Scottish teachers’ leaders have urged ministers and council leaders to reopen pay talks after teachers voted overwhelmingly for strike action in their pay dispute.
The EIS, Scotland’s largest teaching union, said 96% of its members backed strike action, on a turnout of 71%, after rejecting a 5% pay rise three months ago. Union leaders said that amounted to a significant real-terms pay cut and are pressing for a 10% pay increase, to match inflation rates.
Andrea Bradley, the union’s general secretary, said: “This ballot result provides the EIS with an extremely strong mandate for strike action over pay. Our members have sent yet another very clear message to their employers in Scottish local authorities and to the Scottish government that they must do better on teachers’ pay.
“Our members should have received a pay increase in April but after months of unjustifiable dither and delay [we] are still waiting for an acceptable offer to be made. Quite frankly, our members have had enough of waiting and enough of feeling the financial strain of the cost of living on top of the significant stress of their teaching jobs.”
The ballot is the latest in a series of public sector pay disputes putting the Scottish government under intense pressure.
On Wednesday, Scottish nurses, alongside nurses across the UK, voted to strike for the first time in NHS history. Over recent months, refuse workers have gone on strike, leading to mounds of waste during the Edinburgh festival; university staff have gone on strike over pay and pensions; and rail workers at the nationalised ScotRail have taken industrial action over pay. The Royal College of Midwives is balloting for strike action, as are teaching unions in England and Wales.
John Swinney, Scotland’s finance secretary, said last week that significant pay rises were unaffordable unless there were cuts to services, because of the long-term impact it would have on government budgets.
He said the devolved government was already having to make further cuts of £615m to absorb the economic impacts of Liz Truss’s “calamitous” mini-budget in early October, while committing more than £700m to meet recent public sector pay deals.
The government’s critics say the Scottish government has about £2,200 extra to spend per head than the UK average, because of the Treasury’s funding formula for the UK’s nations and regions. Scotland’s economy and tax base are also growing at a slower rate than the UK’s as a whole.
