more quickly, and far more positively” in talks.
The offer of a 2 per cent for all teachers in 2022-23 was tabled by local authorities body Cosla but unanimously rejected yesterday by the teaching unions at a meeting of Scottish Negotiation Committee for Teachers (SNCT), the tripartite body that determines teacher pay and conditions.
In April, Scottish teachers reluctantly accepted a 2.23 per cent pay rise, along with a one-off payment of £100 for 2021-22, but only after being reassured that the unions would push for “a fairer and far greater pay settlement for 2022-23”.
Scotland’s largest teaching union, the EIS, said it had put in a claim for 10 per cent for 2022-23.
However, more than three months later and councils have come back with “a completely inadequate pay offer, which has now been summarily rejected”, according to Des Morris, EIS salaries convener and chair of the teachers’ side of the SNCT.
He said that with inflation running at 9 per cent, Cosla was effectively offering Scotland’s teachers “a massive pay cut”.
He added: “Scotland’s teachers deserve a fair pay increase and they deserve it now. In previous negotiations, the employers have adopted delaying tactics by responding to pay claims at a glacial pace. Our members are simply not prepared to accept that any more.
“This pay increase should have been applied at the start of April but we have only just received their opening, totally inadequate, offer.
“The EIS is seeking settlement before the summer but the employers must come back with a far better offer. The EIS Council has already agreed that we will move towards a ballot for industrial action should a fair pay settlement not be achieved. The clock is ticking; Cosla must move more quickly, and far more positively, if industrial action is to be avoided.”
Earlier this month, the Scottish Secondary Teachers’ Association (SSTA) called for the way teacher pay is negotiated to be revamped and for talks to take place directly with the Scottish government, with councils removed from the process.
Seamus Searson, general secretary of the SSTA, told Tes Scotland that the union wants to speak to “the organ grinder, not the monkey” when negotiating teachers’ pay and that, with the Scottish government holding the purse strings, it would make sense for unions to negotiate directly with it.
Today, NASUWT general secretary Patrick Roach said: “Teachers are united in their message to the Scottish government and Cosla that this pay offer is nowhere near substantial enough at a time when inflation is now running at 9 per cent.
“We have made it clear to employers that they must come back with a significantly improved offer which recognises the increasing financial strain teachers are under and which values them for the vital work they do.”
Mike Corbett, NASUWT national official for Scotland, added: “Teachers have now experienced years of effectively being paid less and less when the demands on them have grown and their own living costs have spiralled.
“This damaging and unfair cycle must end. We are seeking a programme of pay restoration which enables teachers to weather the cost-of-living crisis and which recognises the essential and highly skilled job they do.”
A Cosla spokesperson said: “We are in active discussions with our trade union partners regarding their pay claim.”
A Scottish government spokesperson stated: “We are committed to supporting a fair pay offer for teachers through the Scottish Negotiating Committee for Teachers, the body that negotiates teachers’ pay and conditions of service. It is for local government, as the employer, to make any revised offer of pay.”
