Teachers in Scotland have had a fair pay offer, first minister Nicola Sturgeon said today.
A week after Scotland’s first national teacher strike over pay since 1984-85, by members of the EIS teaching union and primary school leaders’ body AHDS, Ms Sturgeon was grilled over the issue at First Minister’s Questions this lunchtime.
Labour education spokesperson Michael Marra said that the offer rejected by unions “was made at the last possible moment” after it had “sat on the [education] cabinet secretary’s desk for over three weeks”.
He highlighted strikes by the NASUWT Scotland teaching union and Scottish Secondary Teachers’ Association due to take place next week, as well as 16 more EIS strike dates in the new year, which will “close our schools, deprive our children of their education, throw family life into chaos”.
Mr Marra added that “no dates for negotiation are being sought or fixed” and that after ”our children have lost so much in the pandemic years”, how could pupils “afford the government making so little effort to keep their schools open?”.
Ms Sturgeon replied that that was “just frankly not the case”.
The first minister said that “this is a government, in contrast with other governments in other parts of the UK, that is going to every length possible to reach fair agreements with our public-sector trade unions”.
She added: “The offer is the same as the offer that has already been accepted by other local government workers.
“I have nothing but admiration for the teaching profession. They are rightly paid higher than other workers in other parts of the local government workforce, but the offer in terms of a pay increase that has been made to teachers is the same as that already accepted by the janitor in a school or by the dinner lady working in a school, so it is a fair offer, if accepted.”
Yesterday, teaching unions formally rejected the latest pay offer, which amounts to 6.85 per cent for probationers, but which would see most teachers receive the same 5 per cent they had previously been offered.
Ms Sturgeon said today that teachers in Scotland were paid higher than elsewhere in the UK and in large parts of Europe, and that, when combined with the 2018 teacher pay deal, the current offer would represent a ”21.8 per cent cumulative pay increase”.
The first minister also said that education secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville “is in regular dialogue with all of our teacher unions and spoke with the EIS general secretary [Andrea Bradley] most recently last Friday”.
Liberal Democrat education spokesperson Willie Rennie also confronted Ms Sturgeon during First Minister’s Questions, saying: ”So that’s the message to teachers? Just be grateful. You’ve had your lot, you’re paid enough.
“That’s not the way to treat teachers in this country. Playing one set of workers against another is a disgraceful way to treat those people who taught our young people through the pandemic.”
Mr Rennie added: “Isn’t it about time that instead of making last-minute offers, hours before the strike deadline that she treated teachers with the respect that they are due?”
Ms Sturgeon replied that this was a “pretty shameful tone to take on an issue that is so important to teachers, pupils and parents across the country”.
She added: “Let me set out again the way in which we are approaching this: an offer this year that recognises the impact of the costs crisis on the lowest-paid teachers, and an offer that is as fair and gives as much of an increase to teachers as the janitor and the dinner lady have already accepted.
“In a fixed budget, part of what we’ve got to try to do is to be fair across all parts of the public sector, and that is what we are seeking to do.”
