SCOTLAND'S largest teaching union has voted to go on strike and reject a five per cent pay offer, following a huge member turnout.
In the wake of a pay dispute with Cosla, The Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS) announced on Friday that 91% of responses to its consultative ballot had voted in favour of a strike in order to get a better offer.
Meanwhile, 94% of votes were in favour of rejecting the current offer of a 5% rise, with a massive 78% of union members responding to the ballot.
#PayAttention We have a phenomenal result from our consultative ballot, announced just minutes ago. 91% have voted for strike action in pursuit of a better pay offer, with 94% overall voting to reject 5%. Turnout a threshold-smashing 78% Thank you to all members who voted! ✊🏻✊🏽✊🏿 pic.twitter.com/bqQ7kEeuLf
— EIS (@EISUnion) September 16, 2022
The union, which represents eight out of 10 Scottish teachers, will now formally reject the pay offer next week and move to a statutory strike ballot of its members soon afterwards.
Commenting from today’s meeting of the national EIS Council, general secretary Andrea Bradley said: “This is an overwhelming ballot result which demonstrates, very clearly, the collective view of Scotland’s teachers with regard to their pay: COSLA and the Scottish Government must do better.
"Teachers have simply had enough of the year-on-year struggle to achieve a fair pay settlement, with local authorities and the Scottish Government repeatedly dragging their feet and offering sub-inflation level pay settlements."
Bradley went on to say the 5% offer represents a real-terms pay cut of 7% for teachers, in light of the current rate of inflation - something she accused employers of lauding as a "generous proposal".
She added: "Our members are acutely aware of the soaring cost-of-living and are feeling its damaging impact on themselves and their families. This is unacceptable. Now Cosla and the Scottish Government need to fix it.
"The message from today’s ballot result is very clear: We are not going to accept this pay proposal, and we are prepared to take strike action in pursuit of a fair pay settlement.”
Scottish teachers recently asked for a 10% pay rise for the 2022/23 school year, which the EIS union described as “fair” and “reasonable” in light of rising inflation.
Cosla had previously offered a 2% rise which was followed by a 3.5% rise months later – both were rejected.
