The first woman General Secretary of Scotland’s largest teaching union is preparing for the fight of her life.
Andrea Bradley, 50, will take up post in August just two months before the union’s deadline for a new pay deal is up and teachers move to ballot for industrial action.
But she was born to the role.
Her parents were both trade unionists: “I grew up listening to stories about trade union activity, meeting friends of my dad’s who were also involved in the trade union movement and from a very young age being interested and fascinated by all of that.”
She became involved in the union almost from the start of her own teaching career and was inspired by the female teachers at her second school Cathkin High.
She said: “ They had social justice at the core of everything they did. They had real care for the children and young people in the school, many of whom came from backgrounds where poverty was very much the experience.”
Over the next 15 years her involvement in the union grew and she eventually went to work for the EIS, moving up through the ranks before eventually landing the top job.
Now the union she will lead could be facing its first strike over pay in four decades bringing more misery to Scotland’s parents.
Bradley last night issued a rallying cry to her members telling them: “Use the summer holiday period that is coming for good quality time for rest, relaxation and recuperation because when we come back in the new academic session we will be looking for members all over the country to get active, to mobilise and to fight in order they get the pay rise they fairly deserve.”
Bradley takes up the post of Scotland’s largest teaching union in August and she is not shirking from the mammoth task ahead with a ballot for industrial action promised in October if COSLA and the Scottish Government do not improve their “derisory” two per cent pay offer.
It could lead to the first teachers strike over pay in four decades - a fact not lost on Bradley.
“It is a very, very rare occurrence but amongst our activist core there is a real anger.”
The EIS have put forward a 10 per cent pay claim and with inflation currently sitting at nine per cent Bradley does not believe this is unreasonable.
She said: “Teachers were essential workers and continue to be essential workers as the pandemic continues.
“They kept education going throughout the course of the pandemic whether that was on-line, in hubs or in schools when they re-opened before other parts of society and all of this was at great risk of health and safety of teachers.
“For there to be no recognition of that and for the offer to be in line with public sector pay policy, representing a real terms pay-cut for teachers, is simply not acceptable so there is a commitment in the EIS that we will ballot our members for industrial action should there not be a pay deal that takes into account the cost of living crisis.”
Bradley added: “All the messages from politicians during the course of the pandemic were about the value of education and how important a role teachers were playing and we need to see that reflected in the remuneration teachers receive in terms of pay.
“If we don’t what is likely to happen is the continuing exodus of teachers from the profession to move to jobs and employment that is better paid than teaching and graduates will be unlikely to choose teaching as a career.
“We already have a shortage of teachers. We don’t have enough teachers in schools to deliver just on the day to day business of school life.
“We are far, far short of the numbers of teachers we require to deliver on the ambitions of curriculum for excellence.”
Bradley said on average teachers were working between five and eight hours unpaid every week to cope with the demand of the job.
“This is not just a phenomenon that’s occurred because of the pandemic, we have longitudinal data which shows this pattern has been happening over a long number of years.”
Around 80 per cent of all Scotland’s nursery, primary and secondary teachers are EIS members so a strike would have a crippling effect.
Bradley admits it would bring education to “a standstill”.
But despite the last two years of disruption she believes teachers will gave the support of parents: “If anything the value of teachers is even more understood than it was pre-pandemic.”
Her own appointment she believes is significant: “Almost 80 per cent of the teaching profession are women. In its 175-year-history this is the first time a woman has been elected and appointed to the role.
“It is important that anyone in the role understands the structural barriers and inequalities that women experience given the demographic of the profession and to understand the life and professional experiences of those you represent.
“I am very conscious as a professional person and a person who is about to assume the role of general secretary of the EIS that has been the culmination of efforts of so many women who have gone before and still work alongside me in the trade union movement, particularly in my own union who have taken quite deliberate steps to remove barriers to women’s progression.”
While she has faced little in the way of discrimiation in her professional life there have been a few unsavoury incidents involving sexual graffiti aimed at her from pupils at the start of her career and inappropriate comments from a non-teaching member of staff. She raised both with management.
While in the 1990s there was little training on sexual harassment, gender stereotypes and women’s inequality, for teachers or in the classroom things have moved on but Bradley said there are still ugly examples of it.
And she stated: “ For young teachers coming into the profession union membership is a real support in trying to understand and acquire the right tools to be able to challenge and move some of the sex discrimination and sexism.
“But it is not for education to do this job solely, it is a major societal issue and there’s responsibility for government , for employers, for politicians, the media.
“And men need to continue to be part of the story towards progress towards gender equality. It is not a fight for women solely to take on.”
A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “We are committed to supporting a fair pay offer for teachers through the Scottish Negotiating Committee for Teachers. It is for local government, as the employer, to make any revised offer of pay.”
