A union leader has written to members to address concerns over the “toxic environment in some schools” following a controversial decision to withdraw from this week’s national strike action.
The Scottish Secondary Teachers’ Association (SSTA) announced last Friday evening that its members would withdraw from national strike action on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week, after a “consultative survey” of members led to a narrow vote in favour of accepting the latest teacher pay offer, “in the expectation of an improved pay offer in the coming days”.
It is now known that the result was around 53:47 in favour of accepting the latest pay offer, based on a 76 per cent turnout.
The SSTA said last Friday that it would “reinstate” its involvement in the industrial action “should an improved pay offer not be forthcoming”; on Monday this week, the union’s general secretary, Seamus Searson, said members would rejoin strike action if that offer was not received by Friday. At the time of writing, with one day left before that deadline, there is no new teacher pay offer.
Now, the SSTA has released details of the results of the survey and set out why it would have been “naive and irresponsible” to take any other action than that pursued over the past six days.
In a message to members, sent yesterday, Mr Searson says: “The last few days have been the most difficult for most SSTA members and unfortunately have created a toxic environment in some schools that has not been necessary or warranted. I hope you will give me the opportunity to try and explain the situation from the SSTA perspective.”
Mr Searson said that the first chance to consider the consultative survey was when it closed last Friday, 24 February, with a meeting taking place at 4pm to allow all members of the SSTA salaries and executive committees to attend.
After the “difficult decision to defer the industrial action” was made to reflect the findings of the consultative survey, the “earliest opportunity to inform members” was straight after the meeting, last Friday evening.
Mr Searson said: “The SSTA was fully aware that this decision had the potential to create difficulties in some schools, but knew it was the correct decision under the circumstances. It has been seen by some as failing to support colleagues participating in strike action but members must remember the strategy for industrial action by each of the unions has been different since the very outset of the pay dispute.”
He added: “It was not possible to move to a formal ballot to confirm the survey result as the offer had been rejected by the [Scottish Negotiating Committee for Teachers] and it was no longer available. To continue to take strike action while the majority of members had indicated that they wanted to accept the pay offer would not have been fair.
“To continue to take strike action this week and face the potential of splitting the SSTA membership and having the industrial action fail was a scenario that would have undermined the union’s credibility not only in the eyes of the employers and the Scottish government, but also the members themselves.”
Concluding his message to SSTA members, Mr Searson said: “The decision to defer industrial action gave an opportunity to consider a new pay offer should it be forthcoming and regroup for further industrial action later in the month should it not. I hope you would appreciate to do anything else would have been naive and irresponsible.”
Some 76 per cent of SSTA members responded to the online survey, which was run over seven days after the latest pay offer was made on 14 February, with 52.8 per cent prepared to accept the latest pay offer with 47.2 per cent saying they would reject the pay offer. When the SSTA held a formal ballot for strike action in November, the turnout was 62 per cent with 90 per cent of voters backing strike action.
Of those who voted to accept, 61 per cent gave the reason “do not think we can get more” and 37 per cent said the latest pay offer was “fair and reasonable”. The headline figures in the latest pay offer, made in February, were 6 per cent for 2022-23 - still far short of the 10 per cent the EIS teaching union has been leading a campaign for - and 5.5 per cent for 2023-24.
In some sections of the SSTA membership, there was a majority voting not to accept the offer. This included probationers who, just as they start their teaching career, were being offered less under the latest fifth pay offer than they had been under the fourth offer.
Some SSTA members who voted not to accept the latest pay offer gave as reasons ”cannot accept due to other colleagues taking strike action” and ”solidarity with colleagues in different unions”.
Primary school leaders’ body the AHDS had previously withdrawn from this week’s strikes after a majority of members voted to accept the latest pay offer, leaving the EIS and NASUWT teaching unions to take the two days of national strike action.
On Tuesday, the first day of action, EIS general secretary Andrea Bradley said: “EIS members remain absolutely resolute in their determination to secure a fair pay settlement from the Scottish government and [local authorities’ body] Cosla.
“This two-day national strike action is a further clear signal that Scotland’s teachers are not prepared to accept the deep real-terms pay cut that is being offered to them.
“Support for the ongoing programme of strike action remains very strong, with a growing number of teachers out on picket lines with each day of action.”
